AP CS A Grading, Corrections, utilizing short quizzes/warm-ups to ensure students do pre-reading (+5 on quiz grade, avg all + for plus test grade) VGD - Unity Create w/ Code, reading assignments importance

PreAP CMU CS Academy - thoughts, real life application? (using documentation, built-in function/methods you didn’t write, forced logical/structured thinking, utilizing pseudocode via comments, engaging) IS: link to the two github repos for their projects AP CS P: thoughts on curriculum Mobile CSP

It’s the end of the first semester of school! What a semester. I am grateful for these brief periods of time where I can take a step back from the day-to-day of the classroom and have an opportunity to sit back, relax, and reflect on improving my teaching practices.

What I really liked:

This semester was the jumpstart of our outreach activities to local schools. We managed to get an after school computer science club going in Gilmore Elementary with one of my students acting as the liaison/volunteer. We have plans to do the same at Campbell Elementary and Creekside Intermediate next semester. League City Intermediate is a possibility - need to find out who to contact, and Ross + Bauerschlag are other possibilites as well.

We also had our first Winter Holiday Computer Science party! I drew inspiration for this from my time in high school; every year we would have a fun party in orchestra right after school near finals. We also were able to do the White Elephant gift exchange using the Mr. Right/Left story. That was one of the highlights of my high school life that I still have very fond memories of - I wanted my students to be given the same opportunity.

Video Game Design: I really like the Unity Create w/ Code curriculum. It really helps those who have never programmed before to get started making games. It scaffolds well and I am able to spend my time helping those who need help while letting those who are ahead of the game move on. Some of my students didn’t take the semester final (the Game Design Doc) seriously and they didn’t scope their projects appropriately. I need to be more strict about this next year and give VERY, VERY clear instructions/details on all rubrics.

Introduce them to itch.io early on possibily and have them publish their WebGL games there.

Reading assignments are great. I made one about the new Xbox adaptive controller and had my students think about all kinds of gamers - not just ones with all their appendages - when creating their games. Another 9 weeks reading assignment will be based off games and introspection/emotion - Gris is a good one and I will have my students watch this video and respond to some questions that I have yet to make. Gris - Story and Analysis. Again, this is all part of the battle to have students think of games as more than just fps-style games and everything they can do. Maybe one nine weeks will be about game designers helping train employees? Flight simulation?

AP Computer Science Principles: Continue to emphasize answering the prompt on reflections and looking at the rubric. Rolling the die for weekly reflection grading was a smart move on my part and still gives students the feedback necessary to improve their responses.

AP Computer Science A: This was hard 2nd nine weeks. My grades have become increasingly clearly-defined bimodal distributions as the school year goes on and students are forced to utilize and remember everything they have done in the past. If a student fails the For/While loops test, they are very likely to fail the Nested Loops test and the Arrays test and every test after it. Yet some students don’t take the time to come in, do corrections, and learn from their mistakes. I have slowed the pace down, given them more time to work on things, but even then these students sleep, goof-off, and otherwise don’t do their labs. My other students are done typically with at least 1-2 days to spare.

They don’t do the pre-reading that is assigned. They don’t take advantage of corrections. They don’t do their labs. For the ones that are struggling - I am probably their only AP class. I started writing short quizzes/warm-ups - not for a grade, just for practice - for them to do the night of/class after a topic introduction. Very simple things, like how do you access an array (square brackets) or how to access the first element of an array or get the length of an array are on there - all they have to do is go over the notes/slides. Yet even then they struggle/don’t do it.

PreAP Computer Science: One of my students won first place for their project! Very proud of my student. I wouldn’t have the patience to put in all those lines of code to make an artwork. In fact, I am proud of all my students and their projects and the time they put into them. Slide #3

Advent of Code came out this December and some of my students in this class were struggling with even Day 1. It is to be expected, I am teaching them not only Python but also the whole programmer mindset, but it was still disheartening to see. It made me reflect and try to think about the pros of utilizing CMU CS Academy to introduce programming and Python to students.

Pros:

  • It teaches them to utilize documentation. I often refer students to the docs to see how something is implemented. This is a great life-lesson to do.
  • It teaches them to utilize built-in functions/methods. onKeyPress(key) is a built-in function that the student didn’t write.
  • Forced logical/structural thinking. The code exercises breaks up the code into functions that force the students to maintain good code hygeine.
  • Use of pseudocode. Students complete exercises looking at the project and pseudocode. They can then compare their output with the expected output.
  • Engaging. Highly-visual.

Cons:

  • Rarely makes students write their own functions.
  • Real-world application?

I think the pros far outweight the cons. Keep in mind, this is a HIGH SCHOOL level introductory course to computer science and programming. One of the main things I need to teach is the logical mindset. I think CMU CS Academy’s curriculum is great for this. It is also highly engaging as it makes students create unique projects every unit. I put as much weight into the projects as the quiz/exams.

Independent Study: Two of my students have completed semester projects! Brod8362 mpd controller ColemanSandefur ChatApplication

The other team of three are still working on their Unity Game, but they have made lots of progress and learned a lot this semester. Looking forward to seeing their completed game.

OnLevel Computer Science: Goind well. ECS is great curriculum.

Looking Forward Strict with turning things in on time. Do not be more lenient than school/district policy. 1 week max to do corrections (so no snowballing of knowledge occurs). Looking forward to getting everything from my two grants that I won (RaspPi and Drones) so we can use them next semester! Command line, admin privilege, hardware, drone flying. Co-Teaching with the Foresenic Science teacher in the library. Combining our classes and learning about good digital hygiene and what can happen when that is not there.