Learn how to prepare your students for the AP Computer Science A (AP CSA) exam with CodeHS. This webinar covers exam structure, Java programming review strategies, practice problems, and how to use CodeHS tools to help students succeed on the AP CSA test.
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[Music] It looks like we've got some people joining us. Welcome everyone. Thank you for your time and thank you for making space in your day to learn about the APCSA exam.
I'll give it just another few seconds while folks filter in. If you would like to have access to a copy of our slide deck, I'll put a link in the chat. I am going to be putting links in the chat throughout our session today to resources. However, you do not have access to the chat today. Instead, you will ask your questions in the Q&A area.
So, if you look at the on my screen, it's the bottom of the screen, there's a little Q&A icon. If you want to open that up, have it ready because we have two amazing questionans answerers today with us.
Charnell will be presenting on APCSA and Lindsay will be helping answer questions about APCSA and we are so lucky to have all of their experience here with our group today in order to cover what you need to know to get your students ready for the APCSA exam. So our title for today, preparing students for the APCSA exam. We'll have 45 minutes to learn all the things and Charnell is here to instruct us.
Charel, if you'll go to the next slide and if you'd like to introduce yourself.
Hi everyone. I'm Charnell Woolage. I teach computer science applied arts and forensics here at Lincoln. I tell my people or my students it's kind of a buffet of classes because I have like seven preps.
I'm also a teacher trainer with CodeHS and have been using CodeHS for I'm not quite sure how many years. but not as many years have been teaching. I'm going this is year 34 for me.
All right. Well, we are so lucky to have all your years of experience here with us. if you'll go to the next slide, what we're covering today is the APCSA test format, CODHS resources to help you and your students prepare for exam day, some APCSA review strategies that Charnell has used in her classroom with success and getting her students through the AP exam, and we will wrap up. again let me put a link to this slide deck in for folks who are just joining.
anything you see in the slide deck you will have access to. So please again let us know if you have any questions. Next slide please. Again we are going to use the Q&A today. we have a large number of registrants for this webinar and we want to make sure we don't lose your questions in a chat stream where I'm putting links. So, definitely use the Q&A. like I said, we've got Lindsay behind the scenes helping us out. So, very lucky to have her expertise here also along with Charnell. Next slide, please. turn out. If you don't already have a CodeHS account, we encourage you to make one.
this will also help you get your attendance and certificate of completion for attending here today. So, go ahead, if you don't have a CodeHS account, sign up for one at this link. And if you do have a CodeHS account already, go ahead and sign in to your CodeHS account. so that you can get your certificate of completion which Charnell is going to show you on the next slide and I am going to drop a link for you in the chat so that once you're signed in and it's important sign in to Codys first then click the attendance link you will get an automatic email with a certificate of completion showing that you spent an hour here with us today. Charnell if you'll go to the next slide please. So if you are not familiar with us here at codes we are a comprehensive platform for teaching computer science in all grade levels K through 12 and we provide amazing high quality instructional materials for your students to engage with. We also offer professional development around computer science and all things included under that brella including AI and other topics. And we also along with our high-quality instructional materials also offer an amazing platform for you and your students to work on. Charel, if you'll go to that next slide, please.
Not only do we pro provide the curriculum, but we also provide the tools that we hope make it really easy for you to teach computer science. So, for example, we have LMS features like the ability to have conversations with students, make announcements to classes, roster students, have your students log in and work through lessons in our curriculum and coding IDE. And then we also have teacher tools like grade book and AI hints. Lots of pro features that we hope like I said are making teachers lives easier because we know that teachers time is best spent helping students, engaging with students and meeting students where they are. And so if we can save you time in other places we hope that we are helping you do that. So, I will now hand it over to Charnell so she has all the time being able to help you learn about CSA. All right. Well, hi everybody and welcome and thank you again for taking the time out of your day to learn a little bit about the APCSA exam breakdown and some strategies that I use in my classes and hopefully they will help you as well.
the exam date for the AP Computer Science A is Wednesday, May 7th, and it's at 12:00 local time. And that's coming up very soon. My students are starting to feel that date even though it's March yet. some things about the exam.
There's two parts to the exam. Section one is the multiple choice and there are 40 questions. Students will get an hour and a half for those 40 questions and that is scored 50% of their score. The other 50% of their score is section two and that's the free response questions. Those are four questions, an hour and a half again. And that's the, like I said, that's the other 50% of the exam. We're going to focus on the multiplechoice today. And with the multiplechoice, there are, as I said, there's 40 questions an hour and a half, and that's 50% of the exam. some of the question topics for that.
