I’m noticing that the Computer Science A (‘25-’26) curriculum is not aligned with the topics covered in the revised 2025 Course and Exam Description for AP Computer Science A provided by College Board. For example, use of the “extends” keyword and inheritance is no longer part of the Course and Exam Description,
“implementing inheritance relationships are
outside the scope of the AP Computer Science A
course and exam.”
– Computer Science A, Course and Exam Description, Fall 2025
but it is used regardless in several lessons in Unit 1 of Computer Science A (‘25-’26); for example, the “Movie.java” and “TVShow.java” classes in Lesson 15, Constructors and Inheritance.
There are a number of other topics that are not introduced in Unit 1 of the new framework, like access modifiers, the final keyword, if-statements, and boolean conditions, that nevertheless appear many places in Unit 1 of the Computer Science A (‘25-’26) curriculum on Code.or g. Some are introduced later, but do they belong in Unit 1? No.
I’m using Code.or g for the first time. Previous years, I used CSAwesome, which was tightly aligned with the AP Course and Exam Description.
My questions to AP teachers are,
Am I using the recommended curriculum for the revised AP Computer Science A 2026 Course and Exam Description, which we all were audited for this year?
Has anyone got some suggestions for how to use the Code.or g curriculum to support students to pass the AP Exam in May, based on the revised CED?
I’m sorry you are having these issues with the CSA CED course. Unfortunately, that course is still seems to be needing updates from the curriculum team, as it has some content that is out of order.
I like and have used the Objects First course for several years. This is Code.org’s first CSA course, which has been piloted, tested, and updated over the course of a few years. It does have ‘light’ inheritance, which is not in the CED. The CED is the minimum of what needs to be taught in an approved course, but many curricula include some extra topics.
@davidhedinabreu David, I am using the CED Aligned CSA curriculum. I am finding the same issue. As Lindsay pointed out, this curriculum was created by jig-sawing pieces of the Object First CSA course. If this is your first year using Code.org, I agree that the Objects First course has been vetted and has several resources to help your students succeed on their exam.
I fortunately have a group of students who have previous Java experience, so plugging the “holes” in the CED Aligned course hasn’t been an issue.
I’m afraid my students do not have enough previous experience with programming or Java to fill in the gaps. I hope next year the curriculum is tightly aligned with the course and exam description; my students enjoyed using it. Thanks for your thoughts Sylvia.
@davidhedinabreu - I “second” your wish. I also am hoping that the CED Aligned course has more support materials and has scaffolding for all learners. You are more welcome. Please continue to post any questions or suggestions to the forum. We are stronger together.
Hi, Jessica created a resource to help with cross walking the CED course with the Objects first course, at this post. Hopefully this will be helpful for those of you using the CED course:
I’m using the CED aligned version this year and I’m disappointed to find, 2 weeks in, that this version is no longer supported by the curriculum team at code.org. @Lindsay.Davis created a crosswalk last year for aligning the resources from the objects first version to the CED version, which is immensely helpful as I was going to do the same. However, this is from 2025 and the updates for the objects first this year mean that some of the lesson alignments aren’t quite accurate. And Unit 4 is not fully filled out. Has anyone done something similar for this year that you can share? Any thoughts on if I should jump ship on the CED aligned version since we’re only two weeks in and move over to the objects first? None of my 9 students have java experience so I’m curious if the CED aligned curriculum may not give them the support they need to learn the concepts. HELP!
@ldavis Thank you for reaching out to the forum. The CED version has also changed from 2025. It has improved from the original version. The resources are not the same as those for the object first course which has had several updates. I am using the CED version, but I teach at a school where the students have previous coding experience. Since the Object First courses offers more resources, you may want to switch since it gives you a fuller curriculum. This is my two cents. Please continue to reach out to the forum with any questions or suggestions.
