🗓️ Course Pacing: Where Students Should Be
At this point in the year, you should be starting up Unit 5 - Writing Classes. Completing the first 5 units in the first semester puts you on a good pace to finish the course and still have time to review.
If you’re slightly behind, it’s best to continue at the pace that your students need. As the course moves forward, the content becomes somewhat less essential for the AP test. Prioritizing a strong understanding of foundational topics will benefit students more than rushing through material, even if it means spending less time on the last few units.
Remember, the Free Response Questions (FRQ) only cover through unit 8. Units 9 and 10 will only be covered in the multiple-choice part of the exam.
💻 AP CSA Project of the Month
This month's featured project is Holiday Wrapping Paper. In this project, students will use conditionals, loops, and string commands to calculate the wrapping paper needed to wrap holiday presents. This project should take students about an hour and includes autograders.
Here is the premise of the project: “The holidays are quickly approaching and you realize you may have made a mistake volunteering to wrap ALL the holiday presents at your local mall. With only a few days to spare, your boss sent you a list of the dimensions for all the remaining packages to wrap and asked you how much more wrapping paper to order.”
📝 Leveraging Labs
Labs are a great way to break up the curriculum and give students an opportunity to create a larger-scale project. Most of the College Board labs can be completed right on the CodeHS platform and include student prompts and a link to the student guide. You can find all of the labs, including CodeHS-created labs, in Supplemental Material or in the separate AP CSA Labs course found here.
You can use the syllabus to determine which labs your students will be able to complete based on where they are in the course. Starting with unit 4, you will see an “Associated Labs” section that lists the labs that students will be able to do after completing the unit. For example, after Unit 4, students will be ready to complete the Consumer Review lab.
A few notes:
- The labs are not required. Your students will meet the 20 hour coding requirement easily by completing the course.
- The solutions to the College Board labs are only available through the College Board secure document section of their site.
🧑💻 Prepare for CSEdWeek with a Free Hour of Code Webinar
Computer Science Education Week is December 9th-15th, and you can celebrate by running an Hour of Code! We are running a free webinar to help you prepare to teach Hour of Code Lessons:
Date: Nov 18, 2024 @ 5:30 - 6:15pm CST
RSVP
🚘 Request a School Visit
CodeHS is visiting computer science classrooms throughout the 2024-2025 school year!
There are two ways to request a visit from CodeHS:
- For the CodeHS Road Trip: Our Computer Science Ambassador is hitting the road in a stylish pink CodeHS van to visit classrooms across the country! Follow the journey at codehs.com/roadtrip.
- For Computer Science Education Week (December 9th-15th): Each year, during CSEdWeek, CodeHS team members visit local classrooms to offer support and lead an Hour of Code. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage your students in celebrating computer science!
🧠 AI Projects & Courses
CodeHS has new AI courses and dozens of AI projects you can plug into your existing curriculum! By introducing AI in computer science classrooms you can prepare students for a technology driven world and students can learn that what may seem like magic is actually just programs and algorithms!
💬 Stay Connected
- Join our CodeHS AP CSA Educators Facebook Group
- Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok
- Explore the AP CSA Hub
Rachel and Ryan
CodeHS Curriculum Developer
