Non AP and Half Year?

CS Principles
1

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone is doing the AP CSP as non-AP as well as it being a semester in length? We have other AP CS classes and want to attract more students so making it a semester as well as non-AP may do that.Students have the class for 50 minutes each day (rotating schedule so they would meet about 4 times a week) If you are, I would love to know what district you are in and how it is working for you. Thank you in advance!

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HI!

I do this class as a year (and as AP) but I figured having some pacing info might help. We go through the material fairly quickly, and (based on last year/pacing so far for this year) we should be completed with units 1-4 by the end of the semester. I am planning to have the kids do a practice explore as part of their semester exam. Depending on what you want to cover, this might be fine but it is definitely light on the programming side.

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That seems pretty do-able to me too! I see “AP” scaring away some of the students who would benefit most from it, but I also get nervous about trying to “squeeze” everything into one semester. Here are just some initial thoughts:

  • Could you run it as “non-AP” but run it concurrently with AP CSP? I have heard some teachers in FL and elsewhere doing that to get more students into the course and then once students realize that they are capable of the material they “switch” to AP. I am planning on offering that next year given what I am seeing while trying to recruit students. Too many of my students don’t see themselves as “AP” students.
  • What is your goal of the course? To prep kids for AP CSA? To get more students exposed to CS? To provide other options in general? I think that might help you determine what you want to include in the course. One of the goals of AP CSP is to get students to see “CS” as broader than just programming.

I teach it year-long as AP but we do move pretty fast through things I also see getting though units 1-4 and part of 5 and finish the explore by semester end. I teach at a large public (but, pretty affluent) high school in the suburbs. Most of my students have already taken other AP (or other college-level) courses.

While I think I could squeeze it into a semester, one of the things I LOVE about this course is how much room there is to add relevant events to the class. We have taken 3-day “excursions” into ethics or other topics in CS - I wouldn’t able to do that if I was worried about “getting though” material. Just something to consider! It sounds like you have a lot of options!

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