Join this AP Computer Science A Professional Learning Community (PLC) webinar with CodeHS, where experienced teachers share resources, strategies, and best practices for teaching AP CSA. Explore curriculum tips, collaborative tools, and support for student success in Java programming.
Full Transcript
Read the complete transcript of this webinar
[Music] and Kim, if you would like to introduce yourself, tell us about your background teaching all the AP courses and all the CS courses out there in Washington State.
Yeah, I'm in Yeah, I'm in Washington State near Portland, Oregon. and I have AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles, video game programming, and coding one. And I use code HS for all of that. I also use Unity for video game programming. and yeah, been teaching 38 years and computer science for probably 14 of that time.
An expert. Thank you so much for joining us today. And we will have Steve also. Kim, if you'll go to the next slide. So what we've got here is a shared document and what we're going to do is use this document. So Thomas and Harun and Mark and Matt, I'm going to put a link in the chat and you can also scan with your phone if you'd like to the QR code there to access this document. But basically what this is going to be is our place to share resources. That is what this professional learning community is all about. sharing best practices, sharing ideas, talking about our things that worked in the classroom, talking about things that that didn't maybe didn't go so well and we want to improve upon and get some other folks's opinions on how we might make adjustments or tweaks for the you know, just just helping our students as best as we can tackle this very technical APCSA course. So, go ahead and open up that shared notes doc. And Kim, if you'll go to the next slide.
Oh, oops. perfect. Thank you. Okay. So, our goal here, like I said, this is a collaborative space. And what we want is for you APCSA educators to share ideas, resources, discuss assessments and test prep strategies, explore effective teaching methodologies, refine your plans, refine your pacing, and all of this discussion and sharing with the goal of improving student outcomes on the exam and ex and supporting each other in delivering high quality instruction mostly based on using codes tools and curriculum. I assume that you all are familiar with codes since you have joined us here today for this meeting today. So next slide please Kim. Thank you. If you are new to us which I am pretty sure I've seen at least three of your names before. So, I don't think we have any newbies, but if you are, you can sign up for the Codys curriculum at codjs.com/signup. And we will be mostly talking through the curriculum that CODHS provides for CSA. but maybe some other resources and tools will come up also. All right. Next. Thank you. Perfect. And so, we're going to do some introductions. We are a fairly small group here today. So we'll ask you to if not come on camera because I see that folks still have not come on camera but if you're shy that's okay we'll ask you to u participate in the chat or come off mute for this discussionbased session today. So what we're going to do is we are going to first talk about the updates to the CSA exam. Kim and Steve are going to share what they have seen with the updated codes curriculum. Kim's going to talk a little bit about how it's going so far. I mean, we're we're Kim, you're what, a month into the school year.
Yeah. Just almost.
Yeah. A month into the school year, a month into this new curriculum. And so, we want to hear where you're at, how it's going, what are you using to to help students start with a bang in this CSA course. Then we'll talk about Codys updates. the cortado course is our new CSA course. We also have some labs coming soon and ones that have carried over from you know the previous version of the exam coming from the college board. And we'll just talk a lot about pacing like like how how are we going to get all this content covered this year? And then we'll also talk about a very specific code resource question of the day. We do have a brief survey for you at the end. We want to make sure that because this is a professional learning community that we can hopefully all gather again together in the future. This will be a quarterly professional learning community meeting and we hope to see you in the future. And so, our survey will ask, you know, what what kind of times work for you, what kind of days work for you, and some a few other questions about what you liked and what you want to see in future, PLC meetings. All right. So, again, this is different from a webinar. This is not sit and get. And I see Thomas has come on camera. Thank you, Thomas. And if anybody else would like to, we we encourage you to come on camera and come off mute today and ask questions, answer questions, share resources, and join the conversation. And I think we have one person who is still trying to join us. But just in case you didn't access the shared notes dock, go ahead and do that because that's where we're going to be dropping our helpful resources and ideas today as we go through this conversationbased session. All right. Well, with that, I'm gonna kick it to Steve and Kim to introduce themselves, which they already have a little bit, but maybe you could talk a little bit about how long you use CodeHS. And while Steve and Kim are doing that, I'm going to put your names in the chat, and that is the order in which we will ask you to speak this evening as we go through these different discussion topics. So, Kim, you told us how long you've been teaching. you you told us how long you taught CS APCSA. How long have you been using code HS?
Been using code HS for two years. and yeah, just
finding it good a good resource.
Yeah, my first year, my CSA class, I got my best scores with that. Not so much last year, but the first year I I got really good scores. So, that worked out really well. There's been a request for the slides to be shared. Is that something we can do?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely share slides. and we'll I can while other PE folks are talking, I will run down and and get those.
Okay. So, yeah, I've taught APCSA for 10 years. I've taught CS longer, but just CSA specifically for 10 years. Awesome. All right. So, Steve, how long did you say you use CodeHS to teach?
Yeah. Hey, everyone. I taught CS for 11 years. I used CodeHS for seven of those years. including every year I taught APCSA or APCSP. I taught in I live in Houston now. I've been here the last two years, but I I lived in DC before then and taught my first nine years of teaching were there. But yeah, love I taught everything from sixth grade coding all the way up to CSA. used the Nitro course, loved it. I just I code. As soon as I discovered code chess, I was like, this is this is all I'm using now in my classroom. because it the resources are just great. and so while I've not taught the Cortado course because now I'm a PD special code, I I love the Cortado course. I think it's one of the coolest courses I've gotten to see. So, I'm excited for you all to use the Cortado course and also for us to get to talk about it together.
Awesome. All right, Thomas, how long have you been teaching? How long have you taught CSA? And how long have you used CodeHS?
Well, as he was talking, I was trying to look through my files and see. I don't It's been so long I can't remember. some of the earliest things I saved are back to like 2009, 2010. So I think I've been teaching CSA for like 15 years and I started teaching principles not the very first year it came out but maybe like the second or the third year whenever principles came out then I don't remember and I've used codes from the beginning.
Wonderful. Well, welcome to this professional learning community. I hope we get to share lots of great resources today. And Harun, you're next.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hello.
Hello. Hi from New Jersey. And I've been teaching a computer science, not APCSA. I think I'm in wrong group or something. And I'm a career and technology education teacher with CompTIA cyber security, you know, CISA certification. and I just started cyber security classes and AI classes and I'm preparing curriculum for the district and I will be teaching also for next three years. This is my first year using codes and still navigating and I have also a professional background experience IT manager you know and network administrator some Cisco certification. So my path hopefully will be more CTE you know career and technology education with the hopefully especially new upcoming career kickstart AP classes coming you know and I was on somehow suggesting you know a committee but school I change it so they don't have it so hopefully I am leaning towards more cyber security and AI classes and Cisco Academy you know I teach before so and I'm looking for someone anyone you know about learning because it has been long years I thought maybe in Texas seven eight years then I became you know IT manager district IT now I'm going back to this path so I'm open suggestions including code HS and navigating cy cyber security and AI classes possibilities. I'm doing my master on national cyber security.
Wow. Well, you sound like a a busy person and with a ton of great experience to share with your students. So, thank you for joining us. And
as a teacher, so I am open I am novice because many things change. So, I am open to every and any kind of suggestions from my fellow friends.
Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Okay. Well, Mark, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.
I started I started teaching physics in the Houston area around 2015 and over time I've been moving towards Python and then my wife wanted to move to the Colorado Springs area. So, I start I taught in that school district and now I'm teaching in both the high schools just north of Colorado Springs in Monument. And I'm also the focal for the innovation center. We're getting together for our more advanced classes. I use code HS for my Python courses and I use it to supplement my CSA course which I I do a lot with CS awesome but I also really enjoy the sandboxes for doing the coding in any of the languages. I find that for my PLTW, which is PLTW is really big here, Project Lead the Way, in Colorado, that, with the principles I need to use Visual Studio Code, but with the other courses, I really find that the, that the code HS is great for supplementing the content.
Well, I welcome. You are a familiar face, a familiar name here around CodeHS webinars and workshops. So, I'm so excited to have you back again this year. Thanks for joining us. All right. And Matt,
hi. Yeah, I'm Matt. I'm not going to turn the video on. We've been having some internet issues here for the last oh decade. No, the last day or so especially here. If I turn the video on, I think it's going to drop out on me. So, sorry about that everyone. I'm here in Gilroy, California. been teaching for 29 years now. computer science for six or seven I guess now AP for just three. this is my first time using code high school. the district decided we're going to do code high school this year. So we're doing a code high school. So I am brand new to this part and just trying to hang on right about now as we finally got the students all enrolled in everything.
