Getting Started Teaching AP CSP

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Vancouver. I bet it's beautiful right now. I've never been. It's on my to-do list. Hopefully next summer.
Good morning, Mark.
Georgia. We have a lot of friends from Georgia.
It's cool. It's a nice day. It's I'm down here in Texas and Sugarland and we're going to maybe hit triple digits today. Hopefully not. Crossing my fingers we do not.
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Good morning everybody. Glad to have you.
Glad to have you here today.
North Carolina. In my mind, you guys had the perfect weather. Like the best of both worlds. One day I'll move there when old and retired.
One day. One day.
Welcome to getting started teaching APCSP at principal's course, which we all love because it can be taught in any language that you choose. today you're going to be led with our teacher trainer, Miss Danielle. A little bit about me. I am with CodeHS as you can see. And I am in Houston. Go Astros. No haters in the room, please. And I've been with CodeHS for just a short time now, but I've been using the platform for about five years. So I've seen the growth and progression. I've taught CSP myself for three years, and I've seen the change with College Board from the previous to now. Danielle will be our expert in the room, but Leanne and I will be in the Q&A to support you. If you have a specific question, please answer in the Q&A. Please put your question in the Q&A. If you just have kind of have like general information or general ideas or shout outs you want to say, put that in the chat. But Leanne and I will be in your Q&A to kind of give you answer questions that you may have as we move forward throughout the presentation today.
let's Danielle, will you are you going to want to share your screen for the PowerPoint since you're going to move forward with your slides or do you want me to do it?
Can't I thought I was sharing. Am I not anymore?
I only see you. Okay. Wait, I'm sorry. I was sharing. Oh, no worries. No, you are. You are sharing your screen, Kristen. Have to. There we go. I apologize. Okay, I clicked off.
But yes, continue to put those questions in the Q&A and Leanne and I will be there to support you. You can also do the little raise hand if you have just kind of a general idea that you want to share with the whole to kind of help everybody move forward in their knowledge and skills.
So, you do need a code account. So, please take a moment to go in and sign up if you do not have one. You can get a free account here at cods.comsignup.
And then let me kind of tell you a little bit about codes if you have not utilize the platform before. We are a comprehensive coding platform.
Everything computer science from elementary, middle school to high school. We provide everything webbased.
So there's nothing to download, nothing extra that you have to utilize. Is all online. And we provide the professional development as well as the software and the tools that you need from the lesson plans to the PDFs to the Google Docs to the solution codes for you as a teacher to help you move ahead with your knowledge as well.
And you can find instant feedback, instant submission support for your students and for yourself. And we continue to move forward with our grading and tracking tools for the teachers. You have real-time feedback.
you can see where your students are at if they've actually opened the open the assignment versus working on it and submitting it, which is that beautiful color coding dashboard that we have. But like I said, it's all web- based. No additional downloads or plugins needed because we all know how our lovely desktops start to slow down the more that we download on them and the more that our lovely students add extra plugins on their extensions.
So, okay, I'm going to pass this over to Danielle. let her kind of give you a description of what she's going to do for you today. So, take it over Danielle. It's all yours.
Hi, everyone. My name is Danielle Carr.
I am a high school computer science teacher in Northern Indiana. I teach at Lake Central High School. I've been teaching computer science for the past four years, maybe five. I don't know.
They start to blend together the longer you're in it. I actually have been using CODHS the entire time I've been teaching computer science. It was what I used to help teach myself. I'm actually an elementary teacher. I have a license to teach computers preschool through 12th grade. And when Indiana chose to make computer science a requirement and things like that, they said, "Oh, you have a computer license. That's your job." So I had to teach myself all about coding and all that stuff. So codes has been very helpful for me as a teacher to learn. and so I learned those first few years I learned with the students and now as I've gotten more and more comfortable with codes there's so many resources. So if you're new it's great. If you're advanced it's awesome too. So the APCS principles course can be taught in quite a few languages. we have JavaScript, Python, Roblox, and even a cyber security focus. the course that we're going to be looking closely at is in Python, and that's what I use to teach my students. but there are lots of courses. I'm very interested in the Roblox one. So, I'm plan on dabbling in that one sometime soon. But the Python one is what I have personally the most experience in.
So, the courses follow College Board's curriculum and framework. So those five big ideas and code HS lays it out in modules for you or units, however you want to think of those. they don't necessarily correspond with the five big ideas. So there isn't just five units, but it does align with the five big ideas. and then they have been updated since 2024. So they're current.
the Python module specifically, the Python program specifically has these module breakdowns. So, we start off assuming that the students have not had any programming experience period.
And so, we do an introduction to programming using Carol the dog. It's like Codys's mascot. And it is very much so very basic. It's almost take like converting from blocks to a typed language. For me personally, my students take a programming course in middle school. And so when they get to me, they've already actually done this Carol example. So I actually have the ability to just remove those lessons. So if you're someone who is a little more advanced, then you may be able to get rid of the Carol the Python or Carol the intro to programming and move straight into Python. But this is a really great way to introduce your students to programming concepts in an easier, simpler to manage way. And it's very visual with Carol the Dog. We'll take a look a little closer look in a little bit. then we have some projects where they get to experience painting and using artistic ideas and things like that with Carol the dog. Then you move straight into Python with the very basics like variables, inputs, things like that. And then we get more specific into control structures. So booleans, logical operators, things like that. Then we move even further into functions and parameters. So as you can tell the modules progress upon each other.
Then we all know for CS U principles that there is a performance task or a create task. And so there are implemented practices that you can do with your students. They can try them on their own. You can work with each other in class, things like that. So practicing making their own programming programs are very important. Then we move into data structure. So we talk about tpples and lists and how to use those because for the create task, it's required that students create lists and use those lists. So that's a very important unit. I spend a lot of time there. then we also have more of like the internet topics. As we know, majority of that test is a lot of how the internet works, how to make sure you're being safe and things like that.
and then again, we break up the what my students call the boring information, the internet and the digital information. They don't find that very fun and engaging. So, they break up that digital information with another practice performance task. then we move into the internet.
