Mr. Higgins’ Blog

I really do have a great perspective on the AP Computer Science Exam and what it means as a student AND a teacher.  There still are not a lot of us who have taken BOTH the AP Examination and taught the class.  As an inexperienced teacher, I do not have much of a basis to criticize the pedagogy and approach of the examination.  I will leave that up to Alfred Thompson and David Jacobus.  Here are some observations that I have made reguarding AP Computer Science…

1. First, I had a good teacher for my AP Computer Science A class in high school.  I learned a great deal and really did enjoy programming C++.  This allowed me to pay little to no attention at all in my college “Introducation to Programming” class.  The next course, titled “Discrete and Linear Structures” contained no programming concepts or code past my AP class, just a new type of mathematics.  I really did have a great base of knowledge for my college classes.
2. I was FAR FAR FAR ahead of my fellow Computer Science students who did not take any sort of programming in high school.  I really went into freshman year hoping to get challenged a little more and realized that I spent most of my time helping others.  Hmmm, sounds like a teacher.
3. The part of the AP Computer Science class that was exhausing was the case study.  Our class, and my skills, took a great hit and I felt like I lost all momentum heading into the AP examination.  What about a mandatory of time needed in the lab instead of adding the case study?
4. Having learned C++ first, I feel I have a greater grasp on programming than my students that start with Visual Basic or Java.  As someone who has never been employeed as a programmer, I have not see the entirety of the language, but I do understand what I know very well.  I just feel that the cryptic nature of C++ forced me to really understand the code.  For java, all I had to do was develop the idea of an object and methods.
5. One thing I hear quite a bit from fellow computer science students is that the case study really was not much of an emphasis on the examiation.  The good teachers, which I strive to be, do not have to teach to the test.  The skills and concepts are naturally developed.
6. As a teacher and college graduate with a minor in Computer Science & Enginnerng, I really do enjoy the topic and subject of programming; however, I go really fast through a great deal of material and demand that my students follow along.  Guess what?  My students have enough motivation at this point to follow along and we ended up completing 8 out of 10 chapter in our textbook by February.

My final thought is that I really need to continue to evaluate my AP Computer Science A classroom and strive to create an open environment.  As a tennis coach, I am a huge advocate of hitting strokes from day one of practice.  As a teacher, I am a huge advocate of hitting strokes from day one of class.  The only difference is that the computer science classroom has keystrokes.