This is my first year teaching this course. Unit 5 slowed me down a lot and we’re getting hit with all kinds of snow days as well. Next week is not looking good for weather so I’m trying to figure out what to do.
Unit 6 seems a bit difficult to assign independently. Not sure they would think through everything on their own.
Are there issues if I jump to Unit 7 so they can do some of the work on their own at home and then return to Unit 6?
Also, are there any lessons I can shorten or skip. Getting really worried about everything getting done before the exam.
I’m not very familiar with this year’s revamped curriculum, but glancing over the teacher materials quickly, it looks like the purpose of Unit 6 is mainly a detour to prevent students’ brains from getting numb from continuous coding. In other words, looks safe content-wise to save it for later.
However, I’d definitely invite anyone else out there who’s more familiar with the curriculum to respond.
You certainly are not alone! There are a lot of teachers asking what can be shortened or skipped and what has to be covered for the Create PT.
This is just my 2 cents. For the Create PT you will need to cover all of Unit 5 and the first half of Unit 7. The first part of Unit 7 covers functions with parameters and return values. Students must have a function with parameters in their Create PT program. The second part of Unit 7 is great practice for that but libraries are not part of the Create PT.
I did just that. I skipped Unit 6 (for now) and only did the first part of Unit 7. We have now begun the Create PT. A couple of things I wish I did differently… First I wish that, for the Hackathon in Unit 5, I had the students come up with 2 different projects and pick their second choice for the Hackathon and save their first choice for their Create PT (if they want to use it). My students are having a hard time coming up with a second “better” program. Second I wish that I had my students go back to the Hackathon program and add a function with a parameter after we finished Unit 7 Lesson 4. I think that would given them a authentic way to practice that before the Create PT.
We are 100% virtual and I agree with you that Unit 6 is difficult to pull off in a virtual environment. I will need to figure this out after we complete the PT. The concepts of unreasonable time, efficiency of algorithms and parallel and distributed computing will be on the AP Exam so I know I need to cover the topics.
Again all that was just my 2 cents and may not be worth much more than that. I’d love to hear what other teachers are doing.