AP Computer Science A

This is where each week's assignments in AP CS A are posted. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 30: Monday, April 7th – Friday, April 11th

Hi there! Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up the last unit for the course and begin prepping for the AP exam in May:

• finish Assignment 10: Anagrams

• Unit 10 Exam 🥨  

• Unit 1 Progress Check: MCQ Part A

• Unit 1 Progress Check: MCQ Part B

• Unit 2 Progress Check: MCQ Part A

• Unit 2 Progress Check: MCQ Part B

For those of you who are on pace, congratulations on making it through the course! I know it was a lot, so you should be proud of yourselves for persevering through some really challenging concepts. If you're behind, you can still catch up if you focus on working during class time and tune out any distractions.

This is our last regular week for a while – next week we'll have late arrival and shortened periods on Monday and Tuesday due to state-mandated testing for ELA (boo!), followed by a four-day weekend (yay!), followed another week of shortened periods due to state-mandated testing (boo!). Fortunately we're only reviewing at this point, so we should be fine despite all the interruptions. I hope you have a great first full week of April, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 29: Monday, March 31st – Friday, April 4th

Hello again everyone, and welcome back from Spring Break! We only have nine more weeks of school, much of which will be broken up by extended weekends and state testing, so it should go by pretty quickly. Here's the plan as we start to wrap up Unit 10: Recursion:

• Unit 10: Lesson 3 - Binary Search

• Unit 10: Lesson 4 - Merge Sort

• start Assignment 10: Anagrams

Next week we'll take the Unit 10 Exam and then start reviewing for the AP CS A exam on Wednesday, May 7th. I hope you have a great week back from break, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 28: Monday, March 17th – Friday, March 21st

Welcome to 4th Quarter and the last week before Spring Break! Here's the plan as we start our final unit in AP CS A, Unit 10: Recursion: 😱

• start 4th Quarter! 🍀

• start Unit 10: Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 1 - Intro to Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 2 - Recursive Functions With Returns

• Unit 10 Quiz

Recursion is a very unusual and challenging topic, so I hope this week flies by so you can mentally get through these next five days as quickly as possible. Thanks for all of your hard work in the first nine-tenths of the course so far, and have a fun and relaxing Spring Break! 🩴

Week 27: Monday, March 10th – Friday, March 14th

We've made it to the end of 3rd Quarter! After this week, we'll only have one more week of classes before we all get a well-deserved week off for Spring Break. Here's the plan as we finish Unit 9: Inheritance:

• finish Unit 9: Lesson 3 - Is-a and Has-a Relationships

• Assignment 9: Ultimate Frisbee

• Unit 9 Review

• Unit 9 Exam

• End of 3rd Quarter – ALL OUTSTANDING WORK IS DUE BY FRIDAY 3/14!

Please note that Friday, March 14th is an Early Release Day.

Some of you are very far behind in the course and will need to put in a lot of extra effort this week in order to earn a passing grade for 3rd Quarter. Parents, please check ProgressBook so you know what assignments your child still needs to complete.

I hope all the sunshine today offsets losing an hour this morning. Have a wonderful week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 26: Monday, March 3rd – Friday, March 7th

Hello again, and welcome to March! Here's the plan for this week as we start Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Unit 9: Lesson 1 - Inheritance

• Unit 9: Lesson 2 - Inheritance Overriding Methods

• Unit 9 Quiz 🚐 

• Unit 9: Lesson 3 - Is-a and Has-a Relationships

On Thursday 3/6, we'll have the rescheduled visit by Kent State's Computer Science Department. If you're a sophomore or junior, you may want to consider asking about doing CCP research with them this summer, because it could be a great experience to add to your college application!

Have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 25: Monday, February 24th – Friday, February 28th

Welcome to the end of February! To wrap up Black History Month, I'd like to tell you about John Henry Thompson (b. 1959), the creator of the influential Lingo programming language. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Mr. Thompson got his first opportunity to work with a computer as a 10th grader at the Bronx High School of Science when his geometry teacher, Ms. Strauss, gave him early access to the math department's computer lab and helped him get his first job as a computer operator in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After graduation, he earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Visual Studies from MIT in 1983 and continued on as a technical instructor, developed an early color pre-press design system for the Visible Language Workshop, which is now part of the MIT Media Lab. Mr. Thompson then became a project lead at Lucasfilm on the EditDroid project, an early nonlinear editing system that was a precursor to Final Cut, the industry standard in video editing. In 1987 he joined Macromedia (now part of Adobe), where he contributed to the development of a number of products, including Macromedia Director, and he invented the Lingo programming language and XObjects, which made it easier to create interactive multimedia content like Flash, Shockwave and graphics-based CD-ROMs. If you've ever played an interactive game in a web browser, his work helped make that possible! For the past two decades, Mr. Thompson has continued teaching in New York City, Philadelphia, Jamaica, and online, and he has since become an outspoken critic of social media companies such as Facebook for how they use personal data and what he describes as their negative impacts on society.

Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up Unit 8: 2D Array:

• Assignment 8: Battleship

• ACT – NO SCHOOL for Sophomores & Seniors; good luck, Freshmen & Juniors!

• Unit 8 Exam

• Unit 9: Lesson 1 - Inheritance

On Friday 2/28, we'll be visited by Kent State's Computer Science Department! Make sure you come to class with lots of questions about their offerings and what kinds of careers their graduates have gone into.