They do a short little project on the effects of the internet. We look at data, visualizing data and things like that. Then there's a project about data because on the AP exam there are there is a lot of questions using graphs and things like that and how to interpret them. And then they create another project. So there's quite a few projects about the impact of computing on society and things like that. And then there's actually a module to help you facilitate the performance task itself. and then once the students have completed the performance task in your class and submitted it on College Board and things like that, we move I move into reviewing for the AP exam. So there's a lovely review there. the creative development I end up not having a whole lot of time for that so I haven't really used it myself but it's more about creating using the interface and things like that. And then of course we also have a final for you.
So that was a lot did a lot of talking.
So are there any questions so far?
Yes. No. Maybe so.
No, no. Okay. then if you are looking for more content, let's say you are using Carol the dog, there are some extra puzzles. If you have students who are are catching on very quickly, but you're not ready as a whole class to move on from Carol, you can assign some extra resources. So, there's extra care puzzles. There's even challenge puzzles that they could do. then there's extra practice as well. there is a midterm. So if you are using this as a fullear course and you need to give a midterm, I have to give a midterm in my school. You can import that in midterm as well. And then this is web development. If you are interested in more of the web side, you can add content, but you can add content from any course from codes. I can show you in a little bit but my class for principles is not only AP it's also dual credit. So for the dual credit portion of my class they have to do web design. So I have imported into my principal course some of the modules from the web design course to cover those standards for myself. So it's very customizable and based on what you need.
Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and look at that first lesson, introduction to programming with Carol. the way our lessons are broken down is it starts with a video lecture. and then there are activities after. There is a check for understanding to make sure that they understood the content that was in the video. There's also an example where the kids can manipulate a completed exemplar project. And then there are exercises that the kids will have directions and they have to code what the directions say. And then sometimes there are challenge problems or debugging problems and things like that. And so that's how the lesson is broken down.
so I'm going to actually exit out and go into codes.
If you go to if you have never used code HS before and you click on my courses at the bottom, you can view the course catalog. and you can see if my computer will load. you can see all the courses that we have for principles.
You can type in principles like that.
You can use tags to find what you're looking for, specific grade levels. They also have all these states. It's amazing. You can search for what you are looking for. So we are looking at the AP computer science principles in Python.
And so you can add this to your courses.
and then you can create a section.
And so I have already created a section for us to look at. if you need your students to join the class, you can give them this link to sign up if they don't have an account and it will automatically have them join your course. or if your students have used codes in the past just this last part is the class code to join.
So if you go to the left hand side of your dashboard there is a under assignments you can click on assignments and it is loading and here are all of the modules I was discussing at the very beginning.
We're going to go ahead and take a closer look at the introduction to programming specifically 1.2 introduction to programming with Carol. Now, what's really cool are all the teacher resources that you have access to to help you with your planning and things like that. So, again, here is that video, the check for understanding and things like that. Over here on the right hand side, I have this little eye. I can view it like a student would see it. So, if I wanted to view the video, it's here. depending on how you choose to teach in your class, you can either play this video al together or you can assign that video for homework and you do the work together. It's very flexible and how you like to teach. they also My little bar is in the way. I'm sorry. Let me try to move that. I don't know if you can see my bar or not, but I can. down here. You can also have another way to navigate this way or if you're more comfortable in the platform itself, you can navigate towards the bottom of it.
So, there's the video. We move into the check for understanding. So, there are questions that go along with that video.
So, you know, it's multiple choice. We can test them out, check them. I typically do these questions together with my students. I'll have them turn and talk to the people around them, answer the questions themselves, and then we review them together.
there are the here is an example of the exercise. You can explore the exercise. So it's already completed.
It is a an exemplar example. So right now you can go ahead and click run and you can watch the dog do this code. See what it does. And then this is an opportunity for the kids to interact with it. And if I get rid of putball and I try to run it again, the dog will walk, but it didn't put the ball down. So, they can interact with this without affecting their grade.
Then you can move on to the pencils or the exercises and they are told to write a program to have Carol move the tennis ball and pick it up. So that on here on the right hand side here are the instructions. This is how it's supposed to end. And so if on run code they need to get to the ball and pick it up. So then they start working and coding in here. So these are more of like the assignments.
And then towards the end, this specific lesson has a debugging. So the program is complete, but there's a problem. So they need to search for the problem.
Okay. So this is what the students see.
What's really great is if they click submit and continue, it's an automatic grader. So it says, "Oops, you have a few problems. Take a look and try again." So they'll close. They need to fix what they have a mistake. And once they get it all right, it will blow out confetti and say, "Congratulations with a bunch of green check marks." So, it's automatically graded for you. You don't have to walk around or click on every student to grade it or it grades it for you.
if I go back to this view, you can access the teacher tools and they're on the right hand side here with this purple little button.
So, with the purple button, we have access now to what this lesson is about, the objectives. So if you are a a school that's required to pose standards or learning objectives, I can statements, however you call them, this is very very helpful. It's basically done for you. it lays out all of the activities that are in the course. So it's a different way to view that module. And then they're they give you the answer keys.
So if you are very uncomfortable, you're learning maybe a few days ahead of your students, the solutions are phenomenal.
I always have that. I've been teaching for so for four years now. I still have the answer key on one screen and working with the students on the other screen.
So don't feel like you know you're a bad teacher or you're you're terrible at coding or coding and things like that.
There are answer keys and I still use them. they also have vocabulary. So if you're a person who likes to have word walls in your classroom, this is very helpful as well.
And if you have the pro version of codes, you have access to offline activities. and so there are resources that are offline like worksheets. I tend to use those in my classroom as like homework assignments or if we get through a lesson very quickly, I'll pull that out and they can continue working on it in class. Those worksheets also have answer keys as well, so no worries about grading that.
moving on, they have planning notes for you, things to help you get prepared for this lesson. if you want your students to practice collaborating with each other, they have templates on notes and things like that. they also basically lay out how this lesson should work. So, if you have the pro version, you can complete the activity that they have first and then have them do talk to each other. Then they tell you what lessons to work in in what order and about how long it should take.
