Learn how to prepare your students for the AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) exam with CodeHS. This webinar covers exam format, practice strategies, performance tasks, and how to use CodeHS resources to boost student confidence and success on test day.
Full Transcript
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Hello and welcome everyone to our 400 PM central session preparing students for the APCSP exam. We're so excited to have you here with us today and we will have a quick 45 minutes to cover everything you need to know about getting your students ready for the APCSP exam which is coming up next month. It is officially April. So next month exam time starts. So, while you are all getting settled and while folks are still joining us here at the top of the hour, I will go ahead and put a link to the slide deck in the chat. We are going to leave the chat disabled today.
So, if you have questions for us attendees, you can click on the Q&A icon. Mine is on the bottom of my Zoom window.
So, if you have questions you would like to get answered by Charnell or myself or my partner Leanne, please put your questions in the Q&A. I will be putting links into the chat so that you have access to those and we don't lose anybody's questions in a very busy chat space. So, you have access to the Q&A today. All right.
Charnell, if you'll go to the next slide for me, please. And if you would like to introduce yourself also.
Hi everyone, and welcome. thank you for taking your time out of the end of the school day to join in on this AP CS principles breakdown. I'm Charnell Woolage. I teach a buffet of classes at Lincoln High School in Sou Falls, South Dakota. and AP principles and CSA graphics, sports broadcasting, video game design, and I know I'm missing another one. oh, programming one in there. I've been teaching for 34 years. Not all here at Lincoln. 27 of those are at Lincoln. So, my first AP class, my first year here was that C++. So, I was doing APCS A for A and B and then they changed it for quite a while. and then I really enjoyed the principal. So, I'm glad they brought a second class out. I I do like this class.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for that introduction and we are absolutely so lucky to be here with you and have all of your years of experience and great teaching strategies available.
So, thank you so much for being here.
And if you'll go to the next slide, what we are going to cover today is a breakdown of the APCSP exam so you can know exactly what to expect and get your students that the dates and the format and all the pertinent logistical information around the exam. Then we will talk about codes review resources that are available to you. our you know our curriculum is always free and so we will show you lots of great stuff you have access to and Charnell will share some of her other strategies and resources that she's used in the classroom over the years and then we'll talk test day exam strategies. So next slide please. Again, just a reminder, if you have any questions, you can participate in the Q&A section and keep an eye out on the chat as well for links as I pop those into the chat. I have already put the slide deck link in the chat. So, if you have you will have access to this and and we will follow up with other resources as well. Next slide, please.
So, I'll give you a moment here to open up that slide deck if you want to follow along. I will also ask you to please log in to your code HS account. And if you don't have a code HS account, we would love for you to sign up for one so that you can follow along with all of these fabulous resources that Charnell is going to walk us through today. So, you'll want to either sign into your codes account or sign up for a a a free account here real quick so that we can follow along with Charnell as she navigates the site. So, next slide, please. We also want to make sure that you get a certificate of completion for joining us here today. We again appreciate your time and your attentiveness and you know even sharing your ideas with us and so for your efforts and your time we would love to make sure that you get a little nod of thank you with a certificate of completion. So do please sign into the code platform first then click the certificate of completion link that I have put in the chat and that will just pop up a screen that says thank you for attending. That's all you need to do and a follow-up email will come with your certificate. Charel, next slide, please.
So, I do want to just tell you a little bit about CodeHS. Like I mentioned, we are a free curriculum for middle school, high school, and now most recently elementary school. we have also have curriculum for elementary school is not free unfortunately, but always free middle school and high school curriculum. And besides our fantastic standardsbased curriculum and our other high-quality instructional materials, we also offer professional development and a full suite of tools.
Some of them traditional LMS features like you will be familiar with and others specific to computer science and our codes site. So, next slide please, Charnell. some of those LMS features that you might want to check out, are things like our grade book, our feedback, conversation tools that we have with students, announcements tools. So, like I said, definitely things that you're already familiar with working in other edtech platforms and other LMS systems. but ours are specific to computer science.
all web- based, no additional downloads or plugins needed to use our curriculum.
So, we hope that you check out the curriculum and the tools and let us know if you're enjoying it. So, now I will hand it over to Charnell. I think I have taken up enough time here. We want to hear about CSP. So, take it away.
All right. So, AP computer science principles. we're going to be talking about the exam, as Stephanie stated, and some strategies. So, when talking about the exam this year, last year it was, I believe it was last year, it was changed to 120 minutes. It used to be 2 hours and two hours. It's a two-part test. There are 70 multiplechoice questions and then there's a performance task that students create. And with the AI stuff that happened last year, that's changed and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But the 70 multiplechoice questions is 70% of the students score.
They get 120 minutes for their multiplechoice questions and that consists of 57 single select multiple choice questions. Five single select with a reading passage and those are usually together in a set. So they'll have a reading passage and then five multiplechoice questions that all have to do with that reading passage. And it's usually about a computing innovation.
of some sort. And then there are eight multiple select multiplechoice questions where they need to select two answers. And that's one that I usually have to practice the most because students forget that a lot of they forget and read misread and don't select two multiplechoice answers for for those. And those aren't all together.
They're kind of sprinkled.
but it they do let you know on the test that it says select two. The breakdown are five big ideas. And if you notice big idea number three is the one that has the most exam weight.
That's 30 to 35% of the weight. And then it goes down to the impact of computing and would be the next part.
The rest are pretty close. data is huge and that goes with all of the areas and then the smallest part is creative development that 10 to 13%. And these are in your multiplechoice areas.
All right, as I said earlier that there are two parts to the AP test. The first one is the multiple choice with two with 120 minutes. The second one is the create performance task and this task is 30% of the student score, 10% from code and 20% from two written questions. So, they've got an F FRQ based on their performance task. They have to know exactly what their code is doing, what the function and the purpose is of their game or their program that they developed. And so, they get to develop a computer program of their choice. And they can use the software of their choice, Scratch, Python, Java, JavaScript.
something that they're used to. I focus on Scratch and Python in my class, but I've had students want to try it in Java and then they turn around and end up back in Scratch. But they get nine hours of inclass time to work on it. And so I have all of the students that those nine hours are all like the nine days that we work on it in class and then the rest they can work on it outside of class or if you've got the extra time they can complete it in in the classroom.