Whoops, sorry. I was scrolling and I didn't realize I was going to move. some of those topics are the programming fundamentals like the primitive types, the variables, the data types, expressions. You've got your data structures, the lists, arrays, array list, 2D arrays, and so on. boolean expressions the the decision making part loops and iteration techniques algorithms and problem solving op the objectoriented programming where they're writing classes or looking at classes the method calls they need to know how to read that inheritance understanding and applying those inheritance concepts which they're going. This is the last year for inheritance. There's huge changes coming up with the new exam in 2526 school year. And the last part is searching, sorting, and recursion. It's not in that order. These are just some of the question topics that the students will see on that multiplechoice test.
here is a breakdown of the units. There are 10 units covered in APCSA and the percentage the exam waiting some of them are overlap. So for example, you see that the primitive types 2 1/2 to 5% and then the objects 5 to 7 1/2. And so as they go through your largest part is on iteration with anywhere from 17 1/2 to 22 1.5%. So covering those loops, the for each statements, the four loops and boolean expressions, that's all part of decision-m. So that's a large chunk of those multiple choice questions. So here's an example of what I was saying that sometimes it's 15 to 17 1/2, 17 1/2 to 22 and 1/2. So they're going to be combined. We all know that programs if there's a decision there's either boolean or if or loops that are all involved with that. Some exam tips for the multiplechoice. prepare for the multiplechoice section. What I do to prepare for those throughout the year, we have practice test questions. AP has released practice test questions from previous years. You'll find those in AP classroom. some under the audit section. I believe it's the audit section.
the progress checks, those are really good for students as well and those are in AP classroom. And then just practice tracing code. give them problems and they need to go through and write comments. Whether you go through and do it electronic or handwritten, have them I have them look at a method and trace through it. Tell me what's going on in that method. What's happening with that method? using the vocabulary that they've learned in APCSA is big too and I have them ask them to use that curriculum use that vocab as they are going through that. So read and try to understand code segments before looking at the answers. So have before you show an an answer to go through it, have them take a look at it first and then take them through it. know what's included in the multiple choice and FRQ sections. So like those topics in the course exam description, there's a page called the computational thinking practices.
all of those practices. I direct students to that section. so they know that there's program design and algorithm and logic and writing classes and implementing that code and how to read through those. So, it gives them an idea of what all of the topics are. So, as a checklist, they can check it off.
And we go back and look at that all the time.
eliminate the answers that they know are wrong. for example, today we I had my AP students take a diagnostics test. I also use the Baron's book for review and giving them a diagnostic test out of there. I told them, you know, check off the ones that are wrong, that you feel are wrong, and that's going to narrow down.
Students are only going to have with the test being an hour and a half, that's going to leave about 2 and a/4 minutes per question. So, I tell the students, if it's going to take you longer than two minutes to answer this question, you need to continue on.
but they don't want to skip questions.
Don't leave anything blank on that multiplechoice section. They should know how to use all of the methods on that Java quick reference sheet. the students will get that when they're taking the test.
They they'll get a copy for the test there to bring it in with them. and don't leave questions unanswered as I said and practice time management. That's another thing. And it's difficult to do that in the classroom because our classes are 550 minutes long. And I don't know what others have for their time, but it's it's hard. So I give students questions chunks at a time and we time ourselves with how long it takes them to answer questions so they have an idea. Okay, what is 2 minutes? What does that feel like? and going through and the reason I say 2 minutes and not two and a quarter is because at the end that's going to leave them a few seconds to go back and just double check to make sure they've got everything answered.
overview. this is the FRQ section and those are four questions and I tell my students, you know, your F FRQ one is going to be about methods and control structures. Number two deals with class, three is array and array list and four is a 2D array. And so in code HS they have the APCSA review and all of those review problems work along with this. There's arrays array list 2D arrays classes and methods and control structures inside that review. So, that's one of the things I also do and that's coming up in one of my slides here talking about what I do for review. Some review tips. This is just quickly going through the FRQ tips. Read through the full FRQ first. Some of them will have two or three parts like an A, B, and C. And I tell the students to read all the way through it. go all the way through, not just do the first one and answer it because that's going to give them a better idea of what the whole program or what it is that they want. look for ways where they can earn partial credit versus leaving it blank and skipping it.
go through with your students graded past or scored I should say past FRQs so they know exactly what the readers are going to look for whether it's you know semicolons and braces or spelling or if they've got a variable declared and that's what they were supposed to have you know they're going to get that point.
so it's important to go through the scoring process both on the multiplechoice and the FRQ section. take advantage of those labs. the APCSA labs in code HS, there's a lot there. the magpie, celebrity, battleship, Pokemon. There's all kinds of labs there for the kids to go through and that's coming up right here in my review resources that I have.
codes review resources. taking us back to the two types of CSA that code HS offers and that is Nitro and Mocha. And Nitro covers all of the areas of the exam. Covers the primitive. It covers classes and boolean and if statements and iteration where Mocha is going to go through a lot more programs, more examples and more coding with that. So, they are different. and you can always choose one and lean back on the other for some extra practice. The APCSA review course that is awesome inside code HS that gives practice test. It gives all of the I think there's two of them. I don't have my code HS open, but I believe there's two practices in there. So that's that code HS practice at the bottom.
the question of the day, I do that every day. As soon as it starts, I have my students looking at them and sometimes they say, "Well, we haven't covered this yet." And I say, "Try it." They're not graded, but I put a link. We use Canvas as our learning management system. And I have CodeHS linked to my Canvas or synced to it.
so that question of the day, it started to bother some students because they're like, "Okay, I get everything right." And if they can't get it right, it bothers them. But once we I tell them it's okay. And cuz we will learn it. But it gives them a flavor. It gives them a taste of what those questions look like. It gives them that feeling of, okay, this is how hard the questions are going to be or how tricky sometimes those questions are and how they really have to read and use their critical thinking skills to answer those questions.
Another thing that is good is that APCSA FRQ center that has a lot of the FRQs to go through and practice with in addition to the AP classroom with all of the FRQs on there that you can go back from past exams.
Charnell, before you move on, would you mind popping over to the Kods site and showing folks where they can find the practice and the question of the day?
