Good feedback improves your thinking, and you then do the writing yourself. That rule keeps a project yours and also teaches you the skill the paper tests.
Project and practical work is assessed in school, so your teacher sets the authorship rules. Ask about them before you ask anyone else for help.
What does authorship mean in practice?
Think of a ladder with three rungs. The lower the rung, the more of the work stays yours.
| Rung | Who does what | Keeps the work yours? |
|---|---|---|
| Explain | A teacher explains an idea with a different example | Yes |
| Point | A teacher says where to look, such as “check your loop’s last value” | Yes |
| Write | A teacher types the solution for your project | No |
Stay on the first two rungs. The question to ask is “what should I understand?” and not “what should I write?”.
An example: one bug, three responses
Suppose your own project adds up item prices, and the total is one item short. Your loop runs from 1 to 4 when the list has 5 items.
At the write rung, someone changes the 4 to a 5 for you. The bug is gone, but you learned nothing and the fix is not yours.
At the point rung, the teacher asks: “How many items are in the list, and what is your loop’s last value?” You trace the loop, see that it stops at 4, and fix it.
At the explain rung, the teacher shows a separate example of a loop over a list of 6 temperatures with the same slip. You spot your own mistake by comparison.
The second and third responses leave the fix in your hands.
What should you settle before tuition begins?
- What your school says counts as your own work for the project.
- Whether any parts, such as design planning, may be discussed freely.
- Which part you want help understanding, such as validation or table design.
- How you will record your changes.
If you are not sure about a rule, raise it with your school teacher early. The school decides the rules, and your tuition teacher works within them.
How do you show the work is yours?
Keep a short dated log. Each entry has one line for what you tried, one for what happened, and one for what you changed. The mistake log and paper-error review gives a format, and the same log helps with revision.
Save a copy of each version so your development is visible. Practise the skills away from the project too, using the restricted pseudocode trace trainer.
For planning a project without handing it over, see planning an original assessed project.
When is one-to-one tuition worth considering?
It may be worth it when you keep getting stuck on the same idea and need it explained another way. The teacher’s job is to question and explain, and yours is to write and decide.
You can try this through the one-hour trial class (from RM50), a taught lesson, and raise the authorship question at the start. See also online one-to-one Computer Science tuition.