But the key thing is once that testing time starts the teacher cannot help them with anything. They just basically become the facilitator and watch that. So once your students have started the official administration of that create PT, they can't ask assistance in writing, revision, making corrections. And that's what's hard because I've had students turn around and Mrs. Woolage, what does this look like? Can you tell me on this?
And and you want to automatically help them and sometimes it'll slip, but you you have to let them go with their program.
And as they're going through the process, especially those nine days, the first nine days when they're writing their program, coming up with their ideas and putting it together, I have them come up with their ideas before the nine days start so they at least have a couple of ideas for their programming and then they can start typing out their and coding their program. They can collaborate with their partners.
and they can ask their partners for help, but it has to be all of their work and it needs to be submitted by that student that's creating the work.
If they do use outside sources, it needs to be cited in their comments for that specific area of code that was used.
include in their course content, they have to include screen captures of their program code. And so at the end when they're all finished with their performance task and they're getting ready to do the submission, there are student guides, student handouts.
those student handouts from the AP college or the AP classroom. I give those to my students at the beginning.
Here's the handbook. Here's all of the guidelines and they have to read them and sign off that they've read them and because that's when their question and answer time needs to be. It's like, okay, do we have to do this, this, this?
and it lists out they need to have the purpose, the function, they have to have a list, they have to have a procedure, and it tells them exactly what they need. When they get finished, that's when they're going to do the screen capture. And any course content or comments that were included in the program needs to be removed. Their programs cannot be personalized in any way. So, no names, no initials. it can't be personalized. And then they make their video of there's like 59 60 seconds of their video. I should say 59 because a student last year had it at 60 and it wouldn't submit. So, we had to redo it for 59 seconds and then they submitted.
And once they have that they revise their work once they've completed and submitted as a final and they submit it in that AP digital portfolio. so down at the bottom of the slide there is a link that takes you to the student handouts. and this is what the students receive. And this is all on the College Board site. And it tells them exactly what they need and the definitions of the what a list is, what the collection is, and then it goes through the video, what they can and cannot have for their video, what type of format it needs to be, no more than one minute in length, and no more than 30 megabytes in file size. And that is that's particular because it won't upload into the digital portfolio if it does not meet these specifications. The final part, their F FRQ part is the personalized project reference. And this is what they can fill out.
all of they need to fill out this part right here is what they will receive on exam day to answer their F FRQ questions. the AP advisor will have copies. We don't they can't carry anything in with them. So the adviser there will have copies for them of their project and so they'll get that when they take the exam.
some other tools and this is why partially the reason for some of the changes in the principal's exam is because of chat GPT or AI being used. And so what the College Board has done is they're allowing students to use AI tools as a supplementary resource, but they have to write in their comments that that code was from AI. And the most important thing with this is they need to understand how that code works. What's the function of that code? how do we fix it if it doesn't work?
but they can use AI tools as a resource, but they need to check those guidelines and make sure they've got everything cited that they need. They also need to be aware that AI tools may not always be correct with their with their codes and they could be inefficient and biased and the students it's the students responsibility to review and understand that code. So I don't I mean the it's in the guidelines it's in the student hands out that they can use it but I really don't even mention it. I've had students say, "I'm not even going to use I'm not even going to touch chat GPT. I'm just going to go for this and do it on my own." And that's great because I they like to it's easy to go to chat GPT and type a question in for the students to ask.
and so keeping an eye on the the students, I've noticed, yep, my my AI users have not used it in the classroom anyway. but they do just they need to know that they have to be prepared to explain their code in detail at the end of that for their FRQ in that exam. and they'll get red flagged and set it. they the judges won't even look at it if it's if they can tell it's AI or if it's code used from like code HS or outside sources that's not given credit to. So that part gets a little sticky. and there's a link here that takes you to the 2425 guidelines on preparing for that with the AI tools.
All right, up next, the exam dates. Thursday, May 15th is the big date for the multiplechoice or for the principal test, 12 noon your local time.
The create task submission is April 30th, 2025. However, I told my students April 28th is the the hard deadline. but my first deadline is April 24th. because everybody I think last year I'm not sure how many students 100 took the AP principles test but if all of those students wait till April 30th Eastern time is also another note that you need to make with your students. So I say okay it needs to be by this time this date. it could get jammed up and then they their test might not get uploaded on time to that digital portfolio. So sometimes last year worked really well when I had my students just upload all all their parts right during class. So if they were at home trying to do it like the year before I remembered kids were texting sending me emails that it was stuck or wouldn't go. So last year I had them do it right during class and that worked really well. they uploaded everything and everything was smooth and you could just see the I have it all uploaded now I don't have to worry about it. So then our extra time once this task was over was focused on okay now let's go back and start taking a look for the multiple choice questions and reviewing those questions. But like I said, I would adjust this April 30th date so that the students have time in case of technical issues. I have had students in the past have technical issues and I would have the I would let our advisor know and then he would contact the AP he or she would contact the AP board and let them know. And one time I was able to go in after the deadline the student because it just would not it was bogged down each time. that was the flexibility a couple years ago. I'm not sure if they keep that flexibility now or not. Getting into some code HS materials for AP CSP. There is the hub. And this hub is amazing. I'll just click into it. And it's going to show all of the AP principles courses. So, we have the JavaScript, the cyber security, and the Python course. And it shows all of the if you need a computer science pathway, that's down at the bottom.
let's see. My review must be on a different page. we'll go on to talking about the OHS resources. So we have incourse review and then there's an an AP principles review course. the AP reader question bank code HS practice and question of the day. These are all some resources that we're going to talk about here in the next slides. So our first one is incourse practice.
within course practice there are questions if you have the code HS whether it's the Python the JavaScript the the code HS class there's going to be questions in there for you to practice on with your students and so throughout the course they've got questions after the units this is one that I use all the time. The incourse practice exam, the AP exam review, then there's the preparation. And this review is a fulllength practice exam. It's available in the JavaScript and the Python course and it's aligned and so it it contains all 70 questions, 70 practice questions for this review. a little bit about the review course. I'm going to click this link here.