And then they have a closer.
with the pro version, with the pro version, you get video slides. So the videos that the students are watching get turned into PowerPoint slides. And as I have gotten more and more comfortable using code HS, I no longer play the videos in class. I use those for when my students are absent and I actually take the video slides myself and I teach the content to them.
it's a little break in the video lectures. The videos, however, on their own are amazing. but when you get more and more comfortable, sometimes the students want to see you up there and not the same person's voice all the time. and then they have discussion questions that you can use for the beginning of class with an answer. They also have questions that you could So, the beginning of class questions, those could be your bell ringers. the end of class questions could be your exit tickets.
And then they give you modifications.
So, students who are more advanced, you can have them go to an extra resource.
If you need modifications for students who need extra support, there are some ways to provide them with that support.
And there's even support for our English language learners. And then depending on your course down here, they have all the standards for you. I'm in Indiana, so here are my Indiana standards. But if you are in Georgia or Texas or North Carolina, they will have those standards listed for you. So that was a lot.
So are there any questions in that Q&A or in the chat?
No. I'm just that amazing. There's no way. I'm I'm answering we're ask answering a couple questions, but I think there's syllabus questions that we're answering in the background right now. So, do you want me to show how to get to the syllabus? yeah, you can you can show that really quick while we're answering these. That would be great.
Okay.
I have to remember myself.
So, if you go to the course catalog, this is one way you can get to it. you can view the syllabus from here.
There's many ways to navigate. Sometimes this is the fastest for me. I can preview this course by viewing the units and things like that. but if I want to view the syllabus, I can click right here and it will take you to the PDF of the syllabus that they have, which is so amazing. One for the AP audit because they're connected. So, when you have to do your AP audit, we'll talk about that a little later. this you can use this syllabus as your syllabus and you don't have to create your own. but here's the syllabus.
So, that's one way to get to it. Okay, I have so many tabs open.
All right, let's go back to the slideshow that I totally talked through.
oh, well, we're moving on to the course audit. So, your course audit must be authorized by College Board in order to gain access or keep access to materials that you'll have in AP classroom. and the only way to do that is through the AP course audit. codes is endorsed for APCSP.
so you can select their syllabus for your course audit and submit that and you will be approved because it is an approved textbook through codes.
if you are new, we do have some help walking you through that. if you are using coding or if you are already a a teacher who has submitted an audit before, your administrator can just renew your course using the same syllabus.
So, there's that.
we're going to talk a little bit more about specifically the AP exam. So the first part of the AP exam is the multiple choice. That usually happens in May. It is 70 multiple choice questions.
they get an hour and 20 minutes to take that test and it's about 70% of their exam score. The second part of the exam which happens in school in your classroom is the create performance task. it's about 30% of their exam score. So they are going to create a program in class. the recommended time used to be 10 hours and now I believe it went down to seven because the written response was removed from being done in class and now put into the after at the end of the multiple choice section. So there were a lot of issues at College Board with cheating and plagiarism and AI use and things like that. So they've decided the kids will create their programming class with these very spec specific details and then when they take the actual multiple choice exam they will answer questions about their code and based on how they answer those qu questions it helps college board determine if they actually know what they're doing or if they used AI and that's an easier way to determine if they know what's going on. but they create their program. I used code HS to create my students my students use code HS to create their project and it I think it is nine hours in class and they will submit their code in College Board. Then they need to create a a video that is a minute or less of their program actually running. And then they will create a personalized project reference where they'll take pictures of specific portions of their code to actually reference later when they're writing their written response.
There are two written response questions, but they do have like part A, part B, and things like that. and then we have the 60-minute end ofear course exam that helps prepare those students as well. see so here's a little bit more specifically in the multiple choice the types of questions we have 57 just regular multiple choice questions there are five questions where they need to read a passage and then answer the question about that and then there are eight select multiple options so select two two answers things like that the written response like I said there are two questions. but question two has three parts A, B and C. and so when we are practicing those performance tasks, I like to ask my students potential questions for each of these things. So talking about the program design, the function, what is the purpose of this program? What who is it helping? How is it helping them? Things like that. And then how did you create an algorithm? How did you create your function? How are you handling when someone makes a mistake or types something wrong in your program? Do you tell them to try again or do you ignore that? how are you using data? Like I said, lists are a big part of that performance task. So, how is this list being used? And how is that list being used that's making it easier in your program, not harder?
Like I said, they have to complete their program. and they record a a minute long video or less and then their reference sheet as well. That sheet typically will get printed for the students on the day of the exam so they can reference and remember what they coded.
Okay, I'll stop there. Any questions there?
Yes, actually this one just came up just as you said that. So it says this is a first year APCSP teacher. Okay.
Teaching high school math so far. So what are some strategies to be successful teacher using the codes platform? There's so much using the platform. What might be some successful strategies?
So for myself when so like I said I came from elementary so I wasn't even used to like high school students.
and I worked probably a week ahead of my students. and you know, now currently it's summer, so I would spend that time learning myself, but I actually went through the course as a student first. tried to work through all of the, examples and the exercises and, what questions I had when I was going through it. Those are the questions your students are going to have. And a lot it's it's it's totally okay to tell the kids, I actually don't know the answer to that question. I will get back to you or let's problem solve that question together. I can't tell you how many times I told the students, I have no idea. I didn't learn that yet. so let's learn it together. Can you find the answer? Let's Google together.
Things like that. it feels overwhelming but the students who are taking this class they really appreciate when the teacher is honest saying I don't know let's learn it together at least at my school they have I was so nervous coming into the high school level where I am no longer the smartest person in the room. When I'm in a room full of fifth graders I am the smartest person in the room. I don't have to worry about the content. I don't have to worry about, you know, anything. I moved into high school. One, they're like my size. They are big, scary, they talk back, all that stuff. And then on top of that, I was not the smartest person in the room. and so I think my very first year, halfway through, I was like, I don't know, you all know I'm only like one day ahead of you. And the kids were like, what? So, CodeHS really gave me a lot of confidence because I was doing the exact same exercises that they were.