All right. So, the question, can you see my screen? Yep. Okay. The question of the day is going to be if you're signed into code HS the question of the day scroll down on the left menu bar and QOTD and we've got the APCSA question of the day. I also teach principles. So there's AP principles but there's the different questions of the day. Let me move this window out of the way here so we can view. So if I went into the APCSA questions of the day, here's today's question of the day and substrings you would just answer.
They could then they can check their answer. But if you look down at the bottom, they can go all the way back. It shows by month. but they can go all the way back in let's see. I thought if I clicked on that it would take me back to the beginning of March.
Yep. I see you're on March 3rd now.
Okay, there we go. Oh, yep. I wasn't looking up there. Okay. So, they can they can go back and take a look at these. If they skipped them, the buttons will be up there, but these are the types of questions that they're going to see. So, you'll see how important it is to be able to trace the code and know what's happening on each line and knowing super and this and what it does.
and take them through that class file to try to take a shot at what is happening here. What's it going to do?
Since it is all well, it's not on paper.
It's online, but they're looking at code. It's like a paper pencil test online. They're not using Java at all for this. So, it does it gets hard if they don't know exactly what everything means and what all the terms mean. The next one is the here's the if you search in the search bar, you can find the F FRQ hub. And so what this is is from past past FRQs that you can go through the scoring guide, the questions on that and then the labs.
keeps taking me to my class. Let's see.
Stephanie, do you know why the review is not coming up?
not sure exactly what you're looking for. or do you want to try to go to the AP hub and see if Oh, yep. Okay.
So, thank you. the APCSA hub.
that is with pro version, but when you get into the hub, this is the APCSA review and this goes in all 10 units and you've got FRQs and practice tests in there and you can assign these to your students as Well, now the APCSA review is not that's for anybody in code HS. It's the hub access that was I think the reason the search didn't work is because it has to be spelled out like that. So, I think if you searched AP review, I think maybe you'd find it the course that way. It's the like CS didn't show up because it has to be computer science. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I didn't. I was typing it in APCSA. So, yeah, we could try that. AP Computer Science to help you out. That brings up my classes. Oh, here we go. In the course catalog. Here it is.
And I did not put the A there. so it would show up if you typed it in correctly, which I didn't. Now it's there. I typed in AP Computer Science A and here's the Nitro.
Here's the labs that I was telling you about and the mocha. So those are the three things. that you would want to use in AP computer science inside code HS. So if I went to the labs, here are all of the labs. These used to be and these are on AP classroom as well. Consumer review, magpie, pitcher lab, and 11s. The rest of them are CodeHS, Battleship, Pokemon, Blackjack, Mad Libs, Celebrity, Steganography, those are inside AP classroom as well. And Grid World, I'm not sure if you remember where the people are at that are on this session, but Grid World Grid World is an older lab from a long time ago.
All right.
Yes, thank you for that tour of the site. I we you know are there's so much content on the codes site it's sometimes hard to find things. So I appreciate you demonstrating where to find things.
Yeah, my struggles with that. Okay. So yeah, there there's the hub direct link to that site. Click up here. So back to Nitro and Mocha.
as I was saying earlier that it's worth noting that a lot of those exercises in our Nitro and Mocha course don't overlap. So you would be okay teaching one and using information from another because they are like two different classes and those are those two AP computer science classes are both year-long courses and so they're they're both set up to help the students master those Java basics and be successful.
in passing the APCSA exam. So, the CSA review course it's 20 contact hours and that time frame I don't use it as straight 20 hours. We kind of go back and forth and do a little review. I was going to pull it up here if I had it, but I There it is.
when you're on a specific unit, you can go through that or you can save it to the very end if you're all done with anything to go back and then do the whole thing as a review because by the time people get to unit four or unit five, we forget about what we did earlier unless the repetition is there.
So some code HS practice and there are different levels that you can take your students through.
So where students can practice those unit test type problems that cover those topics. So for the basics of level one, here are some programs that they could do in Boolean. There are some tax rate lucky 13. I've had my students I don't do all of these, but you can go in and review them and pick which ones you want your students to do because it goes through all of those basic areas for that test to help students prepare. So, if you're looking for supplementals, these are good practice. This is a good place to go. The codehs.compractice.
again the questions of the day review.
This is what we had I had gone through and I and I showed you that. So this is a this is a repeat of questions.
So F FRQ center that is also found from the hub and you've got several options in that F FRQ where students can take practice F FRQs and take them from previous exams.
That's always good. taking those previous exam FRQs once those are released. it gives the students, you know, if they know this was a pass test, it gives them that feeling of, okay, this is how prepared I need to be for this exam. And so those are really good.
I like using the these past FRQs. and for multiplechoice questions as well. Going through the descriptions and using the practice tests on here.
Here's an example of one from the FRQ center.
There's a lot of groups out there a lot of resources that are available that some external resources AP central the community the APCS APCSA teachers group that's on Facebook all the time I I'm getting messages or questions that pop up and you can chime in or other ideas that educate haters have the code HS Facebook and for APCSA and also the just the general one for teachers group in general. anytime you get stuck or have a question, I've posted questions out there. two eyes, two sets of eyes are better than one.
Sometimes I could be looking at an issue and I can't find it. I have somebody else look at it and it's like right there because you're looking at so many per day and trying to review these.