And so here's the review course in code HS and there are you see that there's a section one and then the section two is on the performance task and then they have the reader question bank. And so all of these areas right here give you several wh that link. The preview link must not work there. I've got mine set up as a class so it just automatically goes. but you've got all of these information links and resources that you can go into. This is their reference sheet. I failed to mention that earlier.
The students will get a copy of this on test day. And I let the students use their reference sheet. It's long. It's five pages. Six five or six pages.
and they can use this sheet on their test questions and on their performance exam. So, they'll get a copy of this on test day and they can use this throughout the entire time when they're practicing taking practice AP questions, whether you're using code HS or the College Board. as long as they know, it's important to know what each instruction means and how it works.
Otherwise, the reference sheet's not going to work for them if they don't understand what each part means. but it goes through all of the different conditions and if blocks and loops and the different directions and areas that could help them out on questions. And then if we just go back here. So then if you would we would go into the first one these are all activities that you can go through. For example, if I choose 12.4 these are going to be questions on changing bits. And so these are there's not a lot. There's usually anywhere from three to five practice questions the kids can go through and practice getting used to those types of questions and how they have to critically think with those questions and not trick themselves. that's the biggest part. Some of the sometimes the students are looking at the questions and it's easier than what they're trying to look at because they've prepped themselves for okay this is going to be really hard but it they can't have an easy question on here. This has got to be a different answer. And so that's one of the biggest struggles with my students as well. So that's a little bit about the review course.
Continuing on with the review topics, the multiple choice questions, they've updated those. The reading the reader bank questions are also in that group. Let's see. I got too many links open here to find those reader bank questions for you. I'll close some of these. All right. So, I can find them in several different places, but I'm going to click on the tools in the toolbox and go down here to resources.
and we need to be in the right class. So with these resources, this is where you're going to find a lot of the different resources that are available and for that AP CS principles depending on their topics. These are algorithms. the different challenges.
Here's programming with Python. And so when you go into these these this is the pro version. There's some for the free version. but it covers and gives you all kinds of activities and additional materials and resources that are good to help the kids practice and get used to computing innovations and what it is that they're looking for.
There's a lot out here. So, you kind of want to go in and just take a peek, you know, what what is on the AP resources.
So, if we click here, it's going to show us all kinds of links right here.
This is a good page to have. it has your college board information, a link to AP classroom, the course in the syllabus, both for JavaScript and Python, and then some midterm questions and some final questions. Digital portfolio information. If you're brand new to APCSP and you need to complete the course audit, that is also there.
The performance task, and then they've added the cyber security. We don't need that one right now. but there's the principles part for cyber security for that cyber security section in there. And so that's a good resource page I keep handy. My next favorite for helping the kids review is the code HS question of the day. As soon as they start releasing the questions of the day, I post it. We use Canvas as our LMS. So, I post that question of the day on the LMS and you can set it up as a teacher to have it emailed to you every day or you can also have the students subscribe and they will they can go in there and subscribe to that and have that emailed every day. Otherwise, if you're in code HS, you can scroll down on the left and underneath curriculum, you'll see QOTD. And if you click on that, you're going to get the questions of the day.
And so, here's the APCSP questions of the day. And my students know they come in right away. And even if I don't put it out there, they're automatically going to code HS and pulling up the questions of the day cuz sometimes I forget. So here was today's question of the day.
And since it's April 1st, down at the bottom, we don't see the other ones, but you can still access them by using these arrows at the top. This will take you to March. So here are all of March's questions of the day. and you can just click on them and then the students can can go in. So they still have access to if they missed anything they can go back and take a look at that. So I really like the questions of the day and we start with those right away even though if we haven't covered the topic they'll look at it and try to figure it out and then when we do cover that oh yeah we'll go back and then they can look and see you know what happened. So, because these are all random, but they they do stay with kind of I'm feeling that they're staying with the flow of how code HS the curriculum they kind of follow follow that and now they're getting to the to the review cuz the boolean was I think today's it was a boolean question was today's and that's way back in the beginning section. Charnell, I'm gonna interrupt you. We have a question about the question of the day. Robert asks, when you say you post it to Canvas, how are you just copying and pasting it or how are how are you transferring that to CA to to your LMS? Yeah. So, I go to the link for the question of the day and I'll just copy this link here and I'll paste the link into Canvas. so, I'll just copy this the link to the question of the day and paste it in there as a link. you can do that with Google Classroom as well.
So, they just click on the link. the students do need to be set up in code HS I believe and so I just have them go in and register for the the class.
I've got a class for my courses. I've got my AP principles class here and so they're all signed up and that lets them in with that link.
Perfect. Yeah. And we had another question. Can you see how students do on the question of the day? And and and yes, you you can see how your students are performing on those. Yeah.
I just I just stand I've only got a small class, so I stand behind them and and look at them. But you can see how they're how they're doing on those questions of the day. All right, are we good?
Okay, the next one is the AP reader question bank. And this little video shows you how that you can access quiz question quiz questions in the question bank by going to the toolbox and again that toolbox is right up here and you'll want to view full toolbox and you can get them this way.
or you can click on toolbox and it is where'd it go? Why am I missing it? Well, it's there. I'm just not seeing it. There's the hub. I couldn't find it.
and so you're going to see all of that in here in that hub. Here's your principles. Here's your question of the day. This is an empty sandbox if they want to practice writing some code.