Good luck to the Freshmen and Juniors taking tests on Tuesday! Remember, no school for Sophomores and Seniors. After this week, we'll only have two weeks before the end of 3rd Quarter, and then another week after that will be Spring Break. Hang in there, and have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

Week 24: Tuesday, February 18th – Friday, February 21st

Good morning! I hope you've been enjoying the winter wonderland during this three day weekend. This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Clarence "Skip" Ellis (1943-2014), the first Black person to earn a PhD in computer science. Dr. Ellis grew up in Chicago and graduated from Parker High School while also working as a part-time night shift security guard for the Dover Corporation. While at Dover, he watched over the company's mainframe computers and became fascinated by them, so he read over the manuals during his shift and learned how to operate and repair the vacuum-tube-based machines. He earned degrees in mathematics and physics from Beloit College in Wisconsin, and while at Beloit, he was one of 10 North American college students to attend a computer science program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Based on his experiences there, he earned his PhD in computer science from Urbana-Champaign in 1969, making him the first Black person to ever do so. Dr. Ellis worked at Bell Labs, IBM, and Xerox, and from 1976–1984, he worked at the Palo Alto Research Center, where he led the team that created Officetalk, the first program to use icons and the Internet to allow for long-distance collaboration. This means that every icon-based app or operating system you've ever used was directly influenced by Skip Ellis. You could say he's "iconic"! (Sorry.)

Here's the plan for this abbreviated week as we start Unit 8: 2D Array:

• Unit 7 Exam

• start Unit 8: 2D Array

• Unit 8: Lesson 1 – 2D Arrays

• Unit 8: Lesson 2 – 2D Array Algorithms

Have a great week – stay warm!

Week 23: Monday, February 10th – Friday, February 14th

Hello again! I hope you've enjoyed your surprise 4-day weekend and stayed warm during the ice storms. This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Timnit Gebru, a Black computer scientist who studies artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic bias and data mining. Dr. Gebru was born in Ethiopia and fled the Eritrean–Ethiopian War when she was 15, eventually receiving political asylum in the United States. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees as well as her PhD from Stanford University. While at Stanford, she worked as an intern at Apple making audio circuitry and later developed signal processing algorithms for the first iPad. After brief stint at Microsoft where she investigated racial bias in facial recognition software, she joined Google in 2018 to co-lead a team the ethics of artificial intelligence. However, in late 2020, her employment at Google was terminated when she refused to withdraw a research paper about the serious risks of large language model AI systems (Dr. Gebru claims that she was fired, while Google has refused to say whether she resigned or was terminated). Since leaving Google, Dr. Gebru has co-founded Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in AI, and the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), a "space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech's pervasive influence". She has earned numerous accolades, including being named one of the world's 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2021 and one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2022.

Here's the plan for this week as we start to wrap up Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Unit 7: Lesson 6 - Insertion Sort

• Unit 7: Lesson 7 – Wider Impacts of Data Collection

• Assignment 7: Game Wheel

Next week, we'll take our Unit 7 Test, so make sure you don't forget everything during your time off. Have a great week, and enjoy your 4-day weekend!

Week 22: Monday, February 3rd – Friday, February 7th

Welcome to February, and Happy Black History Month! Before I list this week's activities, I'd like to tell you about Dorothy J. Vaughan (1910–2008), the first African-American female supervisor of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) who became an expert in digital computers and their applications in NASA programs. Ms. Vaughan graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio with a degree in mathematics and started out as a math teacher. In 1943, to support our country's efforts in World War II, she joined NACA as a human "computer" who did complex calculations for engineers and scientists. She worked with computers Vera Huckel and Sara Bullock to create an algebraic methods handbook for mechanical calculating machines, and when NACA became NASA, she joined its new Analysis and Computation Division and became an expert FORTRAN programmer. Ms. Vaughan and her countless calculations supported NACA and NASA accomplishments and helped to achieve our country’s aerospace goals. Very impressive!

Here's the plan for this week as we continue Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Unit 7 Quiz 🎈

• Unit 7: Lesson 4 - Linear Search

• Unit 7: Lesson 5 - Selection Sort

• Unit 7: Lesson 6 - Insertion Sort

This will be our last full week of school for a while, because for the next three weeks we'll only have four school days each week due to teacher in-service, a holiday and the ACT. I hope you have a great week, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 21: Monday, January 27th – Friday, January 31st

Hello again, and welcome to the last week of January! Here's the plan as we finish Unit 6 and start Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Unit 6 Exam 👟 

• start Unit 7: ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 1 - ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 2 - Traversing ArrayLists

• Unit 7: Lesson 3 - Array Algorithms with ArrayLists

ArrayLists are much more flexible and easy to use than arrays, so I think you'll prefer using them going forward in the class. As always, I hope you have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 20: Tuesday, January 21st – Friday, January 24th

Wow, a five-day weekend! I hope you're all resting and staying warm. For this short week, we'll start to wrap up Unit 6: Array:

• finish Assignment 6: Array Statistics

Make sure you get enough sleep tonight so that you're ready to go back tomorrow, and enjoy your short week of school!

Week 19: Monday, January 13th – Friday, January 17th

Hello again! I hope you had a good first week back from break and you're fully back in the swing of things. Here's the plan for our second week of the semester as we continue our work on Unit 6: Array:

• Unit 6 Quiz

• Unit 6: Lesson 4 - Algorithms on Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 5 - The Enhanced For Loop

• start Assignment 6: Array Statistics

Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 18: Monday, January 6th – Friday, January 10th

Happy New Year  🥳, and welcome back from Winter Break! I hope you were able to take some time to rest, relax and recharge before we get right back into the thick of things. Here's the plan for our first school week of 2025 as we start our work on Unit 6: Array:

• review 1st Semester Exam

• start Unit 6: Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 1 - One-Dimensional Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 2 - Traversing an Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 3 - Arrays of Strings

I hope you have a great first week back! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 17: Monday, December 16th – Friday, December 20th

Welcome to exam week! The plan is pretty straightforward – study for the 1st Semester Exam so you can earn the best grade possible and enjoy your Winter Break. Here's the schedule for this week:

Mon. 12/16

• Unit 5 Progress Check MCQ

Tue. 12/17

• 1st Semester Practice Exam (on AP Classroom)

Wed. 12/18

• 1st period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 2nd period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• 6/7th or 7/8th period exam – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

Thu. 12/19

• 9th period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 10th period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• Make-up exams – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

Fri. 12/20

• 3rd period exam – 7:30-9:00am

• 4/5th or 5/6th period exam – 9:15-10:45am

• Lunch – 10:50-11:20am

• Make-up exams – 11:25am-12:55pm

• Open study – 1:10-2:29pm

• DUE: ANY OUTSTANDING WORK FROM 2nd QUARTER MUST BE COMPLETED BY TODAY!

