1. Learning Activity
Teaching Programming with Visual Basic.Net to Year 10
(My Microsoft in the classroom story by Phil Feain)
Introduction
Year 10 is where programming is introduced to students at St. Kevin’s College. This is their first real exposure. The purpose of the course is to introduce some basic programming skills and to get them to create a software solution from scratch, based on a written case study.
We use Microsoft Visual Basic.Net because it is well supported with plenty of resources and a good lead into Year 12 Software Development, also with Visual Basic.Net.
As a result the course at Year 10 introduces students to the following three main areas:
Design
Development
Testing
An assessment rubric (or criteria sheet) is also shown to indicate areas for marking.

2. Design
Design commences with a screen design, an IPO (Input, Processing, Output) chart and an algorithm.
Students struggle with the idea of planning. We find they perform better both in Year 10 and 12 by spending time on these design tools.

3. Development Development involves writing the code and the comments.
Coding conventions and the use of comments is taught so that students can create a solution which is easy to read and presents well.

4. Testing
Testing involves determining that your actual results have met what your expected results would be.
Students struggle with the idea of testing against requirements. By getting students to design their tests to meet requirements and to then test against them, they can then easily know whether they have meet their requirements or not.

5. Assessment Criteria
Assessment Criteria is used to show how students performed across the major components required.
Developing criteria for assessment that is both clearly labelled and also meets what will be required in Year 12 assists students in achieving excellent results, particularly at Year 12.