And here here's another step that tells you where you can find and how you can access and how you can filter those questions the AP question bank since there are so many there. you can filter them down and also you can go through and you know you can have a a quiz of the day maybe or you can use these as a question your own question of the day out of the bank questions or put just a few together to get them used to the questions.
that question format or style so they're used to it. There are several codes practice problems that are available for students and that again there is a link on the bottom of the slide that will take you to several different practice problems.
codes practice this is our FAQ where we can find out if we have questions for us but this is just for coding. So, if they have Python questions, they can select the Python tab. And these are great for going through and reviewing the how to pro how to process the code or how to write the code. And then there's JavaScript as well in there. The Scratch, I have my students go to the ScratchMit.edu edu site. Some other resources that I also use would be AP classroom. There are practice exams out there for AP classroom and I want to say 2021, 2020, 2018 are all out in the AP classroom.
that both the FRQs and multiplechoice questions and remember anything from AP classroom that you use cannot be graded because that's a that's a policy of the college board. So you're we're not allowed to give grades for these. It's all you know formative assessment and practice for the kids. The AP daily videos are awesome. Once we get past a certain point, I start assigning those like second semester, first semester, we just go along and work out things. And as we get into second semester, because it's been so long ago, then we start going back to the beginning. what I like to do is I ask my students to tell me, go through and look at all of the units, look at all of the lessons that you did, which ones stand out to you as something that you struggled with, couldn't remember. And then we look at the videos and then we have quiz questions on those videos. or I might go find other supplemental assignments and that deals with those the course exam. the description book that is on the College Board site it is very good with that as well. There's some practice tests in there as well.
So you can use those to guide the students and practice. students like those the videos they say they really help them a lot and they can watch those at home as they go through and do their practicing for that. test and right now my students, we are doing their performance task right now. and so we're going to have some good review days afterward. It just depends on your group on where you're at in the curriculum. So, a quick rundown of what I do for my students to help prep them for the exam. Yeah, Charnell, do you want to give us like maybe one or two awesome ideas? We have about four minutes left. Oh, sure. Oh, let me go back. Well, I'll just stay on this page.
It's not I don't want to click again.
It's going to go Well, I just use the arrow keys. It's way easier. There we go.
the College Board has the the AP classroom if we're focusing on that. You can go through and filter. They've got a huge question bank and so you can filter in AP classroom different FRQs and there's also sample projects the performance tasks out there. So this is what I did in March. I found some on the AP classroom site and directed the students to those in AP classroom. Everybody has an account and so they're out there on the student pages where they can look at the the program. They can look at the video.
They can see what they scored. And so going through that scoring process on the performance task is important to the students. it's so they know exactly what this what the judges are looking for, what those readers are looking for and knowing the difference between a purpose and a function with these performance tasks is huge part of the FRQ. But that's one thing that I feel is just as important as practicing the multiple choice questions is letting them look. and they've got different ones out there on the classroom site. anywhere's from a a score one to a score six. So students can see what a score six out of six, that's how many points the the performance task is. They can see that, okay, this is a four out of six. This is a six out of six. This is what I need to do. or they can look at a one is one out of six and see. so they can compare those with their performance task and showing them. So it sounds like you spend quite a bit of time in class looking at worked examples for those FRQs and seeing how they were graded and and asking students to analyze that pretty closely. Yep. Awesome. Yeah, we had a question from Audrey asking about how you get students prepared. So glad to have that little tidbit of help for Audrey there.
we do have another question from Robert. He says, "When you say the reader questions, you don't mean reading an article, right? It's a reading a chart or a short paragraph and answering questions." no, the AP reader questions are Let's see.
I might have to go back to that link.
[Music] they're like from the they're just they're standard multiplechoice questions. I'm not sure why I can't find it here.
Oh, why I was in the wrong spot. Did this change, Stephanie?
I I'm not sure. I am not familiar enough with the AP resources, unfortunately. How about the green there? Is that is that what you're the Charell? What are you looking for? The AP reader questions the the multiple choice.
Yes, I can go to this this way. this is the problem bank.
there's problem banks out here where they have certain problems and goals and then they they're looking at coding. So this would be more of the FRQ's and there's this also links us to the quiz question bank.
and so here's this is one way to get to it. the CSP readers question bank is just a long way and you can select your programming language that you're looking for. So if I hit Python and you know your difficulty in questions, if I wanted easy questions learning objectives depending on what learning objective in that curriculum that you wanted, it tells you in the lessons which one you can look for.
So I'm just picking some. coming up if we hit filter and I hit one that's nothing.
Well, that's all right. We appreciate you showing us where to go and and all the stuff. But yeah, that's the long route to get there, but it gets you there.
Awesome. Well, let's wrap this up if you wouldn't mind. let's go to the other resources. you all have access to the slide deck. So, I know that we're we're feeling a little a want for time here. That is always the case when we have our fabulous teacher trainers and all of their wealth of knowledge and experience with us. We always want more time with them. So, if you are feeling like we are crunched for time and your answer and your questions maybe aren't quite answered, remember you do have access to this slide deck that Charnell's been working through. you will get a recording of this presentation via email and you can always ask questions of the codes team on our site. So Charnell if you'll go to the webinar feedback slide and we will ask you all to just give us a little feedback on how we did today. We appreciate your time and we want to make sure that we are working in service of you and your needs. So if we have met your needs today, if we have left something out that you really wanted to know about, please let us know in our webinar feedback survey. And next slide please, Charnell.
I will also drop one more time a link to the attendance certificate of completion in the chat. And then if you'll go another slide, please. The last spring event we have coming up here at Codys is our virtual teacher conference. Charnell, if you'll go to the next slide, we have a fancier, prettier one for to show off. it is Saturday, April 26th, 2025, and we welcome you to come to this free event, a half day of learning, and we would welcome and and be very happy to see you there. So, thank you so much for being here. Rey, if you have I see you have a raised hand. If you have a question, go ahead and put it in the chat for me and I'll stay on just another minute and hopefully we can get your question answered. Thank you all so much for being here today. we appreciate your time. We appreciate your feedback and all the questions, the great questions you asked. And we so much appreciate Charnell and having her here to answer those tough questions and like I said share her experience and the success that her students are finding with this APCSP course. So thank you so much. It was great being here with you all. See you later. Thanks Charell. Bye.