I was just a day or two ahead. I don't know if that completely answers your question, but my personal opinion is to do the class as a student and then when you come into issues of for yourself, that's when you go and look at those teacher resources. This is the answer key. Can I figure out how they got from the beginning to the answer key and where are my mistakes? Make note of those because your kids will have the same ones.
Hopefully, that was a good enough answer. I'm trying my hardest.
We've also had some suggestions in in the chat too. You know, Mark just shared we have the option to be able to use alternative exercises in in you know to be able to reduce cheating as well. so being able So that helps them to do that. So if you can show them how to do alternative exercises that would be great. Yeah. So, I'm actually going to do it closer into the Python activities, not necessarily, Carol. so when you get into actually coding in Python or whatever language you choose, let's say you want more practice with your students or you caught them cheating or because the answers are available online and things like that.
we do have the option to use alternative assignments. So, you will find an exercise. you'll come over here to the three dots and then you can click remix and you can fork the exact assignment which means make a copy of it and you can edit it yourself or you can use an alternative assignment that they have.
So here's the original exercise and then they have two different alternatives. So they're changing the numbers and things like that so you can get extra practice.
So if you're like that was a really difficult coding project or coding exercise I want to practice that again starting from scratch you can assign those alternative assignments like that was that it yeah that one that and it helps to prevent cheating too using alternative assignments helps not only to help prevent cheating from the person next to you but also if you're finding something online as well because we have yes several different versions of things.
Yes. As well. So, yes. Which is very helpful. And then also his suggestion was also doing your own frequent quizzes and gamification. So, we also have something called quiz buzzes now that are coming. so, you can create they're kind of like a cahoot style quiz. so, creating a quiz buzz to be able to do that. we can you can do that with your with your students. It's just a a gamification. making making something more fun. Yes. this is like a brand new tool. I didn't get a chance to use it this last school year.
but I am very excited to try it this year. it is very I did see it. It's very similar to Cahoot. instead of just doing the quiz, you know, turn and talk to the partner and then we'll go over the answers together, you can turn it into a Cahoot, things like that. So that was really really I'm really excited to try that this coming school year. But there are so many resources and if you feel overwhelmed it is okay to just do what the modules have. It's okay. You are covering all the standards. You are going to make sure your students are successful. It's once you feel comfortable enough to start exploring when you find oh that's really cool and I'm excited to try this and things like that. there's also some AI that they've implemented and things like that. So there's so many things that like I said if you're a beginner it's perfect. If you're intermediate it's perfect and if you're an advanced person it's perfect. There are just so many resources. you know I don't want to overwhelm everybody but it is okay to just do the modules in the course and that's it. You are 100% successful and will be successful with just that.
okay.
Another really cool avenue that's extremely helpful even for if you're teaching APCS principles or even APCsa, we have our AP hub. so in the dash teacher dashboard on the left hand side if you scroll down under curriculum there is this button AP hub and at the top there are a couple different AP hubs you would want to move to the principal hub. They have questions of the day. So, if you don't really like the discussion question, maybe that's in the lesson plan for you that you may be using for your bell ringer, you can come here and do questions of the day with your students.
this is helping them get prepared for the AP exam.
and things like that. So, question of the day, you also have access to previous questions of the day. So, if you wanted to to do a couple, you could.
so it's really awesome for working with practice questions from the AP exam. we also have something called the sandbox. you can access the sandbox either here or in the top left corner there's a sandbox. you can create your own programs depending on what language you want to use based typically if you're going to be working with Python Python it's Python 3 unless you want to have a graphics window and things like that so there's other graphics parts you can it just creates a blank template those of you are who are familiar with replet and things like that it's very similar and so this is where my students practice their create tasks and things like that go back to the AP hub. Sorry.
there's a review of principles. So if you get to the end of the course and you find you have some extra time to review, you can actually add on another course from codes and it's their review course. So, they have practice questions for the multiple choice part.
They have practice questions for their written part. and practice quizzes and things like that. So, it's extra practice that you can have your kids work through. that's there. We also have some tutorials based on what language you're working on. So, if you're in Python or if you choose to do JavaScript, things like that, they have these lovely tutorials. there's also some blog posts so you can get connected with other teachers, see what they're talking about, things like that. they also have a nice quick link for you to College Board and their resources.
So, we have that course exam and description. Sometimes getting through AP classroom and AP central is a pain.
It's in all these other places. So, it's nice to have some quick links here. here's how you can do your audit, the sample performance task, directions, and things like that. and then obviously you're in a webinar, but there are more webinars and how to combat some cheating and the alter the alternative assignments that we're talking about, how you can disable copy and pasting, how you can track your activity. We'll get a little further into that in just a moment. but there's tons of stuff here. I can click explore all. And these are all the AP tutorials that you have access to based on what language you're talking through or you're working through.
let's see, where's my tab?
So, like I said, question of the day, sample performance tasks. another really a awesome section on code HS, especially if you have students who are flying through the content. We always have students who like are amazing and they know way more than you do and they want to go off and explore or they want more practice and whatever. And then you have kids who are like this is just not for me. I am struggling. I can barely get through the the module itself. And so the practice is really great to give to students who are both struggling or who want more ch of a challenge. So I know I moved from that picture.
So right here in curriculum there is a practice button and you can change it based on the language. So if you're teaching APCSA, you would be doing Java.
And then APCSP, you could do JavaScript or Python. And here are some practice problems. They also do it based on level. So basics level one, that's like intro. So if you have students who need extra practice, there are some more extra practices for that. as you go further down, it moves up to a level two and then a level three. And so there are extra practices based on whatever topic you're working on. So that's really nice to give to students who are ahead or who are struggling and need more practice.
another really awesome tool that we have is our interactive textbooks. So it's very it takes the course and kind of breaks it down into a textbook version, but it's also interactive. So I can show you that.