I'll also send out the exam schedule flyer on Remind and on Google Classroom as a picture so you can save it to your phone. Good luck on this exam and all of your other exams this week! Please let me know if you have any questions at all. I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing Winter Break, and I'll see you next year!

Week 16: Monday, December 9th – Friday, December 13th

We've finally made it to the end of 1st Semester! The plan this week is to complete multiple choice question (MCQ) Progress Checks on AP Classroom so that you're well-prepared for your 1st Semester Exam on Thursday, December 19th at 7:30am. Here's what we're doing for our last full week of class in 2024:

• Unit 5 Exam 🦒

• Unit 1 Progress Check MCQ

• Unit 2 Progress Check MCQ

• Unit 3 Progress Check MCQ

• Unit 4 Progress Check MCQ

Have a wonderful week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 15: Monday, December 2nd – Friday, December 6th

Welcome back! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving Break and were able to get some rest so you're fully recharged and ready to go for these final three weeks before the end of the semester. Here's the plan for the first week of December ☃️:

• Unit 5: Lesson 7 - Documenting a class

• Unit 5: Lesson 8 - Static vs. Instance

• Assignment 5: Player

Next week, we'll take the Unit 5 Exam, and then we'll use the remaining time to complete the Progress Checks from AP Classroom, which feature questions very similar to those that will be on your 1st Semester Exam. I hope you have a great week back, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 14: Monday, November 18th – Friday, November 22nd

We've finally made it to Thanksgiving Break! 🦃 I'm really proud of you all for sticking with AP Computer Science A for this long. For this last week before break, we're going to begin to wrap up Unit 5 on Classes. Here's the plan:

• Unit 5 Quiz 🥪

• Unit 5: Lesson 5 - Classes – The Basics

• Unit 5: Lesson 6 - Constructors

• Unit 5: Lesson 7 - Documenting a Class

This will be a nice place to pause until we return from break and tackle the assignment for Unit 5 and then review for the 1st Semester Exam. If you're behind in the course, you should use some of your free time over break to get caught up as much as you can. You can message me on Remind if you have any questions or need any help with your code. I hope you have a relaxing Thanksgiving Break, and I'll see you in December!

Week 13: Monday, November 11th – Friday, November 15th

Greetings, future computer scientists! For this week in AP CS A, we're going to start Unit 5: Writing Classes. We've been using classes since Unit 2, but now we're going to learn how to write our own classes, which really gets to the heart of Java and object-oriented programming. We're also going on a field trip to explore IT careers! Here's the plan:

• start Unit 5: Writing Classes

• Unit 5: Lesson 1 - Void Methods

• Unit 5: Lesson 2 - Parameters

• Passport to IT Careers Field trip on Wednesday, November 13th - meet in the auditorium atrium after 1st period!

• Unit 5: Lesson 3 - Parameters - Primitive vs. Class 

• Unit 5: Lesson 4 - Return Methods

Unit 5 is a big one, so the goal is to finish it up after we come back from Thanksgiving Break and then review the entire semester before we take our 1st Semester Exam on Thursday, December 19th. Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 12: Monday, November 4th – Friday, November 8th

Hello again, I hope you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep this morning! For this week in AP CS A, we're going to wrap up Unit 4: Iteration. Here's what we're doing for the first week of November:

• Unit 4: Lesson 5 - Nested loops

• Unit 4: Lesson 6 - Algorithm Efficiency

• Assignment 4: String Shortener

• Unit 4 Exam 

Assignment 4 can be a bit of a challenge, so we'll work on aspects of it in class together. I hope you enjoy the early morning sunshine while it lasts, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 11: Monday, October 28th – Friday, November 1st

Good afternoon, I hope you've enjoyed this excellent weekend! For this week in AP Computer Science A, we're going to start Unit 4: Iteration with two of the big control structures in nearly all programming languages: while loops and for loops. Here's what we're doing for the last week of October 🎃:

• Unit 4: Lesson 1 ½ - Tracing Code

• Unit 4: Lesson 2 - Algorithms for Numbers

• Unit 4: Lesson 3 - The For Loop

• Unit 4: Lesson 4 - Algorithms for Strings

• Unit 4 Quiz 🐧

Do your best to not overdose on candy, and please let me know if you have any questions. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Week 10: Tuesday, October 22nd – Friday, October 25th

Hello, future computer scientists! I hope you're enjoying this extended weekend and getting outside to enjoying the warm weather while it lasts. For this week in AP CS A, we're going to wrap up Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements with an assignment and an exam. Here's what we're doing for this short first week of 2nd Quarter:

• BEGIN 2nd Quarter

• Assignment 3 - Crack the Code!