So, if you have questions for us attendees, you can click on the Q&A icon. Mine is on the bottom of my Zoom window.
So, if you have questions you would like to get answered by Charnell or myself or my partner Leanne, please put your questions in the Q&A. I will be putting links into the chat so that you have access to those and we don't lose anybody's questions in a very busy chat space. So, you have access to the Q&A today. All right.
Charnell, if you'll go to the next slide for me, please. And if you would like to introduce yourself also.
Hi everyone, and welcome. thank you for taking your time out of the end of the school day to join in on this AP CS principles breakdown. I'm Charnell Woolage. I teach a buffet of classes at Lincoln High School in Sou Falls, South Dakota. and AP principles and CSA graphics, sports broadcasting, video game design, and I know I'm missing another one. oh, programming one in there. I've been teaching for 34 years. Not all here at Lincoln. 27 of those are at Lincoln. So, my first AP class, my first year here was that C++. So, I was doing APCS A for A and B and then they changed it for quite a while. and then I really enjoyed the principal. So, I'm glad they brought a second class out. I I do like this class.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for that introduction and we are absolutely so lucky to be here with you and have all of your years of experience and great teaching strategies available.
So, thank you so much for being here.
And if you'll go to the next slide, what we are going to cover today is a breakdown of the APCSP exam so you can know exactly what to expect and get your students that the dates and the format and all the pertinent logistical information around the exam. Then we will talk about codes review resources that are available to you. our you know our curriculum is always free and so we will show you lots of great stuff you have access to and Charnell will share some of her other strategies and resources that she's used in the classroom over the years and then we'll talk test day exam strategies. So next slide please. Again, just a reminder, if you have any questions, you can participate in the Q&A section and keep an eye out on the chat as well for links as I pop those into the chat. I have already put the slide deck link in the chat. So, if you have you will have access to this and and we will follow up with other resources as well. Next slide, please.
So, I'll give you a moment here to open up that slide deck if you want to follow along. I will also ask you to please log in to your code HS account. And if you don't have a code HS account, we would love for you to sign up for one so that you can follow along with all of these fabulous resources that Charnell is going to walk us through today. So, you'll want to either sign into your codes account or sign up for a a a free account here real quick so that we can follow along with Charnell as she navigates the site. So, next slide, please. We also want to make sure that you get a certificate of completion for joining us here today. We again appreciate your time and your attentiveness and you know even sharing your ideas with us and so for your efforts and your time we would love to make sure that you get a little nod of thank you with a certificate of completion. So do please sign into the code platform first then click the certificate of completion link that I have put in the chat and that will just pop up a screen that says thank you for attending. That's all you need to do and a follow-up email will come with your certificate. Charel, next slide, please.
So, I do want to just tell you a little bit about CodeHS. Like I mentioned, we are a free curriculum for middle school, high school, and now most recently elementary school. we have also have curriculum for elementary school is not free unfortunately, but always free middle school and high school curriculum. And besides our fantastic standardsbased curriculum and our other high-quality instructional materials, we also offer professional development and a full suite of tools.
Some of them traditional LMS features like you will be familiar with and others specific to computer science and our codes site. So, next slide please, Charnell. some of those LMS features that you might want to check out, are things like our grade book, our feedback, conversation tools that we have with students, announcements tools. So, like I said, definitely things that you're already familiar with working in other edtech platforms and other LMS systems. but ours are specific to computer science.
all web- based, no additional downloads or plugins needed to use our curriculum.
So, we hope that you check out the curriculum and the tools and let us know if you're enjoying it. So, now I will hand it over to Charnell. I think I have taken up enough time here. We want to hear about CSP. So, take it away.
All right. So, AP computer science principles. we're going to be talking about the exam, as Stephanie stated, and some strategies. So, when talking about the exam this year, last year it was, I believe it was last year, it was changed to 120 minutes. It used to be 2 hours and two hours. It's a two-part test. There are 70 multiplechoice questions and then there's a performance task that students create. And with the AI stuff that happened last year, that's changed and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But the 70 multiplechoice questions is 70% of the students score.
They get 120 minutes for their multiplechoice questions and that consists of 57 single select multiple choice questions. Five single select with a reading passage and those are usually together in a set. So they'll have a reading passage and then five multiplechoice questions that all have to do with that reading passage. And it's usually about a computing innovation.
of some sort. And then there are eight multiple select multiplechoice questions where they need to select two answers. And that's one that I usually have to practice the most because students forget that a lot of they forget and read misread and don't select two multiplechoice answers for for those. And those aren't all together.
They're kind of sprinkled.
but it they do let you know on the test that it says select two. The breakdown are five big ideas. And if you notice big idea number three is the one that has the most exam weight.
That's 30 to 35% of the weight. And then it goes down to the impact of computing and would be the next part.
The rest are pretty close. data is huge and that goes with all of the areas and then the smallest part is creative development that 10 to 13%. And these are in your multiplechoice areas.
All right, as I said earlier that there are two parts to the AP test. The first one is the multiple choice with two with 120 minutes. The second one is the create performance task and this task is 30% of the student score, 10% from code and 20% from two written questions. So, they've got an F FRQ based on their performance task. They have to know exactly what their code is doing, what the function and the purpose is of their game or their program that they developed. And so, they get to develop a computer program of their choice. And they can use the software of their choice, Scratch, Python, Java, JavaScript.
something that they're used to. I focus on Scratch and Python in my class, but I've had students want to try it in Java and then they turn around and end up back in Scratch. But they get nine hours of inclass time to work on it. And so I have all of the students that those nine hours are all like the nine days that we work on it in class and then the rest they can work on it outside of class or if you've got the extra time they can complete it in in the classroom.