So again under curriculum we have the digital textbooks.
You can go ahead. We have three textbooks. So you're teaching if you're teaching it in Python we have introduction to Python. You're teaching it in JavaScript it's there as well. So you can go ahead and click on the full textbook. Let's say I'm struggling with my mathematical operators. And here is a textbook.
it goes through the lesson again, but for those students who may not be a visual learner, who are ma who may be more of what's the other one?
The tangible, whatever it is, you may be preferring to read from a book than be on a computer, whatever it is. they have interactive things that you can do inside the textbook. your check for understanding. It's set up very similarly to the modules. It's just in a textbook type format.
and then we have some external resources. obviously in AP classroom you'll have your course hub which has your AP daily videos, the pacing guide, the course and exam description. they have practice questions, sample projects and scoring things like that. We also have message groups.
So there's the AP community. there's the Facebook page. There's a code educators group. So you can work and ask other teachers. If you aren't part of those, I highly suggest joining. lots of resources are shared and ideas are shared on those.
Stop there. Is there anything that I went too fast on that you would like me to show you again?
Questions you have? Things I might have missed.
We are looking at the chat. There's a whole bunch of the things that just came up. So, good. it says, "Do we need to assign the textbook separately or is it already in the student view?" I actually you don't need to assign it. I actually take the link and I will share that link with my students. but the students can access the textbook on their own as well.
I've never assigned the textbook unless Leanne, you know something I don't. No.
Okay.
and then somebody also asked if they you can show us the pacing guide again.
Is that Are you talking I'm not sure.
Maybe they're referring to the syllabus, but I think it I don't they said pacing guide, so I'm assuming the syllabus.
Yeah, like how to get to the syllabus. I think so. Okay. so when you're looking through the course catalog again, you can search up principles. This is like one of the ways. It's just the fastest way in my opinion to find it. and we're specifically looking at the principles in Python. So, you can view the syllabus here.
and then not necessarily.
oh yeah, here's some pacing. So, unit one, if you're doing introduction to programming with Carol the dog, they're saying this would take about 3 weeks and 15 hours. I think that's overestimating.
Sometimes the kids fall in love with the dog and they just go go go. and so they'll finish those, like I said, very quickly. So, it's nice that then I would add in those extra challenge questions for my students who will take the three weeks. but they're saying that takes about 3 weeks. Unit two takes about 3 days. So, if that's like where you're looking for pacing, that's where you can find that in the syllabus.
Hopefully, that's what they were talking about. Unless they were talking about like the how long things would take in the lesson from the lesson plan.
I can go there, too. Yeah.
so if you're in your section and you go to assignments and then you can pick a let's just do in Python control structures 4.3 I can view the lesson plan and if you scroll towards the bottom or I'm sorry not the bottom like the It has teaching and learning strategies, the lesson opener and activities. It says this should take about 5 to 7 minutes. You know, doing this activity would take 5 minutes, 10 minutes. That's like another place they have pacing.
Anything else?
I am looking here. when you were on the practice problems, it's been a talk really quick in the chat. can you just demo really quick a Parson's problem? Some people were not aware that there's Parson's problems in the practice.
And so, we just wanted to show them really quick. That's new.
That is very new. Yep. The ones with the arrows like in the in the very top.
Hello, hello, hello is the very first one. Yes. So that's new which is very exciting.
so a part hopefully if you don't know what a person's problem is, it's it has all the code on the left. It's jumbled and they're your job is to reorganize the pieces of code. So, this is really great. Again, especially if this course that you're teaching is the first time these students are going to be looking at programming, can be overwhelming to just have a blank screen and you start typing. so sometimes it's nice to have these problems where they can just take the pieces and put them where they're supposed to go. so the directions for this one, it says this program asks the user for their name and then a number of times and then prints hello and that name that number of times. So, I want to ask the user their name. So, I can just click and drag.
That's going to be my first piece of code. And then I want to ask them for how many times.
And then you have the rest of the problem. I would do for I in range of numbum. And so this is where it's nice when you can see if they did it wrong and it'll tell them pieces of your code are wrong. It's in the wrong order. I am calling this line for iron range num. I haven't defined what numbum is because this needs to be you know I could check it again. It's also going to talk about how you need to indent. So you can pull this piece and indent it however many times you need. you know, let's say I put it like this. They're going to say that's good. it for me, I be a little more nitpicky. It needs to be the first line of indenting, you know, things like that. But those are person's problems where you can click and drag and move pieces. That is new.
so I'm very excited for that as well.
Thank you. Yeah. What else can I do?
I'm looking I'm answering one question here. there's I haven't seen any other questions. There's no way.
I think you're doing a great job. Oh, well, thanks. This is only my second one, guys. So, when we ask for feedback, please be brut brutally honest. there's like so much.
one thing I'm one thing that I've seen a few times come up in the Q&A is they're asking about pacing. Pacing your classes as you've gone through the syllabus versus a lesson plan. Do you want to elaborate on how you determine how to do that?
So, every year my cl your classes are different. We all know that. I plan backwards.
So, you know, I know that the AP exam is going to be in May, so I prefer to have my course done a April. Sorry, I'm going backwards. So, I like to have the content done mid to end of April, so that I have the beginning of May, right before that exam to to review. So, I will do that. So for I can kind of like show you what I do for my class because I did keep one class open for us. so in for specifically for my class like I said my class is dual credit as well. So the HTML and CSS are not part of the AP exam, but I needed to meet those requirements for the dual credit portion of my class. So I pulled in, like I said, you can add content to your course. You can create your own module lesson and assignment or you can choose existing resources from codes. So you can import specific lessons from a different course in codes, a specific code project or a sandbox program, whatever it is that you want to add. So I if you look hopefully it's not too small for you guys but the HTML it's unit one from the web design dolly course and then I reorganized my class a little bit. I found that at the end of the year they're not interested in learning about the internet after they've been you know going through all this coding and stuff.