Yes. Starting the year with those routines and a new curriculum. That's that's a lot. So, welcome and thank you. And Angela, if you are ready, we are just sharing a little bit about our teaching background.
Boy, sorry I am late to to join here. So, this is my first year teaching AP computer science and I've used code HS for other courses before, but of course this is my first experience in AP. So, yeah, just looking for ideas and figuring it out as I go along, but I've been teaching for about 12 years.
Awesome. Well, welcome. And I hope we get some great sharing of resources and ideas today. So, Kim, next slide, and I'm going to pass it off to you to talk about CSA. Steve, feel free to pop in here as we talk about the Cortado course. and I would I'm just excited to hear how it's going for you all. So I will hand it over to you Kim.
All right. So we do have changes from previous CSA course. So the new topics that we have are the text files and data sets. Those are in unit 4. I'm looking forward to that and I'm looking forward to the fact that code HS is going to help me learn it. So, and then they took inheritance out. And there's some people in the community that think we shouldn't have, but that's just it is what it is. and it's only four units instead of 10 units, but therefore really long units. and then the exam revisions, u 50/50 test, it's 55% multiple choice with 42 questions instead of 40. So, I don't know why we needed two more, but we did. and four answer choices instead of five. And then the free response question is 45% of the score should be shorter questions according to the college board. We'll see. and the third one is just array list, not arrays or array lists. So, and if you wanted the complete description of the official changes from the slides, you can click the link on that. And then I'll just do these two slides. CODHS made updates or made like a whole new curriculum actually to match the College Board's updates and it's awesome. I've been using it since the end of August. and I've already gone through all of unit one myself and it's awesome. All new videos. the curriculum is really great. It uses this prim model predict, run, investigate, modify, and make. and there's several instead of just an exercise where the students like look at it, click run, and go on, they have they look at it, but they have to do some things with the activities and record their observations. And it's much more like interactive with the students. So, it works really well. And then the codes matches the College Board units exactly. So you have to be careful because it's not like one section per day necessarily. So we'll look at pacing in a second. But those are my thoughts on it. Those of you that have looked into the changes and whatnot, we're just kind of go around and see what thoughts you have on it or questions you have on it. Either either way going back through the same order. We'll let Steve put his two cents in and then we'll go back through that same order.
Yeah, just echoing Kim, I love the prim activities. They've been great. like I I just think they're super fun for having students actually break down the code and like kind of one putting a lot of the thinking on them to actually like process what's happening and analyzing the code because you know we know sometimes that's a that's a transition when they take the multiple choice portion and they actually have to break down code and run through it like the more practice they can get on that the better. So I've I've been loving the prim activities for that. and also the text files unit I have done it is great because I I also was like I need code just to teach me these this text files too because I don't know what this is but I I I really like the text files unit when you get to unit 4. It's pretty it's pretty solid. It's a lot of fun and it's really cool exercises. I'm glad that College Board added them in because they're very realistic coding kind of projects it feels like and I think it'll be a lot of fun for students as well too. And I did look I think for the free responses I did a I was curious I think looking at the course exam descriptions the ones from this year are like one page shorter than the ones from the previous one. So maybe they're a little shorter but again that'll be as as more stuff comes out we can kind of compare but they look like they're maybe like a little bit shorter in instruction wise. but yeah, I'm I'm interested to see as more FRQs get released too, what what if any changes to the other ones, what they might look like.
Well, what I was thinking too is they at least gave them still 90 minutes. and we can use the old F FRQs to practice so the new on the test they'll go, "Oh, wow, that was easy." So,
yeah,
hopefully. Thomas, do you have any questions or comments about the new curriculum? I guess not really. There's that. My My only comment, I guess, would be the investigate.txt files. There's you know, it's it's kind of easy for me to look at the code and know if they did it right and know if they did it the way I think they should. And reading people's sentences, it makes me feel like an English teacher, which I don't really like. so that that would be like I guess my only comment. we did have something just today we're working on a assignment called buggy quotes and the autograder seemed to be picking up that there was an error in the investigate txt file, which I was really kind of blown away by because you can you can write almost anything you want any way you want in a response as to like what's wrong. So, I'm or what you had to fix to make the thing work. So, I'm wondering how the autograder actually goes through an you know, someone's little essay thing about why something's working now, what they fixed, and how it knows that they wrote something acceptable. I had a student that it said that it was doing the investigator.txt file, but it was they didn't add two print statements to their code. Their output didn't match even though it said they didn't finish that investigate file.
Oh, because I had some students, you know, they we I looked at their code, I looked at the solution code and they fixed all the bugs, but it still wasn't passing. And then one student said to the other, "Oh, in your investigate file, you didn't put in that it was a syntax error." And then they rewrote their response and then it passed the autograder. And I was kind of blown away by that because I didn't realize the autograder was actually checking the investigate file.
Steve, do you have any thing to add on that?
Yeah, I know the one you're talking about. and I just pulled up to double check. Yeah, the so the there are only a few of the prim activities where the autograder actually checks the investigate file. That is one of them and you are correct. It's actually looking for if they use the words syntax and logic the correct amount of times I believe is what it's looking for there.
So
that's how it's checking that one. the we did just update our autograder interface so it it to give a little more kind of feature flexibility on them and I know one of the ones that you can do is you can toggle a contains content autograder so I'm pretty sure that's what it's doing it's checking to see making sure that there are and you can say for the autograder to be like I want to count the word syntax five times and make sure that there's I don't know if there were five syntax errors I'm just picking a number but
I understand
that's what it's doing I believe I believe on that one is it's checking to make sure that they got the correct syntax or logic in the correct amount of times. Not all of the prim ones do the autograder. I think it's only like a couple, but the buggy quotes is one of those where it is checked.
Yeah. Well, because on one of and I understand, thank you for the clarification. on one of the previous assignments where I don't know I can't remember now if it was mine as I was going through the unit or one of the students but it it didn't pass and I was like messing around with the investigate file and if I made it like really bad it still would pass even with that and I'm like yeah it's not checking that and then when we went to this one it's like wait it is checking it and I'm like hm wait a second so one one of the things that creating a little bit more work for me this year is going through the unit and you know as the teacher I can I can code it and I can get it to work but I'm trying to find pitfalls that can really stress out the students because of something I don't want to say silly but something maybe they just don't get you know and the autograder is really good but sometimes you know it it just can cause some problems like for instance I was doing one today with the compound compound operators, you know, like plus equals, minus equals, times equals, divide equals. And you had to change the code in the assignment from, I don't know, counter equals counter + one to counter plus, things like that. And there was one that said, make the health, I think it was the health, the health of the player go down by half. And I'm like, I know the autograder is going to be looking for divide equals, but I'm gonna be cute and I'm gonna put in times equals 0.5. Now, that works. That makes the player's health go down by half, but it wouldn't pass the autograder. and then I changed it to divide equals by two, and then it passed. And so what I like to do with things like that is put little notes in my Google classroom for the assignments they're working on so that they can refer back to that and I can point them out and say when you do this assignment some of you may think oh I could I can multiply by 0.5 and you can and your code works but if you want it to pass the autograder you better put divide by two
you know so that for the for the nitro course I had a lot of those resources already established and now this one I'm going through and sometimes I can perceive where a pitfall may be and sometimes I don't. and I have to wait until the students start telling me something's not working right and then on the fly I got to kind of figure out oh okay how can we how can we make it the way it's really supposed to be so it you know so it passes.
So Thomas at the end of this
we'll get there but you know it's it's all new.
At the end of the school year we'll all be anxiously awaiting your Google doc that you share with us.
Okay. All right,
Thomas, have you tried doing the the AI like when you go to grade like having it use the AI to grade it? So like to grade their program so it'll tell you what's wrong with it.
No, I don't know about that.
Yeah, it's a pro feature.
Is it a pro feature? Oh, okay. I didn't realize. Okay.
All right.
Yeah, I'm on the I'm on the free plan.
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all that. Harun, are are you teaching CSA? Do you want to share here? I think he was in the car, so maybe we'll skip him.
All right, Mark. Next, I think
Mark's next. Mark, what do you do? Do you have any comments or questions on it?
just CSA in general. >> I'm enjoying it. I I haven't played around much with the with the a with the well the AI I haven't done much either, but I haven't done much with trying to edit the problems with the autograders so that they're going to be more unique, but that's not going to be a big issue for this first year u with students looking up answers. I'm not using it quite enough to be able to give you a whole lot of input and more listening to what y'all are experiencing who use it more heavily. Okay, thank you. Matt, do you have anything to add?