All right. I hope everybody is still going okay. My strategies, if you don't mind, before you start this next section, we we had a question from one of our attendees asking suggestions on how to catch up if you are running behind covering curriculum. This this attendee is still in still has units 9 and 10 to cover.
Nine and 10. I would say that if you would take a look at the topics in there and kind of hit the the the biggest points of those.
What are the biggest areas of that unit to go through?
which part of nine and 10 then go back and do the smaller parts or the smaller pieces in those in units 9 and 10. I'm trying to think of Well, it's it's fine. We I guess I'm also wondering you know like how much time are you setting aside for review with your students? Are you do you have a hard cut off date when you're going to stop teaching and focus solely on review?
I usually will focus on review. We're going to hit review pretty hard halfway through April. I've been throwing in I sprinkle review in as we go throughout the the year. like tomorrow we're going to have a practice AP test over the first four units cuz we're going to go back so we can start bringing some of that back. and I give them like a little three to five question quiz every day from the AP classroom question bank. so that keeps them going. And of course, these quizzes can't be graded, but they're good practice for the students because once we find out if they get any incorrect, then we pull them apart and go through them. So, those last two weeks of April and then that first one of May is where I would I'm going to that's my plan to hit hard with practicing and taking questions apart and dissecting FRQs and the multiple choice. But by that point, my students are going to be used to FRQs and multiple choice already because we've been doing it throughout the year.
Yeah, that sounds like good advice.
Thank you. All right, so as we get into our exam review strategies, we're running short on time. It it's the the biggest battle teachers have, right?
There's there's never enough time. So, if you could pick maybe your favorite exam review strategy to share with us and then we will wrap up in about four or five minutes. Okay.
the review strategy that I do and a lot of times I use partners with the review strategies.
If they're going through and we're covering all of those APCSA topics, you're getting them down all year.
some of those students, they feel like they don't need to review, but they actually do. and it's hard for them to review. They're all worked up. So, what I do is we have the problems or we pick a problem and I might have the solution set aside for later. We'll we'll go through and we'll work through those problems and they'll help each other out because that's what that's what's been helping me so far in my APCSA class.
Sometimes teachers we start to talk a little bit higher or using terminology they may not understand as we're going through the test. So a couple of students stepped in today and said hey I can help you with that. We'll do it this way. And then it was they were able to finish out their problem. they were to able able to write their methods and get their constructors and things going for the problem that they had.
I also use review problems from other supplemental materials like the the course description and AP classroom a lot.
yeah. Do you want to go to your slide that has the bullet list of the things you use and so folks can see that? Yes. Perfect. Here is my list. quiz questions related to the content after each section. Like I said, you know, three to five. The AP daily videos. I'm clicking here and I shouldn't be. The AP daily videos I'll get back there. There we go. are good. I always have the students rewatch those videos or assign them as homework so they can get an idea of either what we're going to be talking about or to review what we had talked about. I do the progress checks every now and then that are in AP classroom and then the APCSA codeHS review questions and then also that they're in that dis in the exam description inside code HS and past exams FRQs for the F FRQ area but for multiple choice we just that's the the question of the day is awesome because that gives them all multiple choice questions.
There aren't any FRQs in that or I haven't run across any in that. so we take our F FRQs from code HS and past exams.
the APC AP science AP computer science A labs in code HS and then sometimes once I did give them an extra external program to write from scratch and they liked doing that as well rather than having the partial code there like a true FRQ has part of it there. I had them create it from scratch, the class file, the methods, the main program. And so that made it click for some of the students. All right. Well, thank you so much folks in attendance. This is your last call for questions. Please drop any you have in the Q&A and we will make sure to get those questions answered before we wrap up here in about two minutes. But I do have some exciting resources and learning opportunities to share with you. And so as you can see on the screen there we do have other programs and resources here at CODHS like our codes Facebook groups. You can follow us on social media. If you are at all interested in engaging addition in additional ways with codes, you can find out more about our codes certified educator program. you can earn a code micro credential. Lots of ways to show off your great teaching with codes. next slide please Charnell.
I will also drop one more time that link to the certificate of completion in the chat. Make sure you get that. and make sure you're signed into codes first, then click the link for attendance. Next slide, please. and so here are the additional learning opportunities you have coming up. We will have a preparing students for the APCSP exam session.
Charnell is also leading that one. so excited to see what she has to share for our APCSP students coming up on April 1st. Then if you live in Indiana, we want to give a shout out to our new course that we are launching, computing foundations for a digital age. come check out our new course if you are a teacher in Indiana.
We will also be hosting our codes virtual teacher conference very soon in next month in April. We'll hope that you check us out. We will have a track for AP. So if you would like to learn more about teaching AP. We will have I believe two maybe three I can't remember how many sessions on all things AP and we will have of course other sessions in our conference for you to choose from. And then everybody's really concerned about this one. The AP course is changing. The CSA course is changing.
And so if you would like to prepare for next year in May, we will be hosting a 45 minute session on how on those changes and how CodeHS is approaching those changes also. So if you'd like to sign up for any of those sessions, you can at the link I've dropped in the chat. Next slide, please.
Sha. So, another little advertisement for our virtual con as my cat joins our session here. Sorry about that. And we will wrap up. Charnell, if you will please next slide. Thank you. And we ask that you just take a minute to give us your feedback on how we did today and what we can help you with in the future. So, please fill out our webinar survey before you leave. And I will give a round of applause virtually to Charnell. Thank you so much for your time and sharing all your expertise. And we will call it done here. See y'all later. Bye.