• Unit 3 Exam 🐘

• Unit 4 Lesson 1: While Loops

Next week, we'll start Unit 4: Iteration, which applies across all aspects of computer science, regardless of language. Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 9: Monday, October 14th – Friday, October 18th

Welcome to the end of 1st Quarter! It may be hard to believe, but after this week, we'll be 25% done with the school year. For this week in AP CS A, we're going to continue our work on Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements with some straightforward coding activities so that we can go into another relaxing three-day weekend. Here's what we're doing this week:

• Unit 3: Lesson 4 - Logical Operators and Truth Tables

• Unit 3: Lesson 5 - Short Circuit Evaluation

• Unit 3: Lesson 6 - De Morgan's Law

• Unit 3: Lesson 7 - Comparing Objects

FYI Friday is an Early Release Day and it's also the end of 1st Quarter. Make sure you're caught up with all of your work!

Congratulations on making it this far! When we come back next week, we'll do Assignment 3 - Crack the Code! and then take our Unit 3 Exam. Please let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 8: Monday, October 7th – Friday, October 11th

And just like that, it's October! 🍁 For this week in AP CS A, we're going to continue our work in Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements. Here's what we're doing for the penultimate* week of 1st Quarter:

• Unit 3: Lesson 2 - Relational Operators

• Unit 3: Lesson 3 - Else

• Unit 3 Quiz 🐧

FYI Parent-teacher conferences are from 5-8pm on Monday, October 7th; you can use this link to sign up! Also, there will be no school for students on Friday due to a teacher PD day. If you're behind, you should use the long three-day weekend to get caught up before 1st Quarter ends next Friday.

I hope you enjoy this short week! Let me know if you have any questions.

* Google it. 😁

Week 7: Monday, September 30th – Friday, October 4th

Hi there! I hope you had fun at Homecoming and were able to dry out after all the rain we got this weekend. For this week in AP CS A, we're going to wrap up our unit on objects. Here's the plan:

• finish Unit 2: Lesson 8 - Math Functions

• Unit 2: Review

• Assignment 2: Control Tower

• Unit 2 Exam

• Unit 3: Lesson 1 - Simple ifs

Depending on where everyone is in the class, we might be able to start Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements, which contains logical concepts that you can use in nearly every programming language. I hope you have an excellent week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 6: Monday, September 23rd – Friday, September 27th

Hello, future coders! For this week in AP CS A, we'll continue our work on objects in Java. Here's the plan for the first week of fall 🍁:

• finish Unit 2: Lesson 5 - Using Constructors

• Unit 2: Lesson 6 - Using methods

• Unit 2: Lesson 7 - Wrapper Classes

• Unit 2: Lesson 8 - Math Functions

These lessons should be more straightforward than last week's lessons, but let me know if you have any questions. Have a great Homecoming week!

Week 5: Monday, September 16th – Friday, September 20th

Hi, everybody! This week we'll continue our work on objects in Java with two of the most important lessons in the entire course. Here's the plan for the last week of summer:

• Unit 2: Lesson 4 - Classes and Objects

• Unit 2 Quiz

• Unit 2: Lesson 5 - Using Constructors

• Sophomores and Juniors: Register for the PSAT on MyPaymentsPlus!

If you feel like you're struggling to keep up, please ask me for help! My prep period is 4/5th period, my PLC is 6/7th and my lunch is 8th, so you can come up any day during lunch and work in my room to get caught up. You can also skip some of the coding activities from Unit 1 for now, but I recommend eventually going back and doing as many of them as possible. If you have Tuesday afternoons open, that's when RHS Coders Club meets in my room, and a lot of members who are also in AP CS A use that time to work together.

I hope you have a wonderful week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and I'll see you in Fall. 🍂

Week 4: Monday, September 9th – Friday, September 13th

Hello again! I hope you had a good weekend and have recovered from all that rain on Friday night. Here's what we're doing this week as we move into our second unit of the course, which begins our journey into object-oriented programming (OOP):

• start Unit 2: Using Objects

• Unit 2: Lesson 1 - Strings and Class Types

• Unit 2: Lesson 2 - Escape Sequences and String Concatenation

• Unit 2: Lesson 3 - String Methods

Fortunately, we already have an idea of what Strings are, so we can use them to ease into OOP by learning to use some common String methods (functions) that will likely make an appearance on the AP exam in May.

I also sent home PSAT practice exams for all sophomores and juniors in the class. The PSAT takes place on Wednesday, October 9th in the morning at RHS and costs $19. It's a good way to practice for the full-length SAT, but more importantly, it's the qualifying exam for the prestigious National Merit Scholarship. Doing well on the PSAT could really pay off, and it looks good on a college application. Registration begins on September 20th on MyPaymentsPlus - I highly recommend taking it!

Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 3: Tuesday, September 3rd – Friday, September 6th

Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying your three-day weekend! Here's what we're doing in class for this abbreviated week as we wrap up our first unit:

• Unit 1: Lesson 6 - Numeric Casts (notes)

• Assignment 1: Calculating Grades

• Unit 1: Review

• Unit 1 Exam

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 2: Monday, August 26th – Friday, August 30th

Welcome to the first full week of school! I hope that school has started well for you and you have any issues with your schedule worked out. Now that we've had a few days to get to know each other, we can get to work! Here's what we're doing in class this week:

• Unit 1: Lesson 2 - User Input and Variables (notes)

• Unit 1: Lesson 3 - Data Types (notes)

• Unit 1 Quiz 🍄‍🟫

• Unit 1: Lesson 4 - Number Calculations (notes)

• Unit 1: Lesson 5 - Modular Division (notes)

This unit is full of fundamental Java commands and programming skills that we'll use throughout the entire course, so make sure you complete all the Coding Activities, and let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 1: Wednesday, August 21st – Friday, August 23rd

Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I'm excited to have you in class, and I hope you're looking forward to a good year of learning about computer science.

Computer Science (CS) is the theoretical, scientific, and mathematical approach to information and its computation. AP Computer Science A (AP CS A) focuses on computing skills related to programming in Java, an industry standard, high-level language. In this class, we will use the ProjectSTEM online curriculum, which aligns closely to the AP exam and has helped previous students be well prepared. It is my sincere belief that every student can learn computer science!