Sorry, nothing to add right now. Sorry.
Oh, that's fine. Just that's just fine. Angela, do you have any comments or questions on this new curriculum?
Do want to say I absolutely love the AI feature. So to me that's worth the pro version altogether because the feedback that it gives saves me so much time and then especially if I'm trying to help students debug their code a lot of times you know I'm super busy and and it you know I don't want to stand there and read through all their code and being able to just quickly do that and spot all those all the errors and correctly phrase feedback is just incredibly valuable. I super love it. The one thing I have noticed that I'm not loving, I guess is just kind of a an ongoing issue is that if they have an a or a endless loop, if they have an infinite loop, it crashes, right? Rather than giving them a response. And I really wish there was a better way to deal with that because as students are learning those loops, they're obviously going to hit those and and it just would be really nice if we had a better way to deal with that rather than crash and have to go back in. Yes, that is frustrating for them and me. Okay. Chris, do you have any questions or comments on the updated curriculum? Hello. I'm new to code HS and yes and I'm learning everything and I also love the AI features. So that's all.
Okay, thank you. Okay, next topic is the pacing and I have a couple slides on this. so I went through the CED and if you look at the unit at a glance pages, it tells you how many days for each part. So, I'm gonna flip back to that. So, like, and I didn't know this, like somebody had to point it out to me. So, like topic 1.1, it says two instructional periods. 1.2 instructional periods. and so like code HS has it matching this. so like before, like with the Nitro, it would be like one section per day kind of is what you would do. but now because they wanted to match this, you want to look look up how many days you should probably spend on each part. And that's College Board's version of it. And I just added up those days or how many days it would be. And then CodeHS's syllabus put an overview like at the beginning of each unit. It says how many hours you might want to spend on that. And I'm sure that includes like the test and everything else. So, it's pretty close to what's there. And then when to do the College Board labs, it that's helpful to know like I never knew before when I should do them. and so this is Kod Justice site and if you scroll down and look at at the last sentence in there says unit one do this in Cado. after unit one. So the receipt lab do after unit one. Magpie you can do so whichever lab you decide to do you can do it at that time. So magpie you can do after unit two. Oh it says all but activity 5 can be used after unit two in cortado. So it's really helpful to know when that you can do each lab. So that's helpful. And they've got a note for all of the labs not just the new four four new ones. And then Steve and TJ. Steve, did you make this pacing thing? Are you the one that made it?
Yeah, we made it. Yeah, it's a it's a handy guide.
Okay, so I'm going to demo this super cool pacing guide. And this follows code's pacing plan, right?
Yeah, it's it literally follows KHS's and college boards. it's the instructional periods document that you showed of like two instructional periods. Two instructional periods that just that's that's what is this is from.
Okay, perfect. So, I highly recommend that you all click on it and bookmark it. and so this is like week one. You know what you should do is like he just said day one of two, day 202, but let's say on Friday you have an assembly. you can just click that day and it moves everything out for you. Or let's say on section 13 you spent an extra day, you can just click that and move everything over. so it it shifts things around for you and just moves it all out. It's really awesome. and then also if you're on a block schedule, you can switch it over to block schedule. Oh, look, you can print it, too. there's every time I look at this page, there's something cool, new, and cool about it. so Steve, you want to add to that? What else have I missed? No, you nailed it. Yeah, so it's the the toggling feature is cool, right? The default view is if you have 45 minute instructional periods daily because that's what College Board when they say instructional periods on their documents, they mean 45 minute periods. So that's the default view. But yeah, if you if you toggle to block schedule, it'll adapt to and you'll see it just kind of condenses. So like you might you'll see less day one of two and day two of two because now you have the full 90-minute block schedule. So yeah, those are the only two configurations we have on it right now. but it is set up for the whole year so you can kind of visualize it. play around with it. Yeah, if you want to print it and hang it up, you can do that too. and yeah, a lot of the other stuff that Kim pointed out too, we linked there down at the bottom, as well for like the just just a handy page kind of trying to make a one-stop shop for you of kind of a lot of the resources. So, yeah, definitely use it. Again, it's it's just synced directly up to College Board's recommendations. So, all we did was take it and making it a little more onepage friendlier, user friendly version. So, but it's the same recommendations College Board's going to give you. As Kim said, our lessons are linked to their lessons, so you can definitely their pacing would would apply to our pacing as well.
Perfect. and that that exam review course is handy. So, having these resources at the bottom is nice.
Okay. so does anyone have like if you have ideas on pacing, we could put it in that document that we shared or if you have a different pacing that you're going to use. so we going to go around and talk about pacing. Yeah. Okay. So, using that same order and you've got it on there. Steve just talked. So, Thomas, do you have any thoughts on pacing or questions about pacing?
no, not really. I'm using the the resources that you guys provided and, you know, setting up my pacing that way and just trying to stick to it.
Okay. And Harun, Harun, do you have anything that you want to add to pacing conversation? Okay. Oh, bye Chris. Thank you. Mark, do you have anything that you have questions about or want to share?
No, I love your guide. I'll take a look at yours. I've been using someone else's.
Yes, that's awesome. Matt, any thoughts?
Well, mainly just want to say thank you for that guide. I think it looks really cool. I'm on a slightly weird schedule. I do two short periods and two long periods each week. So, kind of that hybrid block and standard. So, it's going to really help me out with the pacing. So, looks cool.
All right. Thank you. Angela,
I just found this a little bit ago or last week, I guess, this pacing. And so, it's been nice to kind of gauge where I'm at. I'm having to play a little bit of catch up right now so I can get back on schedule, but it's it's great to have it to follow. Thank you.
I would love to say I'm following it and going as fast as I should be, but I'm not. so next resource question of the day we want to talk about like ideas for using this. so I'll just share. So question of the day is they have one for CSA, CSP, Python and JavaScript. and I'll just click on the link maybe. Yeah. So this is going to the CSA question of the day. so just a couple things about this one is you can move back and forth or you can move backwards. once you go backwards you can move forwards in the different days. So this is yesterday's but you can also something I figured out is in the address bar you can change the date. So, if I wanted to go back to August 1st, I could put 08-01 up there. And I think it starts August 1st. So, if you wanted to like go back cuz like your class isn't quite there yet, you can start over at the beginning. but you can show these. These are five five, but the the AP tests is four, but still it's great practice for them. And then, I don't know, Steve, can you answer this? There's a way to tell how many question of the day problems kids have done. Can you
So if you I can show or you can show with one of your classes. I can it's it's from the quiz scores app. If you go back to like your code's homepage on the left hand side, if you went to quiz scores, that quiz scores app. And then you should see QOTD scores up at the top.
Oh, yay. Okay.
And that shows you Yeah. for all of all of the questions of the day for any class for any of the any of the four ones you could see for your section.
Okay. So yeah, so one of my students is doing really well. I know I shouldn't show that. So I'm gonna get off that slide soon. but yeah, so and I use it I have it on my planner that I show every day and encourage them to do that while I'm doing attendance. And then sometimes I will if I feel like we have time I will we'll do it all together. But usually by then they've already done it. So, that's how I use it. So, if you have any ideas put in, please put them on that document that we have, but we let's go around and see what everyone's like how you use the question of the day.
Yeah. And Kim, before we do that, I you're you're inspiring a question for myself. I'm realizing I don't know the answer to. if you do li if you do demo the question of the day live on your teacher account, can you clear that for a period later in the day when you would need it again?
Oh, I don't think so. That's a good point.
Steve, do you know? I I'm realizing I've worked here a year and a half and I don't know. I'm investigating >> because that would be a nice feature to have like if you have multiple class periods and you need to show the question of the day because we have all these other languages too you know I'm not sure if many teachers have multiple CSA courses but I'm sure folks have multiple Python courses and multiple
okay let me just pick something and not really think about it
yeah it looks like you can't but that'd be a good
there yeah that would be a good feature
okay I will type up a feature request. Thank you for exploring that with me and and I'm sorry to take over.
Okay, Steve, did you have anything to add to what we talked about?
No, I loved using this. It was a lot of fun. your students can subscribe to it and they get an email directly to them if they like that was that was something I I it was kind of fun to do like that way they got a little reminder. But yeah, I liked I liked doing these having them do it at the beginning of the the day and kind of starting class with it. It's it's cool. And if you don't even for your non-AP classes, the Python and JavaScript ones are pretty cool, too. just giving kids more opportunities in kind of a fun way and you can kind of make it a fun competition of, you know, who's answered the most, who has the highest percentage, like you can you can come up with some incentives there, which is cool.
How do you subscribe?
Oh, so if you go >> if you go back to I question of the day in general. Sorry. if you just click on it from your end. Yeah, you should see up at the top there's a and students can see from their side nav menu too. So if you pick one from when you're viewing there should be a bar up at the top that says subscribe here. Yeah. Oh,
I just had students click that when they were viewing one and then it sends them an email each day and says, "Don't forget to answer your question of the day." >> perfect.
Which I think is pretty cool. Yeah. But students also can get to the question of the day from their lefthand side navigation menu. looks it'll look a little bit different on their end, but it is like Yeah. They they can get to it, pick whichever one they want to do, but the subscription gives them a reminder to do it, which I think is nice. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thomas, do you have any other thoughts on how we might use question of the day?
my class this year for CSA is, I think, 17 students, which is a nice size for teaching, but I'm I'm debating whether I want to get them to all sit around a table up at the whiteboard or go up to the whiteboard and answer it together. The past few years I had class sizes of like five or six or seven and it actually worked really well. I mean sometimes I would just like sit sort of behind them all and give them the dry erase markers and say go up there and and work it out and debate it and see which answer you think is right. And most of my groups were good kids and they worked well together and and it was a really good thing. I don't really I'm kind of debating myself how to incorporate question of the day into the class because of the bigger class size. I'm not sending 17 kids up to the whiteboard obviously at the same time. So, so I'm thinking of maybe breaking them up into groups or you know something like that. but like I said, with five kids up at the board together, especially, you know, being good kids in a in an AP class, it really worked well. they they taught each other very well. Couple years ago, I had some some kids get really good scores on the AP exam, and they worked together well the whole year. They pretty much hardly ever even taught the course. They just taught themselves, and I just answered questions.
Cool. Thank you. and then I think we go to Mark. Yeah.
Yeah, Mark.
With the questions of the days, I haven't started really using them yet, but I am planning on using them for both CSA and CSP. just haven't really not yet. I just want to squeeze in.
Okay, thank you. Matt, wait, Mark. Matt is not here. Angela
haven't been using question of the day previously. I had tried using it in Python but it seemed like it was kind of randomly grabbed so stuff we haven't necessarily learned yet. Are the are the questions of the day pulled randomly from the curriculum or does it start from the beginning or how are how are they selected?
I feel like they follow the curriculum, Steve. Is that the intention?
I can check. I think for AP it might be a little different than the Python and JavaScript ones. I can double check. You're I think you're right that the Python and JavaScript it kind of just pulls from the gamut of Python and JavaScript. But I can I can find out about the AP ones, though I'm pretty sure they do tend to follow the curriculum. Yeah, like I'm looking for the AP ones, you should be good. Like I'm looking at this week's they're all they're all ins and scanners and casting variables which would be kind of that first unit. So
you should be good for the AP.
I'll jump back. Yeah, I'll jump back on board then. With the Python ones, it was frustrating for kids because they're thinking, "Oh, am I supposed to know this?" Because when did we learn this? And we hadn't. So, I kind of gave up on it.
Yeah. And Yep. And I think the other thing too for Python and JavaScript, we have so many Python and JavaScript curriculums. But for the AP, we only have one curriculum, so it's very easy. I mean, for AP, it's the the curriculum is the curriculum. So, it's easy to follow for those ones. So yeah, I just double checked all the ones that are out so far are all unit one
and and I will add that I think they are supposed to gradually for for all of them all gradually get more difficult throughout the school year. I will say to Steve's point that is absolutely true that we have several different Python courses, several different JavaScript courses, but I'm doing the JavaScript ones right now. and they started off the school year with like questions about how do you make a comment in JavaScript and questions about decomposition and algorithms and and and that very like introlevel content and then today for loops came out of nowhere. So I was like ah well okay here we go. but it you know as stu students should be working through probably Carol JavaScript right now and probably are learning about loops. So yeah I if you find Angela that you have feedback about the alignment like please send that to our team. we love feedback. The curriculum team loves to hear from teachers about how the these tools actually work in the classroom. And you know the more voices chime in on a specific curriculum feature that is great or is not working so well the the speedier it jumps the list of priorities for updates. So,
okay. I think we got through everyone. but yeah, if you have other ideas, add it into that shared document. but I think the Python one was asking Tracy questions and I'm not doing Tracy yet. So, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. so now I'm gonna pass it back to Stephanie.
Yes. All right. Well, this has been a fantastic 51 minutes together already. We've covered a lot of ground and I hope that you all feel like you've found some great resources and shared some great ideas together. The chat was popping which we always love and I very much appreciate your willingness to come on camera to come off mute and to participate and share your ideas and your resources. I have been adding some of some folks's ideas to our shared notepad document. Some links I've added to that shared note notepad document as we've gone along here. So definitely check that out. You have access to that notepad document and these slides for as long as you need them. And so we will make sure to put those in the chat maybe one more time here before we leave. but you will also get a follow-up email from us with those links as well and a recording of today's session. So, lots of resources to go back to if you think of something in the future that that you want to revisit. So, as I said at the top of the hour, this professional learning community is an ongoing meeting and we hope that you'll be able to join us for each of our quarterly meetings. So, go ahead and mark your calendars for November 18th. you can't register for that session yet, but we we do hope you'll be able to to join us. And if it's on your calendar, maybe when that banner comes across when you log into code HS or when you get a marketing email in our newsletter with a PLC reminder, we hope you'll sign up and join us again to continue to share to continue to explore this Cortado course and this new College Board content together. So, Kim helps me, pick, well, Kim does all the work. Kim picks the topics each time, but she's such an amazing, CSA teacher that that she picks fantastic discussion topics. And so, we'll be talking about pacing each time we meet. Again, that's once a quarter. we'd love to talk about AI tools. how you're using that as you teach AP, how you're inviting students to use AI tools as they learn this CSA curriculum. alternative exercises that are available. well, actually, Steve, they probably don't have alternative exercises for Cortado, right? Because brand new course. But, you know, if you have some resources that you're using, we don't have an updated digital textbook yet, but we're hoping, we've left it on the list here because we're hoping our curriculum team, gets around to that soon. And we'd love to know what you want to discuss. So, you can tell us that by filling out our survey here. and so, Kim, let's go to the next. If you have any questions, put them in the chat. Kim and Steve will answer them. I have posted the slides link. oh good point Mark. There are yes lots of practice Java exercises. So maybe we can talk about those next time for sure. We always have tons more help here at CodeHS with no teacher is an island here and I know that many of you are the only CS teacher in your building, maybe even in your district at this CSA level. And so we we hope you join us. Kim, you really like the CSA codes Facebook group, right?
Yes. Both the that one and the CSP Facebook group. I get a lot out of those. Lots of resources. I'm constantly clicking and then emailing myself the link that I get.
Love it. Well, if you have a Facebook account, please find the code CSA and CSP groups and hopefully like Kim, you'll find a lot of useful information there. And then, okay, next slide is our survey. So, we would love to hear from you. I'll put this link in the chat. what was great and helpful today, what you want to talk about in the future. So, please take just this next two, three minutes to fill out that survey. If you have any additional questions for Kim or Steve, put them in the chat. And thank you so much for spending this hour with us. This has been lovely. I absolutely love to talk shop with educators. I know Steve does too. And you know, we really appreciate all that you do for your students and and I learned some today, too. So, thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you.
Great to see you, Thomas. Yes. Please join us again in November.
Okay.
And Mark, I know I'll see you,
Steve. Thanks for sharing how to do the quiz or the question of the day, how to see all of them. I'm excited to share that with the kids now.
Yeah, no problem. It's fun. I like that it does a little heat map. so you can and you can also see percentages by like which days were like just by question too. Like you can see like, oh, okay, like only 45% of my students got this one correct. So like we'll talk about this one in classroom. Yeah, it's it's cool. It's it's nice that that data is readily available for you.
Cool. I actually think that quiz scores app is a underrated code feature for summitative assessment.
Yeah, I need to check it out.
I didn't know it existed until I started working here. So that's how underrated it is.
There's a lot of features that I go, "Oh, didn't know it was there."
Yeah.
Which is why these groups are so awesome. So
I agree 100%.
All right. Well, Kim, thanks so much for leading us and picking these fantastic topics, and we'll see everybody in November.
Okay,
bye.
See you. [Music]
Yeah, I'm in Yeah, I'm in Washington State near Portland, Oregon. and I have AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles, video game programming, and coding one. And I use code HS for all of that. I also use Unity for video game programming. and yeah, been teaching 38 years and computer science for probably 14 of that time.
An expert. Thank you so much for joining us today. And we will have Steve also. Kim, if you'll go to the next slide. So what we've got here is a shared document and what we're going to do is use this document. So Thomas and Harun and Mark and Matt, I'm going to put a link in the chat and you can also scan with your phone if you'd like to the QR code there to access this document. But basically what this is going to be is our place to share resources. That is what this professional learning community is all about. sharing best practices, sharing ideas, talking about our things that worked in the classroom, talking about things that that didn't maybe didn't go so well and we want to improve upon and get some other folks's opinions on how we might make adjustments or tweaks for the you know, just just helping our students as best as we can tackle this very technical APCSA course. So, go ahead and open up that shared notes doc. And Kim, if you'll go to the next slide.
Oh, oops. perfect. Thank you. Okay. So, our goal here, like I said, this is a collaborative space. And what we want is for you APCSA educators to share ideas, resources, discuss assessments and test prep strategies, explore effective teaching methodologies, refine your plans, refine your pacing, and all of this discussion and sharing with the goal of improving student outcomes on the exam and ex and supporting each other in delivering high quality instruction mostly based on using codes tools and curriculum. I assume that you all are familiar with codes since you have joined us here today for this meeting today. So next slide please Kim. Thank you. If you are new to us which I am pretty sure I've seen at least three of your names before. So, I don't think we have any newbies, but if you are, you can sign up for the Codys curriculum at codjs.com/signup. And we will be mostly talking through the curriculum that CODHS provides for CSA. but maybe some other resources and tools will come up also. All right. Next. Thank you. Perfect. And so, we're going to do some introductions. We are a fairly small group here today. So we'll ask you to if not come on camera because I see that folks still have not come on camera but if you're shy that's okay we'll ask you to u participate in the chat or come off mute for this discussionbased session today. So what we're going to do is we are going to first talk about the updates to the CSA exam. Kim and Steve are going to share what they have seen with the updated codes curriculum. Kim's going to talk a little bit about how it's going so far. I mean, we're we're Kim, you're what, a month into the school year.
Yeah. Just almost.
Yeah. A month into the school year, a month into this new curriculum. And so, we want to hear where you're at, how it's going, what are you using to to help students start with a bang in this CSA course. Then we'll talk about Codys updates. the cortado course is our new CSA course. We also have some labs coming soon and ones that have carried over from you know the previous version of the exam coming from the college board. And we'll just talk a lot about pacing like like how how are we going to get all this content covered this year? And then we'll also talk about a very specific code resource question of the day. We do have a brief survey for you at the end. We want to make sure that because this is a professional learning community that we can hopefully all gather again together in the future. This will be a quarterly professional learning community meeting and we hope to see you in the future. And so, our survey will ask, you know, what what kind of times work for you, what kind of days work for you, and some a few other questions about what you liked and what you want to see in future, PLC meetings. All right. So, again, this is different from a webinar. This is not sit and get. And I see Thomas has come on camera. Thank you, Thomas. And if anybody else would like to, we we encourage you to come on camera and come off mute today and ask questions, answer questions, share resources, and join the conversation. And I think we have one person who is still trying to join us. But just in case you didn't access the shared notes dock, go ahead and do that because that's where we're going to be dropping our helpful resources and ideas today as we go through this conversationbased session. All right. Well, with that, I'm gonna kick it to Steve and Kim to introduce themselves, which they already have a little bit, but maybe you could talk a little bit about how long you use CodeHS. And while Steve and Kim are doing that, I'm going to put your names in the chat, and that is the order in which we will ask you to speak this evening as we go through these different discussion topics. So, Kim, you told us how long you've been teaching. you you told us how long you taught CS APCSA. How long have you been using code HS?
Been using code HS for two years. and yeah, just
finding it good a good resource.
Yeah, my first year, my CSA class, I got my best scores with that. Not so much last year, but the first year I I got really good scores. So, that worked out really well. There's been a request for the slides to be shared. Is that something we can do?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely share slides. and we'll I can while other PE folks are talking, I will run down and and get those.
Okay. So, yeah, I've taught APCSA for 10 years. I've taught CS longer, but just CSA specifically for 10 years. Awesome. All right. So, Steve, how long did you say you use CodeHS to teach?
Yeah. Hey, everyone. I taught CS for 11 years. I used CodeHS for seven of those years. including every year I taught APCSA or APCSP. I taught in I live in Houston now. I've been here the last two years, but I I lived in DC before then and taught my first nine years of teaching were there. But yeah, love I taught everything from sixth grade coding all the way up to CSA. used the Nitro course, loved it. I just I code. As soon as I discovered code chess, I was like, this is this is all I'm using now in my classroom. because it the resources are just great. and so while I've not taught the Cortado course because now I'm a PD special code, I I love the Cortado course. I think it's one of the coolest courses I've gotten to see. So, I'm excited for you all to use the Cortado course and also for us to get to talk about it together.
Awesome. All right, Thomas, how long have you been teaching? How long have you taught CSA? And how long have you used CodeHS?
Well, as he was talking, I was trying to look through my files and see. I don't It's been so long I can't remember. some of the earliest things I saved are back to like 2009, 2010. So I think I've been teaching CSA for like 15 years and I started teaching principles not the very first year it came out but maybe like the second or the third year whenever principles came out then I don't remember and I've used codes from the beginning.
Wonderful. Well, welcome to this professional learning community. I hope we get to share lots of great resources today. And Harun, you're next.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hello.
Hello. Hi from New Jersey. And I've been teaching a computer science, not APCSA. I think I'm in wrong group or something. And I'm a career and technology education teacher with CompTIA cyber security, you know, CISA certification. and I just started cyber security classes and AI classes and I'm preparing curriculum for the district and I will be teaching also for next three years. This is my first year using codes and still navigating and I have also a professional background experience IT manager you know and network administrator some Cisco certification. So my path hopefully will be more CTE you know career and technology education with the hopefully especially new upcoming career kickstart AP classes coming you know and I was on somehow suggesting you know a committee but school I change it so they don't have it so hopefully I am leaning towards more cyber security and AI classes and Cisco Academy you know I teach before so and I'm looking for someone anyone you know about learning because it has been long years I thought maybe in Texas seven eight years then I became you know IT manager district IT now I'm going back to this path so I'm open suggestions including code HS and navigating cy cyber security and AI classes possibilities. I'm doing my master on national cyber security.
Wow. Well, you sound like a a busy person and with a ton of great experience to share with your students. So, thank you for joining us. And
as a teacher, so I am open I am novice because many things change. So, I am open to every and any kind of suggestions from my fellow friends.
Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Okay. Well, Mark, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.
I started I started teaching physics in the Houston area around 2015 and over time I've been moving towards Python and then my wife wanted to move to the Colorado Springs area. So, I start I taught in that school district and now I'm teaching in both the high schools just north of Colorado Springs in Monument. And I'm also the focal for the innovation center. We're getting together for our more advanced classes. I use code HS for my Python courses and I use it to supplement my CSA course which I I do a lot with CS awesome but I also really enjoy the sandboxes for doing the coding in any of the languages. I find that for my PLTW, which is PLTW is really big here, Project Lead the Way, in Colorado, that, with the principles I need to use Visual Studio Code, but with the other courses, I really find that the, that the code HS is great for supplementing the content.
Well, I welcome. You are a familiar face, a familiar name here around CodeHS webinars and workshops. So, I'm so excited to have you back again this year. Thanks for joining us. All right. And Matt,
hi. Yeah, I'm Matt. I'm not going to turn the video on. We've been having some internet issues here for the last oh decade. No, the last day or so especially here. If I turn the video on, I think it's going to drop out on me. So, sorry about that everyone. I'm here in Gilroy, California. been teaching for 29 years now. computer science for six or seven I guess now AP for just three. this is my first time using code high school. the district decided we're going to do code high school this year. So we're doing a code high school. So I am brand new to this part and just trying to hang on right about now as we finally got the students all enrolled in everything.
Yes. Starting the year with those routines and a new curriculum. That's that's a lot. So, welcome and thank you. And Angela, if you are ready, we are just sharing a little bit about our teaching background.
Boy, sorry I am late to to join here. So, this is my first year teaching AP computer science and I've used code HS for other courses before, but of course this is my first experience in AP. So, yeah, just looking for ideas and figuring it out as I go along, but I've been teaching for about 12 years.
Awesome. Well, welcome. And I hope we get some great sharing of resources and ideas today. So, Kim, next slide, and I'm going to pass it off to you to talk about CSA. Steve, feel free to pop in here as we talk about the Cortado course. and I would I'm just excited to hear how it's going for you all. So I will hand it over to you Kim.
All right. So we do have changes from previous CSA course. So the new topics that we have are the text files and data sets. Those are in unit 4. I'm looking forward to that and I'm looking forward to the fact that code HS is going to help me learn it. So, and then they took inheritance out. And there's some people in the community that think we shouldn't have, but that's just it is what it is. and it's only four units instead of 10 units, but therefore really long units. and then the exam revisions, u 50/50 test, it's 55% multiple choice with 42 questions instead of 40. So, I don't know why we needed two more, but we did. and four answer choices instead of five. And then the free response question is 45% of the score should be shorter questions according to the college board. We'll see. and the third one is just array list, not arrays or array lists. So, and if you wanted the complete description of the official changes from the slides, you can click the link on that. And then I'll just do these two slides. CODHS made updates or made like a whole new curriculum actually to match the College Board's updates and it's awesome. I've been using it since the end of August. and I've already gone through all of unit one myself and it's awesome. All new videos. the curriculum is really great. It uses this prim model predict, run, investigate, modify, and make. and there's several instead of just an exercise where the students like look at it, click run, and go on, they have they look at it, but they have to do some things with the activities and record their observations. And it's much more like interactive with the students. So, it works really well. And then the codes matches the College Board units exactly. So you have to be careful because it's not like one section per day necessarily. So we'll look at pacing in a second. But those are my thoughts on it. Those of you that have looked into the changes and whatnot, we're just kind of go around and see what thoughts you have on it or questions you have on it. Either either way going back through the same order. We'll let Steve put his two cents in and then we'll go back through that same order.
Yeah, just echoing Kim, I love the prim activities. They've been great. like I I just think they're super fun for having students actually break down the code and like kind of one putting a lot of the thinking on them to actually like process what's happening and analyzing the code because you know we know sometimes that's a that's a transition when they take the multiple choice portion and they actually have to break down code and run through it like the more practice they can get on that the better. So I've I've been loving the prim activities for that. and also the text files unit I have done it is great because I I also was like I need code just to teach me these this text files too because I don't know what this is but I I I really like the text files unit when you get to unit 4. It's pretty it's pretty solid. It's a lot of fun and it's really cool exercises. I'm glad that College Board added them in because they're very realistic coding kind of projects it feels like and I think it'll be a lot of fun for students as well too. And I did look I think for the free responses I did a I was curious I think looking at the course exam descriptions the ones from this year are like one page shorter than the ones from the previous one. So maybe they're a little shorter but again that'll be as as more stuff comes out we can kind of compare but they look like they're maybe like a little bit shorter in instruction wise. but yeah, I'm I'm interested to see as more FRQs get released too, what what if any changes to the other ones, what they might look like.
Well, what I was thinking too is they at least gave them still 90 minutes. and we can use the old F FRQs to practice so the new on the test they'll go, "Oh, wow, that was easy." So,
yeah,
hopefully. Thomas, do you have any questions or comments about the new curriculum? I guess not really. There's that. My My only comment, I guess, would be the investigate.txt files. There's you know, it's it's kind of easy for me to look at the code and know if they did it right and know if they did it the way I think they should. And reading people's sentences, it makes me feel like an English teacher, which I don't really like. so that that would be like I guess my only comment. we did have something just today we're working on a assignment called buggy quotes and the autograder seemed to be picking up that there was an error in the investigate txt file, which I was really kind of blown away by because you can you can write almost anything you want any way you want in a response as to like what's wrong. So, I'm or what you had to fix to make the thing work. So, I'm wondering how the autograder actually goes through an you know, someone's little essay thing about why something's working now, what they fixed, and how it knows that they wrote something acceptable. I had a student that it said that it was doing the investigator.txt file, but it was they didn't add two print statements to their code. Their output didn't match even though it said they didn't finish that investigate file.
Oh, because I had some students, you know, they we I looked at their code, I looked at the solution code and they fixed all the bugs, but it still wasn't passing. And then one student said to the other, "Oh, in your investigate file, you didn't put in that it was a syntax error." And then they rewrote their response and then it passed the autograder. And I was kind of blown away by that because I didn't realize the autograder was actually checking the investigate file.
Steve, do you have any thing to add on that?
Yeah, I know the one you're talking about. and I just pulled up to double check. Yeah, the so the there are only a few of the prim activities where the autograder actually checks the investigate file. That is one of them and you are correct. It's actually looking for if they use the words syntax and logic the correct amount of times I believe is what it's looking for there.
So
that's how it's checking that one. the we did just update our autograder interface so it it to give a little more kind of feature flexibility on them and I know one of the ones that you can do is you can toggle a contains content autograder so I'm pretty sure that's what it's doing it's checking to see making sure that there are and you can say for the autograder to be like I want to count the word syntax five times and make sure that there's I don't know if there were five syntax errors I'm just picking a number but
I understand
that's what it's doing I believe I believe on that one is it's checking to make sure that they got the correct syntax or logic in the correct amount of times. Not all of the prim ones do the autograder. I think it's only like a couple, but the buggy quotes is one of those where it is checked.
Yeah. Well, because on one of and I understand, thank you for the clarification. on one of the previous assignments where I don't know I can't remember now if it was mine as I was going through the unit or one of the students but it it didn't pass and I was like messing around with the investigate file and if I made it like really bad it still would pass even with that and I'm like yeah it's not checking that and then when we went to this one it's like wait it is checking it and I'm like hm wait a second so one one of the things that creating a little bit more work for me this year is going through the unit and you know as the teacher I can I can code it and I can get it to work but I'm trying to find pitfalls that can really stress out the students because of something I don't want to say silly but something maybe they just don't get you know and the autograder is really good but sometimes you know it it just can cause some problems like for instance I was doing one today with the compound compound operators, you know, like plus equals, minus equals, times equals, divide equals. And you had to change the code in the assignment from, I don't know, counter equals counter + one to counter plus, things like that. And there was one that said, make the health, I think it was the health, the health of the player go down by half. And I'm like, I know the autograder is going to be looking for divide equals, but I'm gonna be cute and I'm gonna put in times equals 0.5. Now, that works. That makes the player's health go down by half, but it wouldn't pass the autograder. and then I changed it to divide equals by two, and then it passed. And so what I like to do with things like that is put little notes in my Google classroom for the assignments they're working on so that they can refer back to that and I can point them out and say when you do this assignment some of you may think oh I could I can multiply by 0.5 and you can and your code works but if you want it to pass the autograder you better put divide by two
you know so that for the for the nitro course I had a lot of those resources already established and now this one I'm going through and sometimes I can perceive where a pitfall may be and sometimes I don't. and I have to wait until the students start telling me something's not working right and then on the fly I got to kind of figure out oh okay how can we how can we make it the way it's really supposed to be so it you know so it passes.
So Thomas at the end of this
we'll get there but you know it's it's all new.
At the end of the school year we'll all be anxiously awaiting your Google doc that you share with us.
Okay. All right,
Thomas, have you tried doing the the AI like when you go to grade like having it use the AI to grade it? So like to grade their program so it'll tell you what's wrong with it.
No, I don't know about that.
Yeah, it's a pro feature.
Is it a pro feature? Oh, okay. I didn't realize. Okay.
All right.
Yeah, I'm on the I'm on the free plan.
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all that. Harun, are are you teaching CSA? Do you want to share here? I think he was in the car, so maybe we'll skip him.
All right, Mark. Next, I think
Mark's next. Mark, what do you do? Do you have any comments or questions on it?
just CSA in general. >> I'm enjoying it. I I haven't played around much with the with the a with the well the AI I haven't done much either, but I haven't done much with trying to edit the problems with the autograders so that they're going to be more unique, but that's not going to be a big issue for this first year u with students looking up answers. I'm not using it quite enough to be able to give you a whole lot of input and more listening to what y'all are experiencing who use it more heavily. Okay, thank you. Matt, do you have anything to add?
Sorry, nothing to add right now. Sorry.
Oh, that's fine. Just that's just fine. Angela, do you have any comments or questions on this new curriculum?
Do want to say I absolutely love the AI feature. So to me that's worth the pro version altogether because the feedback that it gives saves me so much time and then especially if I'm trying to help students debug their code a lot of times you know I'm super busy and and it you know I don't want to stand there and read through all their code and being able to just quickly do that and spot all those all the errors and correctly phrase feedback is just incredibly valuable. I super love it. The one thing I have noticed that I'm not loving, I guess is just kind of a an ongoing issue is that if they have an a or a endless loop, if they have an infinite loop, it crashes, right? Rather than giving them a response. And I really wish there was a better way to deal with that because as students are learning those loops, they're obviously going to hit those and and it just would be really nice if we had a better way to deal with that rather than crash and have to go back in. Yes, that is frustrating for them and me. Okay. Chris, do you have any questions or comments on the updated curriculum? Hello. I'm new to code HS and yes and I'm learning everything and I also love the AI features. So that's all.
Okay, thank you. Okay, next topic is the pacing and I have a couple slides on this. so I went through the CED and if you look at the unit at a glance pages, it tells you how many days for each part. So, I'm gonna flip back to that. So, like, and I didn't know this, like somebody had to point it out to me. So, like topic 1.1, it says two instructional periods. 1.2 instructional periods. and so like code HS has it matching this. so like before, like with the Nitro, it would be like one section per day kind of is what you would do. but now because they wanted to match this, you want to look look up how many days you should probably spend on each part. And that's College Board's version of it. And I just added up those days or how many days it would be. And then CodeHS's syllabus put an overview like at the beginning of each unit. It says how many hours you might want to spend on that. And I'm sure that includes like the test and everything else. So, it's pretty close to what's there. And then when to do the College Board labs, it that's helpful to know like I never knew before when I should do them. and so this is Kod Justice site and if you scroll down and look at at the last sentence in there says unit one do this in Cado. after unit one. So the receipt lab do after unit one. Magpie you can do so whichever lab you decide to do you can do it at that time. So magpie you can do after unit two. Oh it says all but activity 5 can be used after unit two in cortado. So it's really helpful to know when that you can do each lab. So that's helpful. And they've got a note for all of the labs not just the new four four new ones. And then Steve and TJ. Steve, did you make this pacing thing? Are you the one that made it?
Yeah, we made it. Yeah, it's a it's a handy guide.
Okay, so I'm going to demo this super cool pacing guide. And this follows code's pacing plan, right?
Yeah, it's it literally follows KHS's and college boards. it's the instructional periods document that you showed of like two instructional periods. Two instructional periods that just that's that's what is this is from.
Okay, perfect. So, I highly recommend that you all click on it and bookmark it. and so this is like week one. You know what you should do is like he just said day one of two, day 202, but let's say on Friday you have an assembly. you can just click that day and it moves everything out for you. Or let's say on section 13 you spent an extra day, you can just click that and move everything over. so it it shifts things around for you and just moves it all out. It's really awesome. and then also if you're on a block schedule, you can switch it over to block schedule. Oh, look, you can print it, too. there's every time I look at this page, there's something cool, new, and cool about it. so Steve, you want to add to that? What else have I missed? No, you nailed it. Yeah, so it's the the toggling feature is cool, right? The default view is if you have 45 minute instructional periods daily because that's what College Board when they say instructional periods on their documents, they mean 45 minute periods. So that's the default view. But yeah, if you if you toggle to block schedule, it'll adapt to and you'll see it just kind of condenses. So like you might you'll see less day one of two and day two of two because now you have the full 90-minute block schedule. So yeah, those are the only two configurations we have on it right now. but it is set up for the whole year so you can kind of visualize it. play around with it. Yeah, if you want to print it and hang it up, you can do that too. and yeah, a lot of the other stuff that Kim pointed out too, we linked there down at the bottom, as well for like the just just a handy page kind of trying to make a one-stop shop for you of kind of a lot of the resources. So, yeah, definitely use it. Again, it's it's just synced directly up to College Board's recommendations. So, all we did was take it and making it a little more onepage friendlier, user friendly version. So, but it's the same recommendations College Board's going to give you. As Kim said, our lessons are linked to their lessons, so you can definitely their pacing would would apply to our pacing as well.
Perfect. and that that exam review course is handy. So, having these resources at the bottom is nice.
Okay. so does anyone have like if you have ideas on pacing, we could put it in that document that we shared or if you have a different pacing that you're going to use. so we going to go around and talk about pacing. Yeah. Okay. So, using that same order and you've got it on there. Steve just talked. So, Thomas, do you have any thoughts on pacing or questions about pacing?
no, not really. I'm using the the resources that you guys provided and, you know, setting up my pacing that way and just trying to stick to it.
Okay. And Harun, Harun, do you have anything that you want to add to pacing conversation? Okay. Oh, bye Chris. Thank you. Mark, do you have anything that you have questions about or want to share?
No, I love your guide. I'll take a look at yours. I've been using someone else's.
Yes, that's awesome. Matt, any thoughts?
Well, mainly just want to say thank you for that guide. I think it looks really cool. I'm on a slightly weird schedule. I do two short periods and two long periods each week. So, kind of that hybrid block and standard. So, it's going to really help me out with the pacing. So, looks cool.
All right. Thank you. Angela,
I just found this a little bit ago or last week, I guess, this pacing. And so, it's been nice to kind of gauge where I'm at. I'm having to play a little bit of catch up right now so I can get back on schedule, but it's it's great to have it to follow. Thank you.
I would love to say I'm following it and going as fast as I should be, but I'm not. so next resource question of the day we want to talk about like ideas for using this. so I'll just share. So question of the day is they have one for CSA, CSP, Python and JavaScript. and I'll just click on the link maybe. Yeah. So this is going to the CSA question of the day. so just a couple things about this one is you can move back and forth or you can move backwards. once you go backwards you can move forwards in the different days. So this is yesterday's but you can also something I figured out is in the address bar you can change the date. So, if I wanted to go back to August 1st, I could put 08-01 up there. And I think it starts August 1st. So, if you wanted to like go back cuz like your class isn't quite there yet, you can start over at the beginning. but you can show these. These are five five, but the the AP tests is four, but still it's great practice for them. And then, I don't know, Steve, can you answer this? There's a way to tell how many question of the day problems kids have done. Can you
So if you I can show or you can show with one of your classes. I can it's it's from the quiz scores app. If you go back to like your code's homepage on the left hand side, if you went to quiz scores, that quiz scores app. And then you should see QOTD scores up at the top.
Oh, yay. Okay.
And that shows you Yeah. for all of all of the questions of the day for any class for any of the any of the four ones you could see for your section.
Okay. So yeah, so one of my students is doing really well. I know I shouldn't show that. So I'm gonna get off that slide soon. but yeah, so and I use it I have it on my planner that I show every day and encourage them to do that while I'm doing attendance. And then sometimes I will if I feel like we have time I will we'll do it all together. But usually by then they've already done it. So, that's how I use it. So, if you have any ideas put in, please put them on that document that we have, but we let's go around and see what everyone's like how you use the question of the day.
Yeah. And Kim, before we do that, I you're you're inspiring a question for myself. I'm realizing I don't know the answer to. if you do li if you do demo the question of the day live on your teacher account, can you clear that for a period later in the day when you would need it again?
Oh, I don't think so. That's a good point.
Steve, do you know? I I'm realizing I've worked here a year and a half and I don't know. I'm investigating >> because that would be a nice feature to have like if you have multiple class periods and you need to show the question of the day because we have all these other languages too you know I'm not sure if many teachers have multiple CSA courses but I'm sure folks have multiple Python courses and multiple
okay let me just pick something and not really think about it
yeah it looks like you can't but that'd be a good
there yeah that would be a good feature
okay I will type up a feature request. Thank you for exploring that with me and and I'm sorry to take over.
Okay, Steve, did you have anything to add to what we talked about?
No, I loved using this. It was a lot of fun. your students can subscribe to it and they get an email directly to them if they like that was that was something I I it was kind of fun to do like that way they got a little reminder. But yeah, I liked I liked doing these having them do it at the beginning of the the day and kind of starting class with it. It's it's cool. And if you don't even for your non-AP classes, the Python and JavaScript ones are pretty cool, too. just giving kids more opportunities in kind of a fun way and you can kind of make it a fun competition of, you know, who's answered the most, who has the highest percentage, like you can you can come up with some incentives there, which is cool.