But the key thing is once that testing time starts the teacher cannot help them with anything. They just basically become the facilitator and watch that. So once your students have started the official administration of that create PT, they can't ask assistance in writing, revision, making corrections. And that's what's hard because I've had students turn around and Mrs. Woolage, what does this look like? Can you tell me on this?
And and you want to automatically help them and sometimes it'll slip, but you you have to let them go with their program.
And as they're going through the process, especially those nine days, the first nine days when they're writing their program, coming up with their ideas and putting it together, I have them come up with their ideas before the nine days start so they at least have a couple of ideas for their programming and then they can start typing out their and coding their program. They can collaborate with their partners.
and they can ask their partners for help, but it has to be all of their work and it needs to be submitted by that student that's creating the work.
If they do use outside sources, it needs to be cited in their comments for that specific area of code that was used.
include in their course content, they have to include screen captures of their program code. And so at the end when they're all finished with their performance task and they're getting ready to do the submission, there are student guides, student handouts.
those student handouts from the AP college or the AP classroom. I give those to my students at the beginning.
Here's the handbook. Here's all of the guidelines and they have to read them and sign off that they've read them and because that's when their question and answer time needs to be. It's like, okay, do we have to do this, this, this?
and it lists out they need to have the purpose, the function, they have to have a list, they have to have a procedure, and it tells them exactly what they need. When they get finished, that's when they're going to do the screen capture. And any course content or comments that were included in the program needs to be removed. Their programs cannot be personalized in any way. So, no names, no initials. it can't be personalized. And then they make their video of there's like 59 60 seconds of their video. I should say 59 because a student last year had it at 60 and it wouldn't submit. So, we had to redo it for 59 seconds and then they submitted.
And once they have that they revise their work once they've completed and submitted as a final and they submit it in that AP digital portfolio. so down at the bottom of the slide there is a link that takes you to the student handouts. and this is what the students receive. And this is all on the College Board site. And it tells them exactly what they need and the definitions of the what a list is, what the collection is, and then it goes through the video, what they can and cannot have for their video, what type of format it needs to be, no more than one minute in length, and no more than 30 megabytes in file size. And that is that's particular because it won't upload into the digital portfolio if it does not meet these specifications. The final part, their F FRQ part is the personalized project reference. And this is what they can fill out.
all of they need to fill out this part right here is what they will receive on exam day to answer their F FRQ questions. the AP advisor will have copies. We don't they can't carry anything in with them. So the adviser there will have copies for them of their project and so they'll get that when they take the exam.
some other tools and this is why partially the reason for some of the changes in the principal's exam is because of chat GPT or AI being used. And so what the College Board has done is they're allowing students to use AI tools as a supplementary resource, but they have to write in their comments that that code was from AI. And the most important thing with this is they need to understand how that code works. What's the function of that code? how do we fix it if it doesn't work?
but they can use AI tools as a resource, but they need to check those guidelines and make sure they've got everything cited that they need. They also need to be aware that AI tools may not always be correct with their with their codes and they could be inefficient and biased and the students it's the students responsibility to review and understand that code. So I don't I mean the it's in the guidelines it's in the student hands out that they can use it but I really don't even mention it. I've had students say, "I'm not even going to use I'm not even going to touch chat GPT. I'm just going to go for this and do it on my own." And that's great because I they like to it's easy to go to chat GPT and type a question in for the students to ask.
and so keeping an eye on the the students, I've noticed, yep, my my AI users have not used it in the classroom anyway. but they do just they need to know that they have to be prepared to explain their code in detail at the end of that for their FRQ in that exam. and they'll get red flagged and set it. they the judges won't even look at it if it's if they can tell it's AI or if it's code used from like code HS or outside sources that's not given credit to. So that part gets a little sticky. and there's a link here that takes you to the 2425 guidelines on preparing for that with the AI tools.
All right, up next, the exam dates. Thursday, May 15th is the big date for the multiplechoice or for the principal test, 12 noon your local time.
The create task submission is April 30th, 2025. However, I told my students April 28th is the the hard deadline. but my first deadline is April 24th. because everybody I think last year I'm not sure how many students 100 took the AP principles test but if all of those students wait till April 30th Eastern time is also another note that you need to make with your students. So I say okay it needs to be by this time this date. it could get jammed up and then they their test might not get uploaded on time to that digital portfolio. So sometimes last year worked really well when I had my students just upload all all their parts right during class. So if they were at home trying to do it like the year before I remembered kids were texting sending me emails that it was stuck or wouldn't go. So last year I had them do it right during class and that worked really well. they uploaded everything and everything was smooth and you could just see the I have it all uploaded now I don't have to worry about it. So then our extra time once this task was over was focused on okay now let's go back and start taking a look for the multiple choice questions and reviewing those questions. But like I said, I would adjust this April 30th date so that the students have time in case of technical issues. I have had students in the past have technical issues and I would have the I would let our advisor know and then he would contact the AP he or she would contact the AP board and let them know. And one time I was able to go in after the deadline the student because it just would not it was bogged down each time. that was the flexibility a couple years ago. I'm not sure if they keep that flexibility now or not. Getting into some code HS materials for AP CSP. There is the hub. And this hub is amazing. I'll just click into it. And it's going to show all of the AP principles courses. So, we have the JavaScript, the cyber security, and the Python course. And it shows all of the if you need a computer science pathway, that's down at the bottom.
let's see. My review must be on a different page. we'll go on to talking about the OHS resources. So we have incourse review and then there's an an AP principles review course. the AP reader question bank code HS practice and question of the day. These are all some resources that we're going to talk about here in the next slides. So our first one is incourse practice.
within course practice there are questions if you have the code HS whether it's the Python the JavaScript the the code HS class there's going to be questions in there for you to practice on with your students and so throughout the course they've got questions after the units this is one that I use all the time. The incourse practice exam, the AP exam review, then there's the preparation. And this review is a fulllength practice exam. It's available in the JavaScript and the Python course and it's aligned and so it it contains all 70 questions, 70 practice questions for this review. a little bit about the review course. I'm going to click this link here.