[Music]
I'll give it just another few seconds while folks filter in. If you would like to have access to a copy of our slide deck, I'll put a link in the chat. I am going to be putting links in the chat throughout our session today to resources. However, you do not have access to the chat today. Instead, you will ask your questions in the Q&A area.
So, if you look at the on my screen, it's the bottom of the screen, there's a little Q&A icon. If you want to open that up, have it ready because we have two amazing questionans answerers today with us.
Charnell will be presenting on APCSA and Lindsay will be helping answer questions about APCSA and we are so lucky to have all of their experience here with our group today in order to cover what you need to know to get your students ready for the APCSA exam. So our title for today, preparing students for the APCSA exam. We'll have 45 minutes to learn all the things and Charnell is here to instruct us.
Charel, if you'll go to the next slide and if you'd like to introduce yourself.
Hi everyone. I'm Charnell Woolage. I teach computer science applied arts and forensics here at Lincoln. I tell my people or my students it's kind of a buffet of classes because I have like seven preps.
I'm also a teacher trainer with CodeHS and have been using CodeHS for I'm not quite sure how many years. but not as many years have been teaching. I'm going this is year 34 for me.
All right. Well, we are so lucky to have all your years of experience here with us. if you'll go to the next slide, what we're covering today is the APCSA test format, CODHS resources to help you and your students prepare for exam day, some APCSA review strategies that Charnell has used in her classroom with success and getting her students through the AP exam, and we will wrap up. again let me put a link to this slide deck in for folks who are just joining.
anything you see in the slide deck you will have access to. So please again let us know if you have any questions. Next slide please. Again we are going to use the Q&A today. we have a large number of registrants for this webinar and we want to make sure we don't lose your questions in a chat stream where I'm putting links. So, definitely use the Q&A. like I said, we've got Lindsay behind the scenes helping us out. So, very lucky to have her expertise here also along with Charnell. Next slide, please. turn out. If you don't already have a CodeHS account, we encourage you to make one.
this will also help you get your attendance and certificate of completion for attending here today. So, go ahead, if you don't have a CodeHS account, sign up for one at this link. And if you do have a CodeHS account already, go ahead and sign in to your CodeHS account. so that you can get your certificate of completion which Charnell is going to show you on the next slide and I am going to drop a link for you in the chat so that once you're signed in and it's important sign in to Codys first then click the attendance link you will get an automatic email with a certificate of completion showing that you spent an hour here with us today. Charnell if you'll go to the next slide please. So if you are not familiar with us here at codes we are a comprehensive platform for teaching computer science in all grade levels K through 12 and we provide amazing high quality instructional materials for your students to engage with. We also offer professional development around computer science and all things included under that brella including AI and other topics. And we also along with our high-quality instructional materials also offer an amazing platform for you and your students to work on. Charel, if you'll go to that next slide, please.
Not only do we pro provide the curriculum, but we also provide the tools that we hope make it really easy for you to teach computer science. So, for example, we have LMS features like the ability to have conversations with students, make announcements to classes, roster students, have your students log in and work through lessons in our curriculum and coding IDE. And then we also have teacher tools like grade book and AI hints. Lots of pro features that we hope like I said are making teachers lives easier because we know that teachers time is best spent helping students, engaging with students and meeting students where they are. And so if we can save you time in other places we hope that we are helping you do that. So, I will now hand it over to Charnell so she has all the time being able to help you learn about CSA. All right. Well, hi everybody and welcome and thank you again for taking the time out of your day to learn a little bit about the APCSA exam breakdown and some strategies that I use in my classes and hopefully they will help you as well.
the exam date for the AP Computer Science A is Wednesday, May 7th, and it's at 12:00 local time. And that's coming up very soon. My students are starting to feel that date even though it's March yet. some things about the exam.
There's two parts to the exam. Section one is the multiple choice and there are 40 questions. Students will get an hour and a half for those 40 questions and that is scored 50% of their score. The other 50% of their score is section two and that's the free response questions. Those are four questions, an hour and a half again. And that's the, like I said, that's the other 50% of the exam. We're going to focus on the multiplechoice today. And with the multiplechoice, there are, as I said, there's 40 questions an hour and a half, and that's 50% of the exam. some of the question topics for that.
Whoops, sorry. I was scrolling and I didn't realize I was going to move. some of those topics are the programming fundamentals like the primitive types, the variables, the data types, expressions. You've got your data structures, the lists, arrays, array list, 2D arrays, and so on. boolean expressions the the decision making part loops and iteration techniques algorithms and problem solving op the objectoriented programming where they're writing classes or looking at classes the method calls they need to know how to read that inheritance understanding and applying those inheritance concepts which they're going. This is the last year for inheritance. There's huge changes coming up with the new exam in 2526 school year. And the last part is searching, sorting, and recursion. It's not in that order. These are just some of the question topics that the students will see on that multiplechoice test.