Here's what we're doing in class for the first week of school:

• Welcome to AP Computer Science! - first day presentation

• get logged in to ProjectSTEM

• start Unit 1: Primitive Types

• Unit 1: Lesson 1 - Output In Java (notes)

I hope you had a great first week and that you were able to get some rest this weekend before we attempt to go to school for five full days without strange bell schedules or burning birds. Let me know you have any questions!

Everything below this section is from the 2023-2024 school year!

Week 36: Monday, May 13th – Friday, May 17th

Seniors, it was a pleasure having you in class this year! Good luck with all of your future endeavors, CONGRATULATIONS, and please keep in touch!

Week 35: Monday, May 6th – Friday, May 10th

This is it! The AP Computer Science A exam is on Wednesday, May 8th at 12pm. Make sure you look over the practice materials I've given you, and you may also want to review the past quizzes and exams in ProjectSTEM. Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck!!

Week 34: Monday, April 29th – Friday, May 3rd

We've finally made it to May! This week is more of the same – study for the AP exam on Wednesday, May 8th at 12pm.

Also, don't forget that Friday, May 3rd is the #RHSE3 Celebration – seniors, wear your Employment, Enlistment or Enrollment gear!

Have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 33: Monday, April 22nd – Friday, April 26th

Welcome to the last full week of April! We're almost done with state testing, so please make note of our last day of the late arrival schedule on Monday. We're going to continue preparing for the AP exam, so make sure you finish those practice FRQs and multiple choice exams.

Have a great week! Hang in there – we're almost done.

Week 31: Tuesday, April 9th – Friday, April 12th

Hello again! I hope you survived the solar eclipse and enjoyed your bonus 3-day weekend. Here's what we're doing for this week as we wrap up the last topic in the course:

• finish Unit 10 Exam 🥨 

• work on practice exams and FRQs

Now that we've finished all of the material in the AP Computer Science A course, we can focus on getting you ready for the exam in May! My goal is to provide you with class time to study and work on practice questions so that you don't have to do any of that at home. Congrats on making it through to the end! Let me know if you have any questions.

Week 30: Tuesday, April 2nd – Friday, April 5th

Welcome back! I hope you had a fun and relaxing Spring Break and are fully recharged and ready to prepare for the AP Exam in May. Here's what we're doing for the first week of April as we continue our work in Unit 10: Recursion:

• Unit 10: Lesson 3 - Binary Search

• Unit 10: Lesson 4 - Merge Sort

On Monday, April 8th, the Great American Eclipse will take place as a rare total solar eclipse goes across North America, including most of Ohio. Here's some useful information about the timing of the eclipse:

• 1:59:28 pm: Partial eclipse begins - the moment the edge of the Moon touches the edge of the Sun is called "first contact"

• 3:14:30 pm: Totality begins 😱 - the moment the edge of the Moon covers all of the Sun is called "second contact"

• 3:15:54 pm: Maximum eclipse‼️ - this is the deepest point of the eclipse, with the Sun at its most hidden

• 3:17:17 pm: Totality ends 😭 - the moment the edge of the Moon exposes the Sun is called "third contact"

• 4:29:17 pm: Partial eclipse ends - the moment the edge of the Moon leaves the edge of the Sun is called "fourth contact"

There's also a really cool interactive map of the eclipse path, and you can find out all about the many, many eclipse-related events happening this weekend in Kent at the Kent Total Eclipse 2024 website. Make sure to build a pinhole projector out of cardboard and aluminum foil ahead of time – they're really cool and easy to make!

I hope you have a great week back from Spring Break! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 29: Monday, March 18th – Friday, March 22nd

We've made it to Spring Break! 4th Quarter has begun and we can start Unit 10: Recursion – our last unit! Here's what we're doing for the first week of Spring:

• BEGIN 4th QUARTER

• start Unit 10: Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 1 - Intro to Recursion

• Unit 10: Lesson 2 - Recursive Functions With Returns

• Unit 10 Quiz

I hope you have an awesome Spring Break and get lots of rest and relaxation! I'll see you next month. 😎

Week 28: Monday, March 11th – Friday, March 15th

Welcome to the end of 3rd Quarter! I hope you survived the time change over the weekend and you're ready to finish strong. Here's what we're doing for this last week of Winter as we wrap up Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Assignment 9: Ultimate Frisbee

• Unit 9 Exam 🎏

• END OF 3rd QUARTER

Seniors, you're 15/16ths done with high school. 😱 I hope you have a great week, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 27: Monday, March 4th – Friday, March 8th

Here's the plan for this week as we get further into Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Unit 9: Lesson 2 - Inheritance Overriding Methods

• Unit 9 Quiz 🚐

• Unit 9: Lesson 3 - Is-a and Has-a Relationships

We only have two weeks left in 3rd Quarter, so make sure you're getting all of your work completed and turned in. Let me know if you have any questions, and have a wonderful week!

Week 26: Monday, February 26th – Friday, March 1st

Welcome to the end of February! To wrap up Black History Month, I'd like to tell you about John Henry Thompson (b. 1959), the creator of the influential Lingo programming language. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Mr. Thompson got his first opportunity to work with a computer as a 10th grader at the Bronx High School of Science when his geometry teacher, Ms. Strauss, gave him early access to the math department's computer lab and helped him get his first job as a computer operator in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After graduation, he earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Visual Studies from MIT in 1983 and continued on as a technical instructor, developed an early color pre-press design system for the Visible Language Workshop, which is now part of the MIT Media Lab. Mr. Thompson then became a project lead at Lucasfilm on the EditDroid project, an early nonlinear editing system that was a precursor to Final Cut, the industry standard in video editing. In 1987 he joined Macromedia (now part of Adobe), where he contributed to the development of a number of products, including Macromedia Director, and he invented the Lingo programming language and XObjects, which made it easier to create interactive multimedia content like Flash, Shockwave and graphics-based CD-ROMs. If you've ever played an interactive game in a web browser, his work helped make that possible! For the past two decades, Mr. Thompson has continued teaching in New York City, Philadelphia, Jamaica, and online, and he has since become an outspoken critic of social media companies such as Facebook for how they use personal data and what he describes as their negative impacts on society.

Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up 2D arrays and move into Unit 9: Inheritance:

• Assignment 8: Battleship

• Unit 8 Exam 🍝

• start Unit 9: Inheritance

• Unit 9: Lesson 1 - Inheritance

Remember, no school for Seniors on Tuesday due to the ACT. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 25: Tuesday, February 20th – Friday, February 23rd

Hello again! This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Clarence "Skip" Ellis (1943-2014), the first Black person to earn a PhD in computer science. Dr. Ellis grew up in Chicago and graduated from Parker High School while also working as a part-time night shift security guard for the Dover Corporation. While at Dover, he watched over the company's mainframe computers and became fascinated by them, so he read over the manuals during his shift and learned how to operate and repair the vacuum-tube-based machines. He earned degrees in mathematics and physics from Beloit College in Wisconsin, and while at Beloit, he was one of 10 North American college students to attend a computer science program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Based on his experiences there, he earned his PhD in computer science from Urbana-Champaign in 1969, making him the first Black person to ever do so. Dr. Ellis worked at Bell Labs, IBM, and Xerox, and from 1976–1984, he worked at the Palo Alto Research Center, where he led the team that created Officetalk, the first program to use icons and the Internet to allow for long-distance collaboration. This means that every icon-based app or operating system you've ever used was directly influenced by Skip Ellis. You could say he's "iconic"! (Sorry.)

Here's the plan for this week as we begin Unit 8: 2D Array:

• start Unit 8: 2D Array

• Unit 8: Lesson 1 - 2-D Array

• Unit 8: Lesson 2 - 2-D Array Algorithms

Two-dimensional (2D) arrays can be pretty challenging, so we're going to take this topic slowly and use some graphical organizers to make sure you understand what's going. If you think of a 2D array as a grid, like a chessboard, then they're a lot easier to visualize, which should make it a little easier to figure out how to implement them. Enjoy your abbreviated week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 24: Monday, February 12th – Thursday, February 15th

Hello again! This week I'd like to tell you about Dr. Timnit Gebru, a Black computer scientist who studies artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic bias and data mining. Dr. Gebru was born in Ethiopia and fled the Eritrean–Ethiopian War when she was 15, eventually receiving political asylum in the Unites States. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees as well as her PhD from Stanford University. While at Stanford, she worked as an intern at Apple making audio circuitry and later developed signal processing algorithms for the first iPad. After brief stint at Microsoft where she investigated racial bias in facial recognition software, she joined Google in 2018 to co-lead a team the ethics of artificial intelligence. However, in late 2020, her employment at Google was terminated when she refused to withdraw a research paper about the serious risks of large language model AI systems (Dr. Gebru claims that she was fired, while Google has refused to say whether she resigned or was terminated). Since leaving Google, Dr. Gebru has co-founded Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in AI, and the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), a "space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech's pervasive influence". She has earned numerous accolades, including being named one of the world's 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2021 and one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2022.

Here's the plan for this week as we wrap up Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Assignment 7: Game Wheel

• Unit 7: Review

• Unit 7 Exam 

Enjoy your looong weekend, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 23: Monday, February 5th – Friday, February 9th

Happy Black History Month! Before I list this week's activities, I'd like to tell you about Dorothy J. Vaughan (1910–2008), the first African-American female supervisor of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) who became an expert in digital computers and their applications in NASA programs. Ms. Vaughan graduated from Wilberforce University in Ohio with a degree in mathematics and started out as a math teacher. In 1943, to support our country's efforts in World War II, she joined NACA as a human "computer" who did complex calculations for engineers and scientists. She worked with computers Vera Huckel and Sara Bullock to create an algebraic methods handbook for mechanical calculating machines, and when NACA became NASA, she joined its new Analysis and Computation Division and became an expert FORTRAN programmer. Ms. Vaughan and her countless calculations supported NACA and NASA accomplishments and helped to achieve our country’s aerospace goals. Very impressive!

Here's the plan for this week as we continue Unit 7: ArrayList:

• Unit 7: Lesson 3 - Array Algorithms with ArrayLists

• Unit 7 Quiz 🎈

• Unit 7: Lesson 4 - Linear Search

• Unit 7: Lesson 5 - Selection Sort

• Unit 7: Lesson 6 - Insertion Sort

This is our last full week of school for a while, because next week we'll only have three and a half school days before having a four-and-a-half day weekend, and then we'll have other interruptions like the ACT. I hope you have a great week, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 22: Monday, January 29th – Friday, February 2nd

Welcome to the end of January! This month has really flown by, although I'm sure that having Winter Break, MLK Jr. Day and three calamity days all helped with that. Here's the plan for this week as we start Unit 7: ArrayList:

• finish Assignment 6: Array Statistics

• Unit 6 Exam 👟

• start Unit 7: ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 1 - ArrayList

• Unit 7: Lesson 2 - Traversing ArrayLists

With any luck, we'll be able to get through a full week without any interruptions as we move into February and one month closer to the end of the school year. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Week 21: Monday, January 22nd – Friday, January 26th

Hello again! Last week was certainly an interesting series of events. I hope you took advantage of your bonus three-day weekend and got some rest and relaxation! We're going to continue our work on Unit 6: Array this week:

• finish Unit 6: Lesson 4 - Algorithms on Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 5 - The Enhanced For Loop

• Assignment 6: Array Statistics

The weather this week looks to be much warmer and rainy, so I'm hoping we'll be able to get through all five days without any interruptions. Next week, we'll take the Unit 6 Exam and move on to Unit 7: ArrayList. Have a great week, and let me know if you have any questions!