And so here's the review course in code HS and there are you see that there's a section one and then the section two is on the performance task and then they have the reader question bank. And so all of these areas right here give you several wh that link. The preview link must not work there. I've got mine set up as a class so it just automatically goes. but you've got all of these information links and resources that you can go into. This is their reference sheet. I failed to mention that earlier.
The students will get a copy of this on test day. And I let the students use their reference sheet. It's long. It's five pages. Six five or six pages.
and they can use this sheet on their test questions and on their performance exam. So, they'll get a copy of this on test day and they can use this throughout the entire time when they're practicing taking practice AP questions, whether you're using code HS or the College Board. as long as they know, it's important to know what each instruction means and how it works.
Otherwise, the reference sheet's not going to work for them if they don't understand what each part means. but it goes through all of the different conditions and if blocks and loops and the different directions and areas that could help them out on questions. And then if we just go back here. So then if you would we would go into the first one these are all activities that you can go through. For example, if I choose 12.4 these are going to be questions on changing bits. And so these are there's not a lot. There's usually anywhere from three to five practice questions the kids can go through and practice getting used to those types of questions and how they have to critically think with those questions and not trick themselves. that's the biggest part. Some of the sometimes the students are looking at the questions and it's easier than what they're trying to look at because they've prepped themselves for okay this is going to be really hard but it they can't have an easy question on here. This has got to be a different answer. And so that's one of the biggest struggles with my students as well. So that's a little bit about the review course.
Continuing on with the review topics, the multiple choice questions, they've updated those. The reading the reader bank questions are also in that group. Let's see. I got too many links open here to find those reader bank questions for you. I'll close some of these. All right. So, I can find them in several different places, but I'm going to click on the tools in the toolbox and go down here to resources.
and we need to be in the right class. So with these resources, this is where you're going to find a lot of the different resources that are available and for that AP CS principles depending on their topics. These are algorithms. the different challenges.
Here's programming with Python. And so when you go into these these this is the pro version. There's some for the free version. but it covers and gives you all kinds of activities and additional materials and resources that are good to help the kids practice and get used to computing innovations and what it is that they're looking for.
There's a lot out here. So, you kind of want to go in and just take a peek, you know, what what is on the AP resources.
So, if we click here, it's going to show us all kinds of links right here.
This is a good page to have. it has your college board information, a link to AP classroom, the course in the syllabus, both for JavaScript and Python, and then some midterm questions and some final questions. Digital portfolio information. If you're brand new to APCSP and you need to complete the course audit, that is also there.
The performance task, and then they've added the cyber security. We don't need that one right now. but there's the principles part for cyber security for that cyber security section in there. And so that's a good resource page I keep handy. My next favorite for helping the kids review is the code HS question of the day. As soon as they start releasing the questions of the day, I post it. We use Canvas as our LMS. So, I post that question of the day on the LMS and you can set it up as a teacher to have it emailed to you every day or you can also have the students subscribe and they will they can go in there and subscribe to that and have that emailed every day. Otherwise, if you're in code HS, you can scroll down on the left and underneath curriculum, you'll see QOTD. And if you click on that, you're going to get the questions of the day.
And so, here's the APCSP questions of the day. And my students know they come in right away. And even if I don't put it out there, they're automatically going to code HS and pulling up the questions of the day cuz sometimes I forget. So here was today's question of the day.
And since it's April 1st, down at the bottom, we don't see the other ones, but you can still access them by using these arrows at the top. This will take you to March. So here are all of March's questions of the day. and you can just click on them and then the students can can go in. So they still have access to if they missed anything they can go back and take a look at that. So I really like the questions of the day and we start with those right away even though if we haven't covered the topic they'll look at it and try to figure it out and then when we do cover that oh yeah we'll go back and then they can look and see you know what happened. So, because these are all random, but they they do stay with kind of I'm feeling that they're staying with the flow of how code HS the curriculum they kind of follow follow that and now they're getting to the to the review cuz the boolean was I think today's it was a boolean question was today's and that's way back in the beginning section. Charnell, I'm gonna interrupt you. We have a question about the question of the day. Robert asks, when you say you post it to Canvas, how are you just copying and pasting it or how are how are you transferring that to CA to to your LMS? Yeah. So, I go to the link for the question of the day and I'll just copy this link here and I'll paste the link into Canvas. so, I'll just copy this the link to the question of the day and paste it in there as a link. you can do that with Google Classroom as well.
So, they just click on the link. the students do need to be set up in code HS I believe and so I just have them go in and register for the the class.
I've got a class for my courses. I've got my AP principles class here and so they're all signed up and that lets them in with that link.
Perfect. Yeah. And we had another question. Can you see how students do on the question of the day? And and and yes, you you can see how your students are performing on those. Yeah.
I just I just stand I've only got a small class, so I stand behind them and and look at them. But you can see how they're how they're doing on those questions of the day. All right, are we good?
Okay, the next one is the AP reader question bank. And this little video shows you how that you can access quiz question quiz questions in the question bank by going to the toolbox and again that toolbox is right up here and you'll want to view full toolbox and you can get them this way.
or you can click on toolbox and it is where'd it go? Why am I missing it? Well, it's there. I'm just not seeing it. There's the hub. I couldn't find it.
and so you're going to see all of that in here in that hub. Here's your principles. Here's your question of the day. This is an empty sandbox if they want to practice writing some code.
