Welcome To
AP Computer Science Principles

Syllabus 2021-2022

Course Summary

In this course, you are going to learn how to write programs and gain a better understand of how computers, data, and the internet work. The main focus of the course will be on learning how to write code in the processing programming language.

Materials

  • Flash Drive

  • Pencil or Pen

Textbook

  • Learning Processing by Dan Shiffman

Unit Outline

  • Unit One - Roboquest
    Solve a series of puzzle-like challenges to help guide Karel the Robot to achieve various tasks (Q1)

  • Unit Two - Big Ideas
    Study critical topics like data, networking, and cybersecurity to prepare for the AP Exam. This     will be a mostly self-paced unit while Mr. M is out on paternity leave this year. (Q2)

  • Unit Three - Drawing
    Build your own programs from scratch using variables, methods, conditionals, and loops. (Q    2-Q3)

  • Unit Four - Arrays
    Build even more complex programs using collections of data (Q    3)

  • Unit Five - Create
    Complete your AP Performance Task by designing and coding a program of your own design. (Q    3-Q4)

  • Unit Six - Objects
    Learn about Object Oriented Programming to develop more flexible and interactive programs. (Q    4)

  • Unit Seven - Space Shooter
    Your final project is designing an interactive "space shooter" style game (Q4)


Grading

Grading

  • This course uses "total points" rather than percentage categories.

  • Projects (~50%)

    • Writing code and submitting programs

    • This typically is the highest part of a student's grade

    • Late projects are accepted for up to 80% credit.


  • Multiple Choice Tests and Quizzes (~15%)

    • Taken in school, synchronous, no notes

    • Uses Schoology multiple choice, matching, true/false.

    • Focus on vocabulary / concepts

    • No Redos

  • Paper Tests (~35%)

    • Taken in school, synchronous, no notes

    • Paper Test: Free response, write code by hand

    • Focus on syntax

    • One redo allowed, but has a maximum score of 80%

  • Note: The second score will be recorded as the grade, even if it is lower than the first.

Advice

  • The course is much easier if you stay on track or ahead of the lessons. Falling behind isn't directly penalized, but it rarely works out well. You'll find that the tests become more challenging and you'll have difficulty understanding the lectures. So if you are lost, get help early and catch up as soon as you can.

  • Mr. M will walk you through practice assignments, but provide limited help on graded ones. But if you understand the practice projects, you'll be able to do the graded ones without much difficulty.

  • Work with peers but don't lean on them *too* hard.

    • If you find yourself just copying code from friends (aka cheating), you'll likely fail the major tests.

    • On the flip side, working with peers to help understand problems in your code is a great way to learn.

Dan Shiffman
The Coding Train