Week 20: Tuesday, January 16th – Friday, January 19th

I hope you enjoyed your three day weekend! This week, we're going to continue our work on Unit 6: Array. Here's the plan:

• Unit 6 Quiz

• Unit 6: Lesson 4 - Algorithms on Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 5 - The Enhanced For Loop

These topics should be pretty straightforward, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 19: Monday, January 8th – Friday, January 12th

Happy New Year, and welcome back from Winter Break! I hope you were able to take some time to rest, relax and recharge before we get right back into the thick of things. Here's the plan for our first school week of 2024 as we start our work on Unit 6: Array:

• review 1st Semester Exam

• start Unit 6: Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 1 - One-Dimensional Arrays

• Unit 6: Lesson 2 - Traversing an Array

• Unit 6: Lesson 3 - Arrays of Strings

I hope you have a great first week back! Let me know if you have any questions.

Week 18: Monday, December 18th – Friday, December 22nd

We finally made it to the end of 1st Semester! Your exam will be on Thursday, December 20th at 7:30am in Room 211, so make sure you're there on time. The 1st Semester Exam will be on paper and will include 40 multiple choice questions from all five units so far. It'll look a lot like your quizzes, tests and the practice exam I gave you in class, so review those materials to prepare. Here's the schedule for the week:

• Mon. 12/18

  • 1st Semester Exam prep

  • HW: work on 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Tue. 12/19

  • 1st Semester Exam prep

  • HW: work on 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Wed. 12/20

  • 1st, 2nd & 6/7 or 7/8th period exams

  • HW: finish 1st Semester Practice Exam

• Thu. 12/21

  • 1st Semester Exam @7:30–9:00am

• Fri. 12/22

  • ALL WORK DUE FOR 1st SEMESTER

In case you didn't get it last week, the entire exam schedule is available here. I hope all of your exams go smoothly and you have a restful Winter Break. Have a Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2024!

Week 17: Monday, December 11th – Friday, December 15th

Welcome back! Here's the plan for the last full week of 1st Semester as we wrap up Unit 5: Writing Classes:

• Assignment 5: Player

• Unit 5: Review

• Unit 5 Exam 🦒 (please complete by Tuesday 12/19)

Your 1st Semester Exam will be on Thursday, December 21st at 7:30am and covers Units 1-5 of the course with 40 multiple choice questions that you'll take on paper. I've prepared a practice exam that is very similar to your semester exam that I'll give you in class. The entire exam schedule is available here. I strongly recommend taking notes while doing the practice exam and doing it as far in advance as possible so that you can ask me questions if you need help with anything. Have a great week!

Week 16: Monday, December 4th – Friday, December 8th

Hello again! We're going to continue our work on Unit 5: Writing Classes so we have all the tools we need to complete Assignment 5 next week. Here's the plan for the first full week of December:

• finish Unit 5: Lesson 6 - Constructors

• Unit 5: Lesson 7 - Documenting a class

• Unit 5: Lesson 8 - Static Vs. Instance

• Unit 5: Lesson 9 - Wider Impacts of Computing

Next week, after we complete Assignment 5 you'll have time to complete the practice exam and study for the 1st Semester Exam, which is all multiple choice and should be very similar to the quizzes and exams you've seen so far. As always, let me know if you have any questions. Have a wonderful week!

Week 15: Monday, November 27th – Friday, December 1st

Welcome back from Thanksgiving Break! I hope you were able to rest, recharge and get caught up (if necessary) so we can make it through the next four weeks before we go on Winter Break. Here's the plan for the last week of November:

• finish Unit 5: Lesson 4 - Return Methods

• Unit 5 Quiz 🥪

• Unit 5: Lesson 5 - Classes - The Basics

• Unit 5: Lesson 6 - Constructors

I hope your first week back goes well! As always, let me know if you have any questions.

PS: Make sure you plug in your Chromebook to charge overnight!

Week 14: Monday, November 13th – Friday, November 17th

We finally made it to Thanksgiving Break! 🦃 Here's the plan as we continue our work on Unit 5: Writing Classes: 

• Unit 5: Lesson 2 - Parameters

• Unit 5: Lesson 3 - Parameters - Primitive vs. Class 

• Unit 5: Lesson 4 - Return Methods

I hope you get some rest and relaxation over break! Use this time to get caught up if you need to, and please let me know if you have any questions about anything you're working on.

Week 13: Monday, November 6th – Friday, November 10th

Hello again! Here's the plan for the first full week of November as we wrap up Unit 4: Iteration and move on to Unit 5: Writing Classes: 

• finish Assignment 4: String Shortener

• Unit 4: Review

• Unit 4 Exam 🪥

• start Unit 5: Writing Classes

• Unit 5: Lesson 1 - Void Methods

Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 12: Monday, October 30th – Friday, November 3rd

It's the last week of October, and it's finally starting to feel like Fall! 🎃 I hope you got out and enjoyed the last bits of nice weather. Here's the plan for this week as we continue our work in Unit 4: Iteration:

• Unit 4: Lesson 4 - Algorithms for Strings

• Unit 4 Quiz 🐧

• Unit 4: Lesson 5 - Nested loops

• Unit 4: Lesson 6 - Algorithm Efficiency

• start Assignment 4: String Shortener

As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Stay warm!

