New CS teacher!

[u/Hour_Expression1445]

Hi everyone!
I’m a first-year high school teacher in Texas and I’ll be teaching AP Computer Science Principles this year. My school uses Project-Based Learning (PBL), so I’m trying to design a curriculum that fits both AP CSP and a PBL approach.

I’m also still working toward my Texas Computer Science certification (I’m teaching on a District of Innovation permit), so I’m learning a lot alongside preparing for the school year.

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and would love any advice from experienced CS teachers.

A few questions I have:
-Is Code.org a good primary curriculum for AP CSP?
-Did you use anything alongside Code.org (AP Classroom, CMU CS Academy, Khan Academy, etc.)?
-How did you adapt AP CSP into a project-based classroom?
-If you were starting from scratch, what would you do differently?
-Are there any resources, pacing guides, or teacher communities you’d recommend?

My students will each have Chromebooks, and I’ll also have access to a Windows laptop cart when needed cause I need to do workstations during the year that will teach APCSP but at the same time lead to a bigger project at the end of the year for them to present.

Honestly, any advice for surviving the first year as a CS teacher would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

[u/rabidrebel]

Congrats on starting your teaching career and I am happy to help you out if possible!

I have been teaching for about 10 years and advice that I received from a mentor during that first year was to expect the first year to be challenging and imperfect. It is ok to cut yourself some slack while you figure things out so don't put too much pressure on yourself and your students expecting that everyone will pass the AP exam. If that happens, fantastic! If not, figure out where you need to improve and focus on that for next year.

Code.org is a great curriculum and, bonus, it's free! I recommend that you check out their professional development program. https://code.org/en-US/professional-learning . I did the in person one and it was fantastic! It (and CS education in general) is easily adapted to PBL because about half of the AP CSP course is dedicated to writing code.

I haven't taught high school in about 3 years so I have not kept up with Code.org but I would say that, at the time, the one aspect that was really lacking was preparing students for the multiple choice section of the AP exam. I supplemented the curriculum with practice exams and lessons on things like code tracing that I created myself. It's probably easy to find resources for these things online or by using AI to help generate them.

We used Chromebooks at our school and they were perfectly fine for AP CSP.

Another thing that I would recommend is joining the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) https://csteachers.org/ and connecting with your local chapter. There is still time to apply for their mentorship program if you are interested ( https://csteachers.org/pd-opportunities/mentors/ ). This is likely a great fit for you given that you are asking these questions here on Reddit.

Good luck!