Important Resources
Canvas - Here you will be able to find all of the classwork assignments and resources in one location, just as on this website. Students are automatically enrolled in this class once class is published (about a week after the school start
Daily Lesson Plan - Below is the link to the shared Google Doc that has the daily lesson plan. Each day your teacher will delete the old plan and put the new plan in place. You should bookmark this one shared google doc and open it at the start of every class. It will tell you the warm-up, lesson plan and classwork assignments.
Daily Lesson Plan - Link
Past Lessons - All of the past lesson plans can be found in the shared Google Drive folder below. The classwork assignments are organized by quarter, then by week, and finally by day. This way you can find any past lessons if you are absent or just need instructions/links from past lessons.
All Past Lessons - Link
Class Google Slides - Notes, resources, and tips/tricks shared with students.
Google Slides - Link
Day to Day - How the Class Works
Computer Science 1 is an elective and as such is meant to be enjoyable and worthwhile. The idea is that you are challenged, you learn, and then you leave class without homework assignments or pressure looming over you head.
On a daily basis, you will walk into class and open the bookmarked Google Doc linked above with the daily lesson plan. In it you will find clear instructions about the expectations for the day. Your teacher will be walking around helping students one-on-one. A few times throughout the period, your teacher will stop the class, ask for your screens to be tilted down 45 degrees, and go over a few important points. These important points are usually either trying to help students see the big picture, or to highlight common mistakes/misconceptions that your teacher has noticed while walking around the room.
Grades
In this class, your graded assignments fall into three categories with the weightings given below:
35% - Classwork - These are the daily log files created by students on a daily basis. At the start of the year each student creates a Google Drive folder and shares it with the teacher. In this shared folder, each clearly labeled and organized classwork file will be created and stored. These should include your code from the day, as well as descriptive sentences explaining where you are at in your coding as well as the challenges and successes you faced during the day.
25% - Assessments - Mainly quizzes, but other assignments can fall into this category. Quizzes are given approximately once every 1-2 weeks, except during projects or while working with RobotC in the 3rd quarter.
40% - Projects - These take a variety of forms, but usually take around one week to complete. A quarter will usually have about 3 projects, except the 3rd quarter will have more because of how RobotC projects are broken down.
Student Classwork Expectations
Log file every day - A daily classwork log file is created for every single day of school. If you are absent, create a blank google doc for that day titled "<date> ABSENT". You can also write the sentence "I was absent this day" inside the google doc for clarity.
Code/classwork activities (In a 1x1 bordered table cell) - (Screenshots of Snap! or code using "Code Pretty" add-on) - In your log file, there should clearly be the code that you were working on throughout the period. Multiple pieces of code are common as there is often a warm-up followed by multiple classwork activities. During the 1st quarter, you can take screenshots of your Snap! code and paste these screenshots into your Google Doc classwork file. During the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters you will copy and paste the text-based code into your classwork file. Whenever you paste code into your Google Doc, use the free Google Doc add-on called "Code Pretty" to color-code and organize your code for readability. This record of your progress through the daily lesson plan's classwork activities is part of what you are graded on.
Reflection/comments in complete sentences (highlighted) - A big part of your classwork grade is whether or not you actually record any thoughts/comments/reflections in your log file. If it is just a copied and pasted list of code, you will receive a very low mark (usually 50-60%). A large part of a log is writing what you actually accomplished, where you left off, and the thoughts currently in your head, so that you can pick it up where you left off. Examples of things to record: what challenges you experienced, what errors/glitches you had, how you tried to overcome them, the successes you experienced, and finally how you felt about it. All of the text that YOU write in your log file should be highlighted yellow for ease of locating. Later on, the code you are copying and pasting into your log file will grow large and finding your comments can be time consuming when dealing with 60 students' log files.
Revisions
Classwork log files cannot be revised.
Projects and Quizzes can be revised up to a grade of 90% for one week after the grade is posted and announced in class.
Project Revisions - Projects are revised outside of regular class time. This can be at home on your own, with your teacher outside of class time (lunch or 7th period), or you can get help from a friend or tutors in the tutorial center. You can earn up to 90% credit on your revision, even if it takes you two or three attempts during the one week to earn that 90%. Work closely with your teacher, checking in on how your project performs on the rubric.
Quiz Revisions - Quizzes cannot be revised on your own time. You will need to schedule a time to meet with your teacher outside of normal class time. Your teacher will give you a similar quiz and you will need to complete it during that time with your teacher. You can earn up to 90% on your revision, even if it takes you two or three attempts during the one week to earn that 90%.
Note about RobotC revisions during 3rd quarter- As RobotC is a paid program you have two options. You can use the school computers in the classroom outside of class time or you can purchase the program yourself (around $50-$80 depending on license and sale price). You can also download it and use a free 7-day trial to revice your projects at home.