Week 11: Monday, October 23rd – Friday, October 27th

Welcome to 2nd Quarter! According to the Project STEM pacing guide, here's where we should be as we start Week 11 with Unit 4: Iteration:

• BEGIN 2nd QUARTER

• start Unit 4: Iteration

• Unit 4: Lesson 1 - While Loops

• Unit 4: Lesson 1 ½ - Tracing Code

• Tuesday 10/24: Security Summit Field Trip to I-X Center (meet at the cafeteria entrance at 8:45am!)

• Wednesday 10/25: Capture the Flag Competition! (in class)

• Unit 4: Lesson 2 - Algorithms for Numbers

• Unit 4: Lesson 3 - The For Loop

These coding activities should be a little quicker to finish, but as always, please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week, and get out and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts!

Week 10: Monday, October 16th – Friday, October 20th

Welcome back from your 3-day weekend! Here's what we're doing for the last week of 1st Quarter as we wrap up Unit 3:

• Unit 3: Lesson 7 - Comparing Objects

• Assignment 3 - Crack the Code!

• Unit 3: Review

• Unit 3 Exam 🐘

• END OF 1st QUARTER

Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great week!

Week 9: Monday, October 9th – Thursday, October 12th

I hope you had a great weekend! This week, we'll continue our work on Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements. Here's the plan for this abbreviated week:

• Unit 3: Lesson 4 - Logical Operators and Truth Tables

• Unit 3: Lesson 5 - Short Circuit Evaluation

• Unit 3: Lesson 6 - De Morgan's Law

We'll also have these important events this week:

Monday 10/9: Parent-Teacher Conferences @5-8pm – sign up here!
Tuesday 10/10: Passport to IT Careers field trip (8:15am-2:00pm)
Thursday 10/12: Early Release Day
Friday 10/13: Teacher PD Day – NO SCHOOL

Enjoy your three-and-a-half-day weekend! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 8: Monday, October 2nd – Friday, October 6th

Welcome to the first week of October!  Here's the plan for this week as we move into a new unit:

• start Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and If Statements

• Unit 3: Lesson 1 - Simple Ifs

• Unit 3: Lesson 2 - Relational Operators

• Unit 3: Lesson 3 - Else

• Unit 3 Quiz

Boolean expressions and if statements are absolutely critical concepts in computer science. Some experts have argued that artificial intelligence (AI) is nothing more than lots and lots of if statements, so we'll want to make sure we have a solid understanding of these topics. I hope you have a great week! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 7: Monday, September 25th – Friday, September 29th

Hi there! We're going to wrap up Unit 2: Using Objects with an assignment that looks harder than it actually is, and then we'll take the Unit 2 Exam. Here's the plan for the first week of autumn 🍂:

• Unit 2: Review

• Assignment 2: Control Tower

• Unit 2 Exam ⛵️

I hope you have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 6: Monday, September 18th – Friday, September 22nd

Hello again! For this final week of summer, we're going to continue our unit on objects in Java with important but less confusing topics. Here's the plan:

• Unit 2: Lesson 6 - Using methods

• Unit 2: Lesson 7 - Wrapper Classes

• Unit 2: Lesson 8 - Math Functions

Methods are simply functions that somehow interact with or modify an object, while wrapper classes let us use methods with our primitive data types (like integers and floats). Easy stuff, I promise! As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Week 5: Monday, September 11th – Friday, September 15th

Welcome back! I hope you had a great Homecoming weekend. This week, we're going to continue learning about objects in Java. Here are the topics we'll be working on:

• finish Unit 2: Lesson 3 - String Methods

• Unit 2: Lesson 4 - Classes and Objects

• Unit 2 Quiz 🍍

• Unit 2: Lesson 5 - Using Constructors

You've already been using classes like String and Scanner, so we're just going to dive a little deeper into their structure, which is defined by a constructor. It sounds a little weird, but with enough examples and analogies, I'm confident you'll understand it, and that knowledge is going to be extremely helpful going forward. Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great week!

Week 4: Tuesday, September 5th – Friday, September 8th

I hope you enjoyed your 3-day weekend! We're wrapping up Unit 1 this week and moving on to Unit 2: Using Objects. Here's the plan for this hot, hot week:

• Unit 1 Exam

• start Unit 2: Using Objects

• Unit 2: Lesson 1 - Strings and Class Types

• Unit 2: Lesson 2 - Escape Sequences and String Concatenation

• start Unit 2: Lesson 3 - String Methods

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything at all. Stay cool!

Week 3: Monday, August 28th – Friday, September 1st

I hope you enjoyed your unexpected 3-day weekend! Here's what we're doing in class for the last week of August:

• Unit 1: Lesson 5 - Modular Division

• Unit 1: Lesson 6 - Numeric Casts

• Assignment 1: Calculating Grades

• Unit 1: Review

The assignments in this course can sometimes be a little challenging, so please ask me for help as you're working on Assignment 1. We'll take the Unit 1 Exam next week after another 3-day weekend. Keep up the great work, and as always, let me know if you have any questions!

Week 2: Monday, August 21st – Friday, August 25th

Welcome to the first full week of the 2023-2024 school year! Now that we've had a few days to get to know each other and get everyone logged in to ProjectSTEM, we can get to work! Here's what we're doing in class this week:

• Unit 1: Lesson 1 - Output In Java

• Unit 1: Lesson 2 - User Input and Variables

• Unit 1: Lesson 3 - Data Types

• Unit 1 Quiz

• Unit 1: Lesson 4 - Number Calculations

I've also included a link to a weekly schedule of all of the assignments for the year.

I hope you had a great first week and that you were able to get some rest this weekend before we attempt to go to school for five full days without strange bell schedules or burning birds. Let me know you have any questions!