here is a breakdown of the units. There are 10 units covered in APCSA and the percentage the exam waiting some of them are overlap. So for example, you see that the primitive types 2 1/2 to 5% and then the objects 5 to 7 1/2. And so as they go through your largest part is on iteration with anywhere from 17 1/2 to 22 1.5%. So covering those loops, the for each statements, the four loops and boolean expressions, that's all part of decision-m. So that's a large chunk of those multiple choice questions. So here's an example of what I was saying that sometimes it's 15 to 17 1/2, 17 1/2 to 22 and 1/2. So they're going to be combined. We all know that programs if there's a decision there's either boolean or if or loops that are all involved with that. Some exam tips for the multiplechoice. prepare for the multiplechoice section. What I do to prepare for those throughout the year, we have practice test questions. AP has released practice test questions from previous years. You'll find those in AP classroom. some under the audit section. I believe it's the audit section.
the progress checks, those are really good for students as well and those are in AP classroom. And then just practice tracing code. give them problems and they need to go through and write comments. Whether you go through and do it electronic or handwritten, have them I have them look at a method and trace through it. Tell me what's going on in that method. What's happening with that method? using the vocabulary that they've learned in APCSA is big too and I have them ask them to use that curriculum use that vocab as they are going through that. So read and try to understand code segments before looking at the answers. So have before you show an an answer to go through it, have them take a look at it first and then take them through it. know what's included in the multiple choice and FRQ sections. So like those topics in the course exam description, there's a page called the computational thinking practices.
all of those practices. I direct students to that section. so they know that there's program design and algorithm and logic and writing classes and implementing that code and how to read through those. So, it gives them an idea of what all of the topics are. So, as a checklist, they can check it off.
And we go back and look at that all the time.
eliminate the answers that they know are wrong. for example, today we I had my AP students take a diagnostics test. I also use the Baron's book for review and giving them a diagnostic test out of there. I told them, you know, check off the ones that are wrong, that you feel are wrong, and that's going to narrow down.
Students are only going to have with the test being an hour and a half, that's going to leave about 2 and a/4 minutes per question. So, I tell the students, if it's going to take you longer than two minutes to answer this question, you need to continue on.
but they don't want to skip questions.
Don't leave anything blank on that multiplechoice section. They should know how to use all of the methods on that Java quick reference sheet. the students will get that when they're taking the test.
They they'll get a copy for the test there to bring it in with them. and don't leave questions unanswered as I said and practice time management. That's another thing. And it's difficult to do that in the classroom because our classes are 550 minutes long. And I don't know what others have for their time, but it's it's hard. So I give students questions chunks at a time and we time ourselves with how long it takes them to answer questions so they have an idea. Okay, what is 2 minutes? What does that feel like? and going through and the reason I say 2 minutes and not two and a quarter is because at the end that's going to leave them a few seconds to go back and just double check to make sure they've got everything answered.
overview. this is the FRQ section and those are four questions and I tell my students, you know, your F FRQ one is going to be about methods and control structures. Number two deals with class, three is array and array list and four is a 2D array. And so in code HS they have the APCSA review and all of those review problems work along with this. There's arrays array list 2D arrays classes and methods and control structures inside that review. So, that's one of the things I also do and that's coming up in one of my slides here talking about what I do for review. Some review tips. This is just quickly going through the FRQ tips. Read through the full FRQ first. Some of them will have two or three parts like an A, B, and C. And I tell the students to read all the way through it. go all the way through, not just do the first one and answer it because that's going to give them a better idea of what the whole program or what it is that they want. look for ways where they can earn partial credit versus leaving it blank and skipping it.
go through with your students graded past or scored I should say past FRQs so they know exactly what the readers are going to look for whether it's you know semicolons and braces or spelling or if they've got a variable declared and that's what they were supposed to have you know they're going to get that point.
so it's important to go through the scoring process both on the multiplechoice and the FRQ section. take advantage of those labs. the APCSA labs in code HS, there's a lot there. the magpie, celebrity, battleship, Pokemon. There's all kinds of labs there for the kids to go through and that's coming up right here in my review resources that I have.
codes review resources. taking us back to the two types of CSA that code HS offers and that is Nitro and Mocha. And Nitro covers all of the areas of the exam. Covers the primitive. It covers classes and boolean and if statements and iteration where Mocha is going to go through a lot more programs, more examples and more coding with that. So, they are different. and you can always choose one and lean back on the other for some extra practice. The APCSA review course that is awesome inside code HS that gives practice test. It gives all of the I think there's two of them. I don't have my code HS open, but I believe there's two practices in there. So that's that code HS practice at the bottom.
the question of the day, I do that every day. As soon as it starts, I have my students looking at them and sometimes they say, "Well, we haven't covered this yet." And I say, "Try it." They're not graded, but I put a link. We use Canvas as our learning management system. And I have CodeHS linked to my Canvas or synced to it.
so that question of the day, it started to bother some students because they're like, "Okay, I get everything right." And if they can't get it right, it bothers them. But once we I tell them it's okay. And cuz we will learn it. But it gives them a flavor. It gives them a taste of what those questions look like. It gives them that feeling of, okay, this is how hard the questions are going to be or how tricky sometimes those questions are and how they really have to read and use their critical thinking skills to answer those questions.
Another thing that is good is that APCSA FRQ center that has a lot of the FRQs to go through and practice with in addition to the AP classroom with all of the FRQs on there that you can go back from past exams.
Charnell, before you move on, would you mind popping over to the Kods site and showing folks where they can find the practice and the question of the day?