It's almost like taking a step backwards. so I actually reorganized my class to where I do the boring stuff at the beginning and then I do a refresher when I'm reviewing for the AP exam on the boring stuff with them at the end of the year.
and I've done it I've done it where I've done it how code has it and I've done it where I've switched it up a little bit. the students prefer it being at the beginning. so I have reorganized some of my lessons. So after I do the HTML stuff, which you wouldn't have to do, then I go into digital information and the internet and then I start programming in Python. I specifically skip the Carol stuff because my students already have done that. They've actually done it for quite a few years. We have computer class in our middle school where in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade they are already in codes. so they have done Carol quite a few times in a few different languages. and specifically in Python, they've done it in eighth grade. So, typically if I get a student who's a freshman, they've already done those. so I just delete them and remove them from my course. So, that gives me a little bit of extra time to do the the web design stuff. What would take me as long as it would take me to do the Carol stuff, it takes me to do the the web design stuff.
I brought in some of those practice questions, some of the basic stuff.
I also brought in, some practice with lists and functions. just because I realized when we were through with data structures, they needed some more support on that. and then the performance task and things like that.
So really truly I I know when I need to end and I just look at my school year and I want to say and I don't have my planner with me to give you specifics but I want to say I spend probably four no two weeks on digital information in the internet and then I move into Python and I really pacing is difficult.
I'm not quite sure how to what like works best for you. Like I said, I just I plan backwards. And if a student needs more time on something, I spend a lot more time at the beginning with the foundations of Python, the beginning of Python, because if they don't understand that first unit, the rest of the units are useless. They're going to be behind the whole time. And so I I spend a really long time in the first programming with Python making sure they understand the basics then moving on and I really truly don't move on until I feel like majority if not all of the class understands. yeah, I'm sorry I can't really answer the the pacing. It's just it's personal preference on how you want to pace and organize your class.
Sorry.
I think that was a great response, [Laughter] very detailed. There was someone else is very curious as to how you Dino was very curious as to how you set up your student since you do HTML and the web pages. How do you set that up with the sandboxes?
okay. So I got you. So, I I come over here to the ad first off and I look through CodeHS courses and I find the web design. I just chose Dolly. I I can't remember why I did. I think it just matched more closely with the standards I have to teach for dual credit. and I specifically just brought in these two lessons. and then we do a project. It's from my the institution that I work with. so that's how I got these two modules in my Python course. the program for HTML and web design, it's very similar to the exercises in Python.
you just have a web view of what you're working with. so here is your website is kind of how you can view it.
You also have the ability to open it in a new tab. So it actually looks like a web page. so I've opened it in a new tab and here's how I view that. So the course itself has the IDE integrated into the curriculum very similarly to the Python and Carol stuff. for the sandbox, I do have an example.
I have a ton of them, so I just don't know which one it is. sorry.
It's going to be the first one.
Nope.
I'll find it. I promise. maybe it's the advanced one.
Yes. I start out there are kids. So in my school specifically, we have we used to have a web design class and so I I ended up getting a lot of kids who did web design already. And so this was a lot of fun for them. They just got to go a little bit further. but what I did is I would set up what I wanted their program to look like. This was just an example.
kind of the setup of what I wanted it to look like for them. And what I did was I would share it with my students.
and I wouldn't show them the code or I would show them the code. things like that. And you can copy and share it with your students and they can fork the assignment which is copy it and then make their own. So if you were wanting to set up like a template for them to work from. I'm sorry I can't see the I'm not looking at the question so I'm not quite sure exactly what you were looking for but you said sandbox. So I kind of set up the template for the students with the requirements that I want for a project specifically in web design and I share the assignment and I show them how to fork it. I I can't show you how to fork it because I don't have something to fork, but I would send this out to someone and when they get it, they wouldn't have the share and save button. They would have the fork button and fork makes a copy in their own sandbox of my project without messing with my project.
I think it might be possible that she might be asking also if you go back to your sandbox when a student makes a portfolio as well even in the web design class they ask them to create it on their own personal homepage. So if you go to the green button, the edit homepage button, this is the student's own personal website and this can become their student portfolio or a personal web page. So the this becomes their their username, this becomes their their their website, you know. So it's it's that. So, I think it has to yeah it has to be at co.codehs.mme or or but whatever. I don't know where I remember what it has to be. liking me right now. Something just changed. So, like if you go in and you actually edit it, it actually opens it up as a web page and then they can edit or they can add links and they can add different pages to that and they can create their own portfolio. And students can start using this in elementary school and they can create a page for each class that they've taken. They can create a a page for each activity that they've ever done. They could use it for APCSP. they could reference back to the different things that they've done for the different projects and say, "Hey, I've done this and let's rinse back. Maybe this is something that I want to use for part of my portfolio that I want to do for my, you know, submission." So, that might have been part of the question as well. That's where you would do that. That's where the students then are. yeah. I don't know why it's not the website will live at There we go.
There it is. This is where it is. And so, you can add then different files there on the left. You could, you know, add different years. You could and you can always completely change this. And this will then become your own website.
And this is where all that lives then.
And the students will have this from the time they have the middle school account until after actually they graduate, which we're starting to call a a legacy account. I think they have an option of to be able to have what we call a legacy account, have access to their portfolio after they graduate if they opt in. And so, they will have access to all of that afterwards.
I did not know about this. So, I just learned something new. Starting.
Well, I also didn't know about the homepage either. Yes. So, that's something new I learned. So, thank you for that question. You're welcome.
Anything else I can do?
Other thing, a teacher said, "Can you see the teacher blog groups again?" Did you show them the teacher blog groups? Is that on AP Hub?
Yes. So, in curriculum under AP hub was it here or was it on Oh, yeah. No, it was on the slide.
Oh, that's right. This page. Yes.
Did do they need the links and stuff?
And again, I do the followup. I can make sure that all of these links are in the okay in the followup email as well when I when I send the follow-up email afterwards. So I will I'll go through the slides and make sure everything is in the in the webinar recap. Good. Okay. Anything else?
