A natural extension to compression introduced in Unit 2 is encryption. I am considering making a PT on that topic to conclude Unit 2. Any thoughts???_
Unit 4 Lessons 5, 6 and 7 cover encryption. So I suggest that the PT you have in mind be designed to compliment these upcoming lessons.
My students can access Unit 3, however, I cannot view their progress. Any ideas?
This happened to me as well. I logged out and logged back in and I could see their progress. Hope this works for you.
Any news on the schedule of the Unit 4 updates?
Iâm getting close to the end of Unit 3, and wish to start planning for Unit 4.
If I have an idea as to when the Unit 4 updates are coming and what they might be, then I might be better able to plan and schedule the finishing of Unit 3. I might consider doing some other activities to wait for the Unit 4 updates.
The Unit 3 updates were very good.
So, if possible, I would like to hold-off on doing Unit 4 until the updates are in place.
Thank you.
JP
This isnât actually an answer, but a suggestion on what âholding offâ looks like: Given that students can code in whatever language they want, Iâm planning to spend some time looking at a variety of different languagues/coding environments so they can start to make decisions about what they want to do. A bunch of my students are already familiar with Scratch, some wanted to do some physical coding (robots, etc).
My intent is that they will 1) have more options/spark ideas and 2) see the similarities in coding to further their âenduring understandingâ. (Weâll see how it works!)
Hey @jpfasano thanks for checking in. Baker and I have been heads down for a few days working on these updates. I canât say exactly when theyâll be live. Itâs probably more than a week and less than a month at this point 
. I can, however, give you a sense of what weâre working on and hopefully that will help you and other teachers make some decisions.
Our current pass of work is primarily designed to improve the alignment between our course and the Performance Tasks. It might be more accurate to call it a âperformance task alignmentâ than a true curriculum update. In any event, when we went to go update Unit 4 we realized that the unit is serving multiple roles. Many of the lessons are important for understanding key computer science concepts covered on the CSP framework but donât themselves align closely with the performance tasks. The encryption lessons, for example, are strong lessons that cover a lot of important concepts but arenât really well suited for Explore PT prep. Other lessons like the rapid research lessons are probably good places to practice both the research and writing skills necessary for the Explore PT.
As a result hereâs what youâre likely to see when we publish updates
In many ways these changes will likely be pretty similar to what we did in Unit 3. Weâll introduce the PT briefly at the beginning of the unit, beef up the supports for the PT at the end, and add some scoped opportunities to practice key skills throughout the unit. Much like in Unit 3 I wouldnât think of this as now being an âExplore PT Unitâ, but it should be more clear how and when youâre practicing key skills. The one key difference is that the âprojectâ will end up being split across rapid research lessons or simply living in the AP Prep unit. As I mentioned, a couple of those decisions are still up in the air.
I hope thatâs helpful. Itâs possible some of the details of this plan will change and like I said we donât have an exact deadline on when we hope to publish, but as we get more clarity weâll be sure to check back in here.
I am going to finish Unit 2 Chapter 1, then have my students do a mock Explore Task before right after Thanksgiving. I will pick up Chapter 2 of Unit 2 when I cover Unit 4. My students are getting antsy about coding, so after the mock Explore, I am going give them their class time for the ârealâ explore. Iâll pick up Unit 3 after that.
@gtwrobel thanks for the info. The planned updates will be valuable.
What do you and others, think about doing a few lessons in Unit 5 to delay starting Unit 4 while waiting for the Unit 4 updates to be complete?
Are there any currently planned updates to Unit 5?
Thank you.
Hey @jpfasano glad to hear theyâll be useful. Weâre targeting either Friday this week or early next week to publish them so the good news is youâll have them on the early end of that timeline I originally quoted you.
We havenât yet looked at Unit 5 but weâll be turning our attention to it immediately following Unit 4 updates. You can likely expect a âCreate PT alignmentâ similar to what we did in Unit 3.
I think either doing a couple lessons of Unit 5 or possibly starting the three encryption lessons in Unit 4 (which I mentioned have limited direct ties to the Explore PT) would both be fine. I expect weâll be making small tweaks to Lessons 1-4 in Unit 4. Hopefully that helps you make a decision.
So is Unit 4 good to go or are we still on hold? Just want to make sure before I start planning!
Weâre doing our final cleanup of the resources now and they should be launching early next week. Hold tight for just a couple more days and youâll have a refreshed Unit 4 AND Explore PT prep materials!
Dear Intrepid CS Principles Teachers,
As part of our ongoing updates to the CS Principles curriculum we will be releasing updates to Unit 4 and the Explore PT unit this evening (Tuesday November 21st) around 3:30pm PST.
These updates should be easy to integrate in your classroom and have minimal time impact on the course. We believe they have strengthened Unit 4 as whole and will better prepare your students to complete the updated AP Explore Performance Task.
We have summarized the updates and changes below. If you have any clarifying questions please ask them here and weâll be happy to help!
Summary: Our primary goal was to improve connections to the AP Explore PT in response to changes the College Board made to the AP Performance Task Scoring Guidelines for the â17-â18 school year.
Summary of Unit 4 Changes
The image below shows lessons that were updated in blue, levels that were updated or added in green, and lessons we recommend you consider skipping in orange
(New) Explore PT Prep Unit
Lesson 1 - What is Big Data?
Lesson 2 - Rapid Research Data Innovations
Lesson 3 - Identifying People with Data
Lesson 4 - The Cost of Free
Lesson 8 - Rapid Research Cybercrime
Lesson 9 - Practice PT - Big Data and Cybersecurity Dilemmas
When the changes launch the current AP Prep unit will be divided into separate units for the Explore and Create PTs. The numbers below refer to the lesson numbering in the currently published version of the unit.
Lesson 1 - Explore PT Prep - Reviewing the Task
Lesson 2 Explore PT Prep - Make a Plan
Lesson 3 Explore PT Prep - Complete the Task
I am using the current curriculum, however, since this is the first year this course is being offered in our school, it is NOT being offered as an AP course. How do I implement the curriculum updates being issued for Unit 4? I am currently in Unit 2 - Lesson 9. My plan was to complete lessons 10 - 14 and lesson 15 as an end of unit project. I will then be moving to Unit 4. It makes sense to me to continue the lessons involving data. After this I plan to go to Unit 3 and then Unit 5.
This is my first year teaching this course and using this curriculum. I did not have the opportunity this summer to attend the weeklong workshop.
Am I on the right track? Any recommendations/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Hi cdeltufo,
Your plan sounds fine. Iâve actually heard other CSP teachers planning on teaching the curriculum in the same sequence you mentioned since they do have that certain flow and cohesiveness. The code.org curriculum used to be in that order but it was broken up since some students felt the programming stretch (Units 3 and 5 all one big unit) was too long. If you donât think that will be an issue, then I think the sequence you have planned will be great for your students.
Frank
@cdeltufo to address your specific question of how to implement the updates to Unit 4, I wanted to make sure you knew all the materials weâve added are already live in the curriculum and you donât need to do any additional work to use them. Typically these improvements are broadly useful and youâll benefit from these changes even if youâre not specifically preparing students for the AP test this year. You can of course decide whether or not to use resources that explicitly reference the performance tasks, and weâve tried to make it more clear when resources or activities are intended as performance task prep.
Hope that helps and thanks for reaching out!
The new info for the Explore PT is all about CreateâŚ. Maybe the wrong doc was loaded? See this linkâŚ
https://curriculum.code.org/csp/csp-ap/6/
âŚThanks
CANCEL THAT⌠Somehow I went to the old unit instead of the great new Unit 6⌠It is fantastic â thank you so much!!!
I feel like I (and my students) need more help in preparing acceptable references. They are using websites, and sometimes the date of creation of that page is not available.
What constitutes an acceptably formatted reference?
Hey @reillys the College Board has not released a specific format that they recommend. If you check out the Explore PT Survival Guide we made and which is featured in Lesson 2 of the updated Explore PT Prep Unit we do suggest a format on page 12.
The College Board has 5 exemplar Explore PTs if you scroll down on https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-computer-science-principles/exam?course=ap-computer-science-principles. All but example E earned the point for their citations though youâll note they use very different styles.
Hope this helps!
