Function Families and Lottery Tickets

Hey folks - long time no see. I recently presented at my favorite math conference (the Mathematics Educator Apprecation Day conference) on an intersection between math and computer science, and I thought I'd write up the gist of the presentation I wrote up the whole thing I don't know how to be brief. Sorry /...

#CSTA2020

I did some things at CSTA2020. If you attended any of my sessions: thank youuuuuuuu!! and hope it was worthwhile. If you couldn't make it, but are a CSTA+ member, you can watch the sessions when they're released online. What follows below are some additional resources and shoutouts. Session: Git & GitHub in 3 Lessons...

Translating An In-Class Activity to a Virtual Activity

I recently tried to translate an in-class worksheet-based activity to a virtual activity and I thought I'd share how that went. I'm currently participating in a CSAwesome Professional Development cohort and, as part of the PD, I worked with a few other teachers to teach a lesson to the other members of the cohort. I...

End-Of-Year Retrospective

I just finished my third year of teaching AP CS Principles. Each year I give a survey at the end of the year asking lots of questions about how things went. The results are best summarized by the amazing Justin Aion on twitter: https://twitter.com/MrATeachesMath/status/1133728533245779968 I've taken a once-over look at the results. Now I want...

Student-Centered Discussions in a CS Classroom

I've been iterating on a process to run student-centered discussions about code in my Computer Science classes. After a while I started recording them - you can listen to most of them here. I've gotten to the point where I like what's happening and want to write about it before I forget how I got...

Shark Tank: An Explore PT Practice Task

For the third year in a row, I've done a Shark Tank project with my AP CS Principles classes as their Semester 1 final exam. After 3 years of messing around with it, it feels worthwhile enough to share out. The genesis for this project came from the AP CS Principles Explore Performance Task. When...

Concept Map Gallery Walk – Internet Version

My AP Computer Science Principles class is finishing up our first unit on how the Internet works. For the last few years I've usually ended this unit with a homework assignment that helps them prepare for a test. But this year I've been trying to assign less homework and instead find ways to work those...

New Teaching Strategies

I'm wrapping up a summer full of PD with lots of ideas in my head. Here's a list of new teaching strategies (in no particular order) I plan to implement this year based on what I've been looking into: Call & Response Source: AVID & Microsoft TEALS at CSTA2018 As I've drifted between different pedagogy resources...

Organizing Supplies in a Computer Lab

I teach in in a computer lab with some spacing issues - 32 computers organized into pretty close quarters. Here are a few pictures of my room both with and without students:   (Side note: these are from very early in the school year - I've since decorated my walls with posters. Just wanted to throw...

Logic Gates With Posters & Post-Its

One of the more isolated standards in the AP Computer Science Principles framework is 2.2.3F: A Logic Gate is a hardware abstraction that is modeled with a Boolean function. I find it super tricky to find a place in the curriculum to teach this without it feeling like a diversion from whatever unit or topic...