I think I don't think there's any other questions. Does anybody else have any other questions for Danielle before we wrap up?
You go through I didn't go through some of the communication did the lesson plans and the feedback and grading. Do you want me to go through that? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. for grading.
If you go to your teacher dashboard, you have grading. And this is when I get a little confused on what is pro and what is free since I do have a pro version. I do know that the grade book specifically is for pro users. you have access to pick the module that you are looking at. You can look at all lessons or you can look at each individual lesson. This is how I quickly see if a student has completed their assignment or not, if they're still working on it and things like that. this was this is very helpful. However, I did use the free version for quite a few years. and a lot of the times I would have my students go on to their thing and I walk around and make sure they have all green checks, things like that. So, it's easy to have still put grades in without necessarily having a grade book, but the gradebook is a nice pro feature. however, we do have if you go to I'm trying to get to a plate. No, get to my one class.
there are a couple of different things that you can do. So, let's say I want to look at my student. This is what she sees on her screen. So this is like the student view, but I'm specifically being this student. So I can see the greens are the things that she has completed and it's been autograded for me. So that means she's got 100% on all of these pencil activities. She's done the checks for understanding in this unit. I don't check to see if they've looked at the video because like I said, I either play the video in class or I will go through what's in the content in the video on my own. So the check for understanding is the first thing I look at. the exercises typically are yellow if they've opened it or if you know things like that. because it's not grading anything. and then the pencils that are autograded are awesome. however, let's say I want to look at what she did for her HTML list. If I click on it, this is her project. So as I can see, I'm looking at her stuff. if I want to give her some feedback, there is the grade button. And I do believe this is the free version. You can do this with any student. you can give them full credit or you can give them a zero. You can give them some feedback here. and there's even this little lovely button that suggests feedback. she got 100%. So, it's probably going to say, "Good job." student feedback.
The web page is done. Good job. so you can provide that student feedback to your students or if you know the autograder is missing something specific that you wanted your kids to do, you could, you know, give them a zero or have them work on it and tell them they missed, you know, some extra little detail that you were looking for. so that's really nice. so you have access to do that like that. easy to navigate. You can go through your other students. Again, this is another student of mine. This is his. This is what it looks like. Again, I can go to grade. It autograded. Five out of five. He did what he needed. Things like that. let me see.
Grade mode. I showed you feedback. I showed you lesson plans. the communication. That was the other one.
so if I go to my class, oh, what was it?
Oh, Kristen, can you help me? I forgot.
I literally just did it for communication. Yeah. Is it over here or something? I do. I there's multiple ways you can get there. I go through my fast grade because when you open fast grade, you have your communication and what you need to grade under grading.
Yeah, but I thought I could toolbox. That's what it is. I'm sorry, guys. So, if I go to the toolbox and for my classroom, there is this button called messages.
I can add an announcement to my students, the whole class that way. or I can have an individual conversation with a student. I don't have any conversations with my students because I just tell them in person. But if you have a student who is you know maybe absent or working from home or you know medical reasons whatever it is and you don't have the opportunity to talk with them you can chat like this as well.
Typically I just chat on the specific assignments when I give that feedback the students have the opportunity to respond and things like that. So I talk with them on that but this is another option of having conversations with your students and communicating with them.
and then the last thing I think was the assignment configuration. This is a pro version or a pro feature. You can actually create due dates. You can control what students have access to click on and what they don't. This is where you can get rid of the copy and paste settings. So, if you're having if you're catching a lot of students copying and pasting code from other websites and things like that, you can disable copy and paste. So, at least make them suffer through typing out the answer that they're copying. you know, we can only combat copying so much, but the copy and paste settings are really nice. so I can show you that as well.
So, when I go to my like teacher page where it has all my courses, there are three dots here. That would be under access controls.
And again, this is a pro tool. so right now all of my stuff is available, but if I make it locked, that means that that entire unit for HTML is locked. So when the kids log in, they can still see it. They can see that they have this module. They can see all the individual lessons, but they can't click on it. So they no longer have access to that. So students who like to work ahead my very first year teaching this. I didn't have the pro version and I was unable to lock all the modules and I had a student who just like fell in love with everything that he was doing and finished the entire course in probably like three weeks. so that was devastating for me. So having the pro version is awesome to be able to lock things so they can't work ahead like that. you also have the ability to schedule things. So you can say when this assignment is going to open and when it is going to close.
So you can access due dates like that as well.
Okay. Questions, comments, concerns on the assignments here would be the copy and paste settings.
Prevent copy and paste setting for all sections. Mine are on no right now, but I could switch it to yes.
Or I could do individual lessons where copy and paste is not allowed.
You have a So Danielle, great question.
Lean, I'm smiling on this one. Do students have the ability to copy their own code from a prior exercise or example they have already completed, or does the system prevent this by default?
Okay. Can you scroll down, Danielle?
Yay.
Yay. This is new as of what? Last night.
Brand new. I was going to say no. But oh my gosh. Brand new today.
Yes. Okay. So, this feature is brand new today. This is amazing. Yeah. You have the option to choose to copy only from code hs which allows them to copy from within their own.
That's amazing. And if they try to copy from something outside, they can't copy from something outside. Yeah. That's amazing because that was like my biggest pet peeve was if I disable copying and pasting and we're doing something where I have to do a hundred of the same thing, you know, and I can't copy and paste my own work. That's amazing.
Very cool. Yes, Mark. It is a free feature.
Yay.
[Music] Okay. Hot off the presses. You're the first people that I think I told That's so exciting.
Okay, good question and I love the answer.
There's another question. Is there a way to impose a penalty for a late completion in the grade book? And yes, there is.
there is ways to do that in our grading settings as well. in our actually it's in the grade book settings. you have to go into the grade book itself.
and go down to Yep. Get assignments and, give penalize late submissions right there under new right there. And you can decide a percentage or you can give zeros until completed, which is above the new. There's a lot of different options though.
Anything else?
No other questions.