How do you subscribe?
Oh, so if you go >> if you go back to I question of the day in general. Sorry. if you just click on it from your end. Yeah, you should see up at the top there's a and students can see from their side nav menu too. So if you pick one from when you're viewing there should be a bar up at the top that says subscribe here. Yeah. Oh,
I just had students click that when they were viewing one and then it sends them an email each day and says, "Don't forget to answer your question of the day." >> perfect.
Which I think is pretty cool. Yeah. But students also can get to the question of the day from their lefthand side navigation menu. looks it'll look a little bit different on their end, but it is like Yeah. They they can get to it, pick whichever one they want to do, but the subscription gives them a reminder to do it, which I think is nice. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thomas, do you have any other thoughts on how we might use question of the day?
my class this year for CSA is, I think, 17 students, which is a nice size for teaching, but I'm I'm debating whether I want to get them to all sit around a table up at the whiteboard or go up to the whiteboard and answer it together. The past few years I had class sizes of like five or six or seven and it actually worked really well. I mean sometimes I would just like sit sort of behind them all and give them the dry erase markers and say go up there and and work it out and debate it and see which answer you think is right. And most of my groups were good kids and they worked well together and and it was a really good thing. I don't really I'm kind of debating myself how to incorporate question of the day into the class because of the bigger class size. I'm not sending 17 kids up to the whiteboard obviously at the same time. So, so I'm thinking of maybe breaking them up into groups or you know something like that. but like I said, with five kids up at the board together, especially, you know, being good kids in a in an AP class, it really worked well. they they taught each other very well. Couple years ago, I had some some kids get really good scores on the AP exam, and they worked together well the whole year. They pretty much hardly ever even taught the course. They just taught themselves, and I just answered questions.
Cool. Thank you. and then I think we go to Mark. Yeah.
Yeah, Mark.
With the questions of the days, I haven't started really using them yet, but I am planning on using them for both CSA and CSP. just haven't really not yet. I just want to squeeze in.
Okay, thank you. Matt, wait, Mark. Matt is not here. Angela
haven't been using question of the day previously. I had tried using it in Python but it seemed like it was kind of randomly grabbed so stuff we haven't necessarily learned yet. Are the are the questions of the day pulled randomly from the curriculum or does it start from the beginning or how are how are they selected?
I feel like they follow the curriculum, Steve. Is that the intention?
I can check. I think for AP it might be a little different than the Python and JavaScript ones. I can double check. You're I think you're right that the Python and JavaScript it kind of just pulls from the gamut of Python and JavaScript. But I can I can find out about the AP ones, though I'm pretty sure they do tend to follow the curriculum. Yeah, like I'm looking for the AP ones, you should be good. Like I'm looking at this week's they're all they're all ins and scanners and casting variables which would be kind of that first unit. So
you should be good for the AP.
I'll jump back. Yeah, I'll jump back on board then. With the Python ones, it was frustrating for kids because they're thinking, "Oh, am I supposed to know this?" Because when did we learn this? And we hadn't. So, I kind of gave up on it.
Yeah. And Yep. And I think the other thing too for Python and JavaScript, we have so many Python and JavaScript curriculums. But for the AP, we only have one curriculum, so it's very easy. I mean, for AP, it's the the curriculum is the curriculum. So, it's easy to follow for those ones. So yeah, I just double checked all the ones that are out so far are all unit one
and and I will add that I think they are supposed to gradually for for all of them all gradually get more difficult throughout the school year. I will say to Steve's point that is absolutely true that we have several different Python courses, several different JavaScript courses, but I'm doing the JavaScript ones right now. and they started off the school year with like questions about how do you make a comment in JavaScript and questions about decomposition and algorithms and and and that very like introlevel content and then today for loops came out of nowhere. So I was like ah well okay here we go. but it you know as stu students should be working through probably Carol JavaScript right now and probably are learning about loops. So yeah I if you find Angela that you have feedback about the alignment like please send that to our team. we love feedback. The curriculum team loves to hear from teachers about how the these tools actually work in the classroom. And you know the more voices chime in on a specific curriculum feature that is great or is not working so well the the speedier it jumps the list of priorities for updates. So,
okay. I think we got through everyone. but yeah, if you have other ideas, add it into that shared document. but I think the Python one was asking Tracy questions and I'm not doing Tracy yet. So, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. so now I'm gonna pass it back to Stephanie.
Yes. All right. Well, this has been a fantastic 51 minutes together already. We've covered a lot of ground and I hope that you all feel like you've found some great resources and shared some great ideas together. The chat was popping which we always love and I very much appreciate your willingness to come on camera to come off mute and to participate and share your ideas and your resources. I have been adding some of some folks's ideas to our shared notepad document. Some links I've added to that shared note notepad document as we've gone along here. So definitely check that out. You have access to that notepad document and these slides for as long as you need them. And so we will make sure to put those in the chat maybe one more time here before we leave. but you will also get a follow-up email from us with those links as well and a recording of today's session. So, lots of resources to go back to if you think of something in the future that that you want to revisit. So, as I said at the top of the hour, this professional learning community is an ongoing meeting and we hope that you'll be able to join us for each of our quarterly meetings. So, go ahead and mark your calendars for November 18th. you can't register for that session yet, but we we do hope you'll be able to to join us. And if it's on your calendar, maybe when that banner comes across when you log into code HS or when you get a marketing email in our newsletter with a PLC reminder, we hope you'll sign up and join us again to continue to share to continue to explore this Cortado course and this new College Board content together. So, Kim helps me, pick, well, Kim does all the work. Kim picks the topics each time, but she's such an amazing, CSA teacher that that she picks fantastic discussion topics. And so, we'll be talking about pacing each time we meet. Again, that's once a quarter. we'd love to talk about AI tools. how you're using that as you teach AP, how you're inviting students to use AI tools as they learn this CSA curriculum. alternative exercises that are available. well, actually, Steve, they probably don't have alternative exercises for Cortado, right? Because brand new course. But, you know, if you have some resources that you're using, we don't have an updated digital textbook yet, but we're hoping, we've left it on the list here because we're hoping our curriculum team, gets around to that soon. And we'd love to know what you want to discuss. So, you can tell us that by filling out our survey here. and so, Kim, let's go to the next. If you have any questions, put them in the chat. Kim and Steve will answer them. I have posted the slides link. oh good point Mark. There are yes lots of practice Java exercises. So maybe we can talk about those next time for sure. We always have tons more help here at CodeHS with no teacher is an island here and I know that many of you are the only CS teacher in your building, maybe even in your district at this CSA level. And so we we hope you join us. Kim, you really like the CSA codes Facebook group, right?
Yes. Both the that one and the CSP Facebook group. I get a lot out of those. Lots of resources. I'm constantly clicking and then emailing myself the link that I get.
Love it. Well, if you have a Facebook account, please find the code CSA and CSP groups and hopefully like Kim, you'll find a lot of useful information there. And then, okay, next slide is our survey. So, we would love to hear from you. I'll put this link in the chat. what was great and helpful today, what you want to talk about in the future. So, please take just this next two, three minutes to fill out that survey. If you have any additional questions for Kim or Steve, put them in the chat. And thank you so much for spending this hour with us. This has been lovely. I absolutely love to talk shop with educators. I know Steve does too. And you know, we really appreciate all that you do for your students and and I learned some today, too. So, thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you.
Great to see you, Thomas. Yes. Please join us again in November.
Okay.
And Mark, I know I'll see you,
Steve. Thanks for sharing how to do the quiz or the question of the day, how to see all of them. I'm excited to share that with the kids now.
Yeah, no problem. It's fun. I like that it does a little heat map. so you can and you can also see percentages by like which days were like just by question too. Like you can see like, oh, okay, like only 45% of my students got this one correct. So like we'll talk about this one in classroom. Yeah, it's it's cool. It's it's nice that that data is readily available for you.
Cool. I actually think that quiz scores app is a underrated code feature for summitative assessment.
Yeah, I need to check it out.
I didn't know it existed until I started working here. So that's how underrated it is.
There's a lot of features that I go, "Oh, didn't know it was there."
Yeah.
Which is why these groups are so awesome. So
I agree 100%.
All right. Well, Kim, thanks so much for leading us and picking these fantastic topics, and we'll see everybody in November.
Okay,
bye.
See you. [Music]
