In progress grades, final progress report grades, and end-of-quarter grades are all posted in Infinite Campus. Ignore any grade information that appears in Schoology or Google Classroom. Infinite Campus is the ONLY place that records your actual grades for this class.
You will do a lot of work in this class. Only some of that work will factor into calculating your overall grade. Most of the work you do will not be graded: you will get feedback but it will not raise or lower your grade.
To distinguish between these two types of "work," we use the words ASSESSMENTS and ASSIGNMENTS:
Think of it like competitive sports. You spend time in multiple practice sessions before your match. The practice sessions are designed to best prepare you for the match. Practice sessions give you the opportunity to improve your skills and get feedback so that you can be fully prepared for the match.
That's how this class works.
Your work is primarily assessed on a mastery system using rubrics. While rubrics are individualized for each particular assignment/lab/project/assessment, the general format is a 6-point rubric (including 0) that is generalized as this:
Since all formally scored assignments/labs/assessments (etc.) are converted to our six-point rubric (0-5), the traditional grading scale (90, 80, 70, 60, etc.) no longer works.
For example, if a student repeatedly demonstrated STRONG skills, they would receive a score of 4 on the rubric. If we translated that back to the traditional grading scale, 4 out of 5 equals 80%. On a typical grading scale, 80% is a very low B. Normally, we don't consider a B- as showing STRONG skills.
So we need to use a grading scale that more closely matches our class rubric. Here's is the "%-scale" for your class grades:
Your overall grade is based on a weighted-category system that directly ties in to the AP-Computer Science Computational Thinking Practices (i.e., the types of cross-over computational skills students should be able to DO.)
No, that is not a typo. All assignments in this category do NOT affect a student's grade.
Most of what we do falls under this category. We do a lot of practice work before we have assignments that are assessed in the categories listed below. This gives students the opportunity to practice their knowledge and skills BEFORE we do an actual assessment.
Most of your larger assessments in this class are projects. How well you prep for a project goes a long way to your success in that project. Part of good prep work is showing how well you incorporate your recent class experiences (current lessons/concepts) and your previous experience from earlier projects to make a better "build."
Do you do things like:
A big chunk of your grade is how well you complete your project. In this case we are talking about the final version - not the process of completing your project. Does your project work? Did your project meet the stated goals? Have you demonstrated that you incorporated good computer science design principles in your build?
Can you do things like:
Being able to critically evaluate, analyze, and assess your own work is a big part of your AP Exam. Identifying problems and understanding what needs to be done to improve your project is a skill we will work on all year long.
Can you do things like:
Being able to critically evaluate work (your and others) AND being able to clearly communicate your thoughts about those evaluations and improvements is your last major skill in this class.
Can you do things like: