Do not use code.org Performance Task templates

CS Principles AP Prep
#1

The College Board has recommended that students do NOT use the templates provided by code.org. You may find the proper templates on the College Board Digital Portfolio. Unfortunately they are provided only in Microsoft Word but turning them into Google Doc wasn’t that complex. There are minor changes from last year regarding the insertion of code as a picture rather than text (probably not needed for code.org students, who can use text).

source: see post dated 3/19/20 by Crystal Furman on the College Board discussion board.

1 Like
#2

@will_wright Thank you for raising this concern. The templates listed below for the Explore and Create PT’s have been approved by the College Board. It is very important that you have students use the templates from the AP CSP 19-20 curriculum and not any previous ones. The post on the College Board discussion board to which you refer also clearly mention that teachers should only use the updated templates below.
Explore PT template | Google Docs
Create PT template | Google Docs

1 Like
#3

I did not see these for some reason. I’m using the new one for Create PT but students used last year’s for the Explore PT. Do I need to suggest they go back and change them to this template? Not sure how I missed this in the first place.

#4

@cmcgowan If they have been submitted as final, do not have them redo it. If they get flagged for plagiarism, they should appeal. This is based on a thread I looked at today on the College Board discussion board about this topic. If they have not been submitted final, then have your students use the current templates and then upload them.

2 Likes
#5

No, I believe you are wrong. The templates you link to are the templates students should NOT use, they are different from what the College Board shared with students on the Digital Portfolio.

Quote from College Board: “Code.org has adjusted their survival guide to adhere to College Board guidelines. Please be sure you are using the most current version. When students submit, I highly recommend they either lift their responses out of the survival guide and place in our template OR delete all the extra directions that are in the guide. The submission should contain ONLY their answers to the prompts. Additional language could cause a false positive plagiarism flag for students.”
https://apcommunity.collegeboard.org/group/apcsp/discussion-boards/-/message_boards/message/166116202

#7

Hello all, GT from the CSP team here. I reached out directly to the College Board to clarify the question. The Code.org template in this year’s version of the curriculum, the two that @terence.stone25 linked above, should not set off the plagiarism detection software. Those templates only include the prompt text and the College Board has confirmed that the text of the prompts has been specifically excluded from the plagiarism detection.

Students should NOT submit:

  • The entire Create PT Survival Guide
  • Old versions of our Create PT Survival Guide which featured sentence starters (we have removed these from our website and they shouldn’t be available)

@will_wright I agree that Crystal’s language in that forum post is a little confusing. I believe she is referring to the entire Create PT Survival Guide and not the scoped templates we have which only include the prompt text.

Hope that clarifies things folks but we’re always happy to make sure you’re getting the clearest instructions possible. Thanks for knowledge sharing with the community.

2 Likes
#8

One of my students alerted me to this issue today. They were concerned College Board Template did not match up to the one I gave them (code.org) template.
When I went to check out their template, it is not at all like I remembered it. Very confusing to those who may not follow what or where they are asking to put what and extremely disorganized. The one Code.org has is much easier as it breaks down clearly where to place their code and their response. We used this template last year and no problems at all. I am wondering why College Board would go and confuse students even further with their template. It is not a very good one for sure.