And here here's another step that tells you where you can find and how you can access and how you can filter those questions the AP question bank since there are so many there. you can filter them down and also you can go through and you know you can have a a quiz of the day maybe or you can use these as a question your own question of the day out of the bank questions or put just a few together to get them used to the questions.
that question format or style so they're used to it. There are several codes practice problems that are available for students and that again there is a link on the bottom of the slide that will take you to several different practice problems.
codes practice this is our FAQ where we can find out if we have questions for us but this is just for coding. So, if they have Python questions, they can select the Python tab. And these are great for going through and reviewing the how to pro how to process the code or how to write the code. And then there's JavaScript as well in there. The Scratch, I have my students go to the ScratchMit.edu edu site. Some other resources that I also use would be AP classroom. There are practice exams out there for AP classroom and I want to say 2021, 2020, 2018 are all out in the AP classroom.
that both the FRQs and multiplechoice questions and remember anything from AP classroom that you use cannot be graded because that's a that's a policy of the college board. So you're we're not allowed to give grades for these. It's all you know formative assessment and practice for the kids. The AP daily videos are awesome. Once we get past a certain point, I start assigning those like second semester, first semester, we just go along and work out things. And as we get into second semester, because it's been so long ago, then we start going back to the beginning. what I like to do is I ask my students to tell me, go through and look at all of the units, look at all of the lessons that you did, which ones stand out to you as something that you struggled with, couldn't remember. And then we look at the videos and then we have quiz questions on those videos. or I might go find other supplemental assignments and that deals with those the course exam. the description book that is on the College Board site it is very good with that as well. There's some practice tests in there as well.
So you can use those to guide the students and practice. students like those the videos they say they really help them a lot and they can watch those at home as they go through and do their practicing for that. test and right now my students, we are doing their performance task right now. and so we're going to have some good review days afterward. It just depends on your group on where you're at in the curriculum. So, a quick rundown of what I do for my students to help prep them for the exam. Yeah, Charnell, do you want to give us like maybe one or two awesome ideas? We have about four minutes left. Oh, sure. Oh, let me go back. Well, I'll just stay on this page.
It's not I don't want to click again.
It's going to go Well, I just use the arrow keys. It's way easier. There we go.
the College Board has the the AP classroom if we're focusing on that. You can go through and filter. They've got a huge question bank and so you can filter in AP classroom different FRQs and there's also sample projects the performance tasks out there. So this is what I did in March. I found some on the AP classroom site and directed the students to those in AP classroom. Everybody has an account and so they're out there on the student pages where they can look at the the program. They can look at the video.
They can see what they scored. And so going through that scoring process on the performance task is important to the students. it's so they know exactly what this what the judges are looking for, what those readers are looking for and knowing the difference between a purpose and a function with these performance tasks is huge part of the FRQ. But that's one thing that I feel is just as important as practicing the multiple choice questions is letting them look. and they've got different ones out there on the classroom site. anywhere's from a a score one to a score six. So students can see what a score six out of six, that's how many points the the performance task is. They can see that, okay, this is a four out of six. This is a six out of six. This is what I need to do. or they can look at a one is one out of six and see. so they can compare those with their performance task and showing them. So it sounds like you spend quite a bit of time in class looking at worked examples for those FRQs and seeing how they were graded and and asking students to analyze that pretty closely. Yep. Awesome. Yeah, we had a question from Audrey asking about how you get students prepared. So glad to have that little tidbit of help for Audrey there.
we do have another question from Robert. He says, "When you say the reader questions, you don't mean reading an article, right? It's a reading a chart or a short paragraph and answering questions." no, the AP reader questions are Let's see.
I might have to go back to that link.
[Music] they're like from the they're just they're standard multiplechoice questions. I'm not sure why I can't find it here.
Oh, why I was in the wrong spot. Did this change, Stephanie?
I I'm not sure. I am not familiar enough with the AP resources, unfortunately. How about the green there? Is that is that what you're the Charell? What are you looking for? The AP reader questions the the multiple choice.
Yes, I can go to this this way. this is the problem bank.
there's problem banks out here where they have certain problems and goals and then they they're looking at coding. So this would be more of the FRQ's and there's this also links us to the quiz question bank.
and so here's this is one way to get to it. the CSP readers question bank is just a long way and you can select your programming language that you're looking for. So if I hit Python and you know your difficulty in questions, if I wanted easy questions learning objectives depending on what learning objective in that curriculum that you wanted, it tells you in the lessons which one you can look for.
So I'm just picking some. coming up if we hit filter and I hit one that's nothing.
Well, that's all right. We appreciate you showing us where to go and and all the stuff. But yeah, that's the long route to get there, but it gets you there.
Awesome. Well, let's wrap this up if you wouldn't mind. let's go to the other resources. you all have access to the slide deck. So, I know that we're we're feeling a little a want for time here. That is always the case when we have our fabulous teacher trainers and all of their wealth of knowledge and experience with us. We always want more time with them. So, if you are feeling like we are crunched for time and your answer and your questions maybe aren't quite answered, remember you do have access to this slide deck that Charnell's been working through. you will get a recording of this presentation via email and you can always ask questions of the codes team on our site. So Charnell if you'll go to the webinar feedback slide and we will ask you all to just give us a little feedback on how we did today. We appreciate your time and we want to make sure that we are working in service of you and your needs. So if we have met your needs today, if we have left something out that you really wanted to know about, please let us know in our webinar feedback survey. And next slide please, Charnell.
I will also drop one more time a link to the attendance certificate of completion in the chat. And then if you'll go another slide, please. The last spring event we have coming up here at Codys is our virtual teacher conference. Charnell, if you'll go to the next slide, we have a fancier, prettier one for to show off. it is Saturday, April 26th, 2025, and we welcome you to come to this free event, a half day of learning, and we would welcome and and be very happy to see you there. So, thank you so much for being here. Rey, if you have I see you have a raised hand. If you have a question, go ahead and put it in the chat for me and I'll stay on just another minute and hopefully we can get your question answered. Thank you all so much for being here today. we appreciate your time. We appreciate your feedback and all the questions, the great questions you asked. And we so much appreciate Charnell and having her here to answer those tough questions and like I said share her experience and the success that her students are finding with this APCSP course. So thank you so much. It was great being here with you all. See you later. Thanks Charell. Bye.