I had a couple of tips from just my personal experience. I've said a I've said most of the tips that I have throughout my speech to you all. but the video lessons, once you become comfortable with the content, you can start using the video slides to teach. and I save the videos for students who are absent, so I'm not having to retach every study hall or every time a student is absent. they're really helpful.
I believe though the video slides are a pro feature.
Yes. No, maybe.
What do you mean like to watch the video or to watch it as a slide? The slides.
As long as you're in the platform and you're working, you can switch between video and slides. But to download, then it's a pro feature because then you're in a lesson plan format. Perfect. So, yeah, like I said, and specifically my students since they do have work with CodeHS all throughout middle school, when they get to high school, the videos become just tedious.
They they kind of start zoning out. So, it's been nice to kind of switch over to me teaching and just using the slides or just using the videos for when the students are absent. that's just a personal thing. Once again, once you become more comfortable with the content, there's nothing wrong with the videos. They're fantastic.
the examples, it's really important to work through those examples. I'd love to do them together in class. sometimes there are content that are in the examples that weren't necessarily discussed in depth during the videos.
They were kind of just like, oh, hey, and you can do this. So, those exercises allow you to give your students more hands-on learning about something without necessarily a grade attached to it. and they get to play around and see what it does. I'm trying to think specifically. I remember there was one I think it might have been about control structures with if l if and else and it talks about it in the video and then they get to an exercise and they're like wait we didn't like really get that part and it's there's a great example after the video and after the check for understanding that had I not done the exercise or example with them they would have missed out on that chance to learn some more. so I really press upon the importance of the examples.
and then pro tip for me for exercises. I like to do the first exercise together as a class. We walk through it how to tackle this problem. I personally do it like I was a student.
Again, I have the answer key over to the lefth hand side. So, you know, in case you're not ready for that yet, but I like to do the first one together. and then I have the students work in partners or with the people around them to complete the rest of the exercises.
And that's when I have the chance to walk around and listen to them. And I find that they'll all have a very similar misconception that I may have just misspoke or, you know, they are not fully understanding. That's when I find those like key moments and I'll address that with the entire class. but it gives you time to like get up from the computer and from your typing and be able to listen to your students and hear what they're saying and how they're talking about the content. I've had like my best teaching moments from that.
so yeah, that's all I've got unless there was another question before we wrap up.
Instead of me typing the answer, I'll have you answer this one. So, how many assignments how many assignments do you grade like per week for assignments to enter into your grade book? I actually just had I'm currently at CSPD week in Indiana and I just had this conversation last night with someone who was asking how I grade and all of that.
I do have a teacher in my building. He uses it for the web design portion of it. he has experimented with exporting his grade book into Canvas and then into Canvas into our grading system and things like that. for me personally, that's a lot of individual grades and a lot of them are, you know, five points, two points, three points, things like that. I found what works best for me is to wait until the end of the unit and I give them a big grade for the entire unit. so sometimes if the quiz is important, I'll make that quiz its own assignment, but I tend to wait till the end of the unit and give them a big grade on code.
So for basically like for how much of it they've completed because a lot of the stuff I do is together.
I hope that answers that it's definitely personal preference. I was going to say dealer's choice because I knew that there was like three different exercises within one, I would do like a project grade, like a completion grade or one of them. If I knew it was going to take two days to get through a lesson, I would take a project grade, right? So, it's definitely personal preference. I I've just found it I have so many students in so many sections. I'm the only computer science teacher. So, my classes sit at 33 students and I have eight classes.
And so, for me to individually go through each assignment, like some of my my some people that I've met and things like that who have like 11 students in their class, that's a little different. For me, it's just easier to, like I said, I'll look at that grade book. I'll look at the whole unit and I'll take a big grade for, you know, participation because, like I said, I do it together in class. So that's personally how I agreed.
I'm so pumped about the copy and paste.
All right. Anything else?
No other questions. We can probably start getting wrapped up.
All right.
Kristen or Leanne, do you want to wrap up?
I can probably do it. All right. So, if we have some other resources, if you ever interested in becoming a certified educator, earning Mic credentials or our Facebook group or follow us on social media, obviously you guys know how to get to our free PD page because you're here on our webinar. So, you can go to the next slide.
one of the things that we do want you to do, and I kind of think I lost my my links here. I got you. Thank you very much. Going to is our taking our survey today and letting Danielle know that she was absolutely amazing during our webinar survey. Absolutely not.
Please be brutally honest. Like I said, this was my second webinar. so please be brutally honest. Like if she talks too much, she's too whatever. Like please tell me if I move too fast or if you you know, whatever. Please tell me.
The other thing that we would love for you to do is to click on this link.
This link will allow us to know that you were here today. Even if you don't click on the link I will know that you are here because I do attendance through Zoom now. So I make sure that I know everybody was here. and you will receive a certificate of attendance. if you don't if you click on this link you'll receive an email otherwise I will have your certificate of attendance and I will be able to email it to you other than that then if you're interested in bringing codes to your school or to your district and you're not familiar with us already and many of the names I've already seen on this list from being in past webinars I don't know that there's any names on here that I have not recognized from past webinars already, you can go to cods.com/learnmore.
And thank you very, very much. And thank you, Danielle, and thank you, Kristen. I loved all of the Q&A that we had today.
It was absolutely amazing. You guys did great today. in the chat, you did great in the Q&A.
which link did you need, Diana?
The webinar survey link is in the chat and the attend link. Oh, Kristen, you're you're posting to the host only host and panelists. Can you post post of those in everyone?
There we go. Thank you so much. Had a senior moment. you have to It's the heat in Texas. I apologize.
You do have to be signed into CodeHS to be able to do the attendance link. If you are not signed into CodeHS right now, that's perfectly fine. You don't have to do the attendance link right now. I will end up putting you in as attended today. That's perfectly fine.
then I can I will have your certificate of attendance and then I can just email them out to everybody after that if I need to. Okay.
All right.
Thank you so much everybody and we will see you all later. We'll probably stick around for one or two more minutes and we'll see everybody else.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye guys.
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