All right. So, the question, can you see my screen? Yep. Okay. The question of the day is going to be if you're signed into code HS the question of the day scroll down on the left menu bar and QOTD and we've got the APCSA question of the day. I also teach principles. So there's AP principles but there's the different questions of the day. Let me move this window out of the way here so we can view. So if I went into the APCSA questions of the day, here's today's question of the day and substrings you would just answer.
They could then they can check their answer. But if you look down at the bottom, they can go all the way back. It shows by month. but they can go all the way back in let's see. I thought if I clicked on that it would take me back to the beginning of March.
Yep. I see you're on March 3rd now.
Okay, there we go. Oh, yep. I wasn't looking up there. Okay. So, they can they can go back and take a look at these. If they skipped them, the buttons will be up there, but these are the types of questions that they're going to see. So, you'll see how important it is to be able to trace the code and know what's happening on each line and knowing super and this and what it does.
and take them through that class file to try to take a shot at what is happening here. What's it going to do?
Since it is all well, it's not on paper.
It's online, but they're looking at code. It's like a paper pencil test online. They're not using Java at all for this. So, it does it gets hard if they don't know exactly what everything means and what all the terms mean. The next one is the here's the if you search in the search bar, you can find the F FRQ hub. And so what this is is from past past FRQs that you can go through the scoring guide, the questions on that and then the labs.
keeps taking me to my class. Let's see.
Stephanie, do you know why the review is not coming up?
not sure exactly what you're looking for. or do you want to try to go to the AP hub and see if Oh, yep. Okay.
So, thank you. the APCSA hub.
that is with pro version, but when you get into the hub, this is the APCSA review and this goes in all 10 units and you've got FRQs and practice tests in there and you can assign these to your students as Well, now the APCSA review is not that's for anybody in code HS. It's the hub access that was I think the reason the search didn't work is because it has to be spelled out like that. So, I think if you searched AP review, I think maybe you'd find it the course that way. It's the like CS didn't show up because it has to be computer science. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I didn't. I was typing it in APCSA. So, yeah, we could try that. AP Computer Science to help you out. That brings up my classes. Oh, here we go. In the course catalog. Here it is.
And I did not put the A there. so it would show up if you typed it in correctly, which I didn't. Now it's there. I typed in AP Computer Science A and here's the Nitro.
Here's the labs that I was telling you about and the mocha. So those are the three things. that you would want to use in AP computer science inside code HS. So if I went to the labs, here are all of the labs. These used to be and these are on AP classroom as well. Consumer review, magpie, pitcher lab, and 11s. The rest of them are CodeHS, Battleship, Pokemon, Blackjack, Mad Libs, Celebrity, Steganography, those are inside AP classroom as well. And Grid World, I'm not sure if you remember where the people are at that are on this session, but Grid World Grid World is an older lab from a long time ago.
All right.
Yes, thank you for that tour of the site. I we you know are there's so much content on the codes site it's sometimes hard to find things. So I appreciate you demonstrating where to find things.
Yeah, my struggles with that. Okay. So yeah, there there's the hub direct link to that site. Click up here. So back to Nitro and Mocha.
as I was saying earlier that it's worth noting that a lot of those exercises in our Nitro and Mocha course don't overlap. So you would be okay teaching one and using information from another because they are like two different classes and those are those two AP computer science classes are both year-long courses and so they're they're both set up to help the students master those Java basics and be successful.
in passing the APCSA exam. So, the CSA review course it's 20 contact hours and that time frame I don't use it as straight 20 hours. We kind of go back and forth and do a little review. I was going to pull it up here if I had it, but I There it is.
when you're on a specific unit, you can go through that or you can save it to the very end if you're all done with anything to go back and then do the whole thing as a review because by the time people get to unit four or unit five, we forget about what we did earlier unless the repetition is there.
So some code HS practice and there are different levels that you can take your students through.
So where students can practice those unit test type problems that cover those topics. So for the basics of level one, here are some programs that they could do in Boolean. There are some tax rate lucky 13. I've had my students I don't do all of these, but you can go in and review them and pick which ones you want your students to do because it goes through all of those basic areas for that test to help students prepare. So, if you're looking for supplementals, these are good practice. This is a good place to go. The codehs.compractice.
again the questions of the day review.
This is what we had I had gone through and I and I showed you that. So this is a this is a repeat of questions.
So F FRQ center that is also found from the hub and you've got several options in that F FRQ where students can take practice F FRQs and take them from previous exams.
That's always good. taking those previous exam FRQs once those are released. it gives the students, you know, if they know this was a pass test, it gives them that feeling of, okay, this is how prepared I need to be for this exam. And so those are really good.
I like using the these past FRQs. and for multiplechoice questions as well. Going through the descriptions and using the practice tests on here.
Here's an example of one from the FRQ center.
There's a lot of groups out there a lot of resources that are available that some external resources AP central the community the APCS APCSA teachers group that's on Facebook all the time I I'm getting messages or questions that pop up and you can chime in or other ideas that educate haters have the code HS Facebook and for APCSA and also the just the general one for teachers group in general. anytime you get stuck or have a question, I've posted questions out there. two eyes, two sets of eyes are better than one.
Sometimes I could be looking at an issue and I can't find it. I have somebody else look at it and it's like right there because you're looking at so many per day and trying to review these.
All right. I hope everybody is still going okay. My strategies, if you don't mind, before you start this next section, we we had a question from one of our attendees asking suggestions on how to catch up if you are running behind covering curriculum. This this attendee is still in still has units 9 and 10 to cover.
