You can find more detailed information about the course here: https://cs.uteach.utexas.edu/curriculum-and-tea...

In our curriculum, we assume no CS specific knowledge for incoming students. The only prerequisite from the College Board for AP CSP is Algebra 1.

The AP CS Principles course is language agnostic, we use Scratch and Processing for our curriculum. Each of these platforms has been designed to provide beginning students with a simplified and novice-friendly interface with which to write their first dynamic and highly engaging programs. The tools for both environments are platform-independent and freely available online, so schools and students can run these applications and develop their own programs on any available computer without having to purchase any additional software or licenses.

Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu)

Developed by the MIT Media Lab, Scratch offers students an introduction to coding through the use of a visual programming interface. By dragging and dropping labeled programming components (a.k.a., "blocks") that snap together into syntactically correct compositions, students can quickly construct robust and fully functional programs with very little prior programming knowledge or skill. This block-based programming environment is ideally suited to first-time programmers as it abstracts away much of the low-level implementation details and allows students to clearly focus on the more generalized concepts that are so fundamental to the art of computational thinking.

Processing (https://processing.org)

Built atop the Java programming language, Processing offers a simplified syntax and graphical programming model that allows novice programmers to easily develop visually dynamic programs using a high-level programming language. For students who have already been exposed to the drag-and-drop programming of a blocks-based language like Scratch, the introduction of Processing helps them make the transition to the text-based experience of a procedural programming language. And by leveraging the syntax and structure of an industrial language like Java, Processing makes it easier for students to later more easily adopt Java (as is used in AP Computer Science A), C++, or Python a number of other, similar languages that they might encounter in industry or continued studies in computer science.

Hi Barbara, great question!

 

Our curricular designers did say that Python was considered as an alternative because of its easy syntactical learning curve, but Processing allows the students to begin learning some Java syntax that could be useful in AP CSA. There are also some online IDEs that allow for Processing to be done through the browser.

Thanks for the great questions!

For a look into our projects you can see the anchor videos that introduce the unit projects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpxLusH4quY&amp...

Each unit has a project so students take on several roles through out the semester.

Our support includes either a 5-day face-to-face training or 40 online training. During the school year, teachers participate in a virtual community through Piazza. We also host several webinars and provide on demand support through 2 teacher support specialists.

Thanks for sharing. I'm sure the 5 day training is helpful and the Piazza community is great to get teacher talking with one another during the year as they are going through the curriculum.

Hi Debra,

We trained 172 teachers last summer, and about 103 of them had 1 year or less teaching CS; so about 60% did not have much CS teaching experience prior to our training! Last year, we had some recruitment luck in that there was quite the national stirring of interest in CS Principles (the Framework) among the White House CS for All initiative, AP/College Board, CSTA, and all the curricular-provider players (code.org, BJC, ECS, Mobile CSP, etc). So actually, there was more a-buzz in the air that really helped recruiting/marketing efforts external to our own 'push'!

But this year, we've really had to tap in to our national UTeach STEM teacher prep program partners to help us spread the word and directly reach out to local area districts that surround our face-to-face training events. Marketing/Recruiting is a full time job, and we are still a pretty small but dedicated team. I can't say it's been easy, but DonorsChoose, CSTA, and InfoSys CSPD week opportunities and the like for teacher support this year have helped IMMENSELY. We are eternally grateful for interested foundations who support CS teachers' summer training opps. to be sure.

Lastly, the more we support and train teachers with a quality CSP initiative, the more we rely on word-of-mouth and hope to continue garnering a good reputation with CS teachers. It is a work that we are passionate about!

Thank you for your question and viewing the video! -Amy

Thanks, Amy, for your response.  And good luck with the recruiting!

Hi Neil, Thank you for your question!

These first couple years, we have fortunately had a nice mix of funding opportunities available to teachers to attend the trainings, from stipends (Y1) to DonorsChoose support (includes stipends - Myrtle Beach, Seattle, and Boston are still open!), to InfoSys Foundation USA support for CSPdWeek (we have a July training during that week called UTeach CSPDallas - travel/lodging/meals included new-to-CS teachers preferred- seats available!). We feel these funding support structures have helped immensely in attracting teachers to the training. IMMENSELY. We do our best to find the support!

But teachers do get so much more beyond simply the 5-PD days or Online PD trainings - They also receive the 1-year of intensive implementation support: 

• Regular, remote video check-ins for teachers with questions or issues with implementation
• Remote micro-workshops that serve as “just-in-time” refreshers for each upcoming unit
• On-demand phone and email coaching and support, provided by two dedicated UTeach Computer Science teacher support specialists
• An online community of practice, facilitated by the UTeach team, designed to answer questions, connect teachers, and encourage the sharing of resources and context-specific adaptations to the curriculum and materials

And our PD model, we have found, really helps with word-of-mouth from teachers who have stuck it out with us over the year. Our in-house trainers and curricular expert are amazing teachers themselves.

 

Thanks for your note!

We leverage the CB materials related to recruiting heavily: https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/comp...

This summer we are incorporating materials from UW's Alliance for Accessing Computing Careers in our training and we have suggested modifications for special populations in all of our lesson plans.

In terms of flexible curriculum, we encourage teachers to adapt our materials to fit their context. Here is a video of UT Austin faculty speaking about our philosophy related to fidelity of implementation. We encourage teachers to adapt our curriculum vs a lock step adoption. However, the materials we created have been tested for over 4 years and iterated several times which we say to emphasize the amount of thought and effort that has already gone into the design. 

In terms of languages, we strongly believe in our choices of scratch and processing for their accessibility and ease of use (low floor, high ceiling, and wide walls). For more info about why we chose these two platforms here is another video from our online teacher training. We understand that there are other viable options for teachers to choose, but our ability to support their implementation is limited and the materials we have developed would need to be adapted by the instructor. We have opted to have greater depth of support for these two languages rather than accommodating additional languages. We feel that this is more effective for supporting more teachers to implement AP CSP and reach more students.

Thank you for the kind words, Lien! As you know, this UTeach CS team is a passionate bunch when it comes to PBL and inquiry. We are excited about sitting down with the 1-year 'look' at all the data (via school/teacher/classroom demographics and geo-spread of UTeach CSP course implementation and evaluator surveys) that we have gathered to date. On top of that, we are really interested in seeing the first round of AP CSP results soon (I'm sure we are not alone there!). All together, I have no doubt that our year's work so far will tell a quite the story! We'll be mindful to incorporate the lessons we can learn to improve our work, and especially to hear from the teachers and students' experiences in completing this course over the last year.