Nine and 10. I would say that if you would take a look at the topics in there and kind of hit the the the biggest points of those.
What are the biggest areas of that unit to go through?
which part of nine and 10 then go back and do the smaller parts or the smaller pieces in those in units 9 and 10. I'm trying to think of Well, it's it's fine. We I guess I'm also wondering you know like how much time are you setting aside for review with your students? Are you do you have a hard cut off date when you're going to stop teaching and focus solely on review?
I usually will focus on review. We're going to hit review pretty hard halfway through April. I've been throwing in I sprinkle review in as we go throughout the the year. like tomorrow we're going to have a practice AP test over the first four units cuz we're going to go back so we can start bringing some of that back. and I give them like a little three to five question quiz every day from the AP classroom question bank. so that keeps them going. And of course, these quizzes can't be graded, but they're good practice for the students because once we find out if they get any incorrect, then we pull them apart and go through them. So, those last two weeks of April and then that first one of May is where I would I'm going to that's my plan to hit hard with practicing and taking questions apart and dissecting FRQs and the multiple choice. But by that point, my students are going to be used to FRQs and multiple choice already because we've been doing it throughout the year.
Yeah, that sounds like good advice.
Thank you. All right, so as we get into our exam review strategies, we're running short on time. It it's the the biggest battle teachers have, right?
There's there's never enough time. So, if you could pick maybe your favorite exam review strategy to share with us and then we will wrap up in about four or five minutes. Okay.
the review strategy that I do and a lot of times I use partners with the review strategies.
If they're going through and we're covering all of those APCSA topics, you're getting them down all year.
some of those students, they feel like they don't need to review, but they actually do. and it's hard for them to review. They're all worked up. So, what I do is we have the problems or we pick a problem and I might have the solution set aside for later. We'll we'll go through and we'll work through those problems and they'll help each other out because that's what that's what's been helping me so far in my APCSA class.
Sometimes teachers we start to talk a little bit higher or using terminology they may not understand as we're going through the test. So a couple of students stepped in today and said hey I can help you with that. We'll do it this way. And then it was they were able to finish out their problem. they were to able able to write their methods and get their constructors and things going for the problem that they had.
I also use review problems from other supplemental materials like the the course description and AP classroom a lot.
yeah. Do you want to go to your slide that has the bullet list of the things you use and so folks can see that? Yes. Perfect. Here is my list. quiz questions related to the content after each section. Like I said, you know, three to five. The AP daily videos. I'm clicking here and I shouldn't be. The AP daily videos I'll get back there. There we go. are good. I always have the students rewatch those videos or assign them as homework so they can get an idea of either what we're going to be talking about or to review what we had talked about. I do the progress checks every now and then that are in AP classroom and then the APCSA codeHS review questions and then also that they're in that dis in the exam description inside code HS and past exams FRQs for the F FRQ area but for multiple choice we just that's the the question of the day is awesome because that gives them all multiple choice questions.
There aren't any FRQs in that or I haven't run across any in that. so we take our F FRQs from code HS and past exams.
the APC AP science AP computer science A labs in code HS and then sometimes once I did give them an extra external program to write from scratch and they liked doing that as well rather than having the partial code there like a true FRQ has part of it there. I had them create it from scratch, the class file, the methods, the main program. And so that made it click for some of the students. All right. Well, thank you so much folks in attendance. This is your last call for questions. Please drop any you have in the Q&A and we will make sure to get those questions answered before we wrap up here in about two minutes. But I do have some exciting resources and learning opportunities to share with you. And so as you can see on the screen there we do have other programs and resources here at CODHS like our codes Facebook groups. You can follow us on social media. If you are at all interested in engaging addition in additional ways with codes, you can find out more about our codes certified educator program. you can earn a code micro credential. Lots of ways to show off your great teaching with codes. next slide please Charnell.
I will also drop one more time that link to the certificate of completion in the chat. Make sure you get that. and make sure you're signed into codes first, then click the link for attendance. Next slide, please. and so here are the additional learning opportunities you have coming up. We will have a preparing students for the APCSP exam session.
Charnell is also leading that one. so excited to see what she has to share for our APCSP students coming up on April 1st. Then if you live in Indiana, we want to give a shout out to our new course that we are launching, computing foundations for a digital age. come check out our new course if you are a teacher in Indiana.
We will also be hosting our codes virtual teacher conference very soon in next month in April. We'll hope that you check us out. We will have a track for AP. So if you would like to learn more about teaching AP. We will have I believe two maybe three I can't remember how many sessions on all things AP and we will have of course other sessions in our conference for you to choose from. And then everybody's really concerned about this one. The AP course is changing. The CSA course is changing.
And so if you would like to prepare for next year in May, we will be hosting a 45 minute session on how on those changes and how CodeHS is approaching those changes also. So if you'd like to sign up for any of those sessions, you can at the link I've dropped in the chat. Next slide, please.
Sha. So, another little advertisement for our virtual con as my cat joins our session here. Sorry about that. And we will wrap up. Charnell, if you will please next slide. Thank you. And we ask that you just take a minute to give us your feedback on how we did today and what we can help you with in the future. So, please fill out our webinar survey before you leave. And I will give a round of applause virtually to Charnell. Thank you so much for your time and sharing all your expertise. And we will call it done here. See y'all later. Bye.
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