Teacher Guides for CS Awesome: Unit 1 Primitive Types

About This Course

This FREE micro course (just 37 minutes) is designed for those who want to support secondary students' learning of Java -- with a focus on Advanced Placement Computer Science A Unit 1 - Primitives. Using the freely available CS Awesome online, interactive textbook, learn Java with the same resource you can use to teach it.

This course is made up of 4 videos each providing an overview of one CS Awesome page in Unit 1 (starting with 1.3). These videos seek to give you a "just get me ready to teach tomorrow" teacher's overview of the following:

Overview of the key learning goals of the page.

Explanations and classroom resources for parts of the page that might be confusing for students.

Advice on any material that is not required for APCS A or which can be safely skipped now and covered in a later unit.

Course cost: FREE! This course does NOT confer any unviersity credits.

Course Staff

Dr. Beth Simon

Dr. Simon has 20+ years experience teaching and improving student outcomes through best practices in introductory programming. She has been involved in K-12 efforts in CS for over 10 years serving as an inaugural piloter of the APCS Principles course, leading the development of California's CS Standards, and offering courses for in-service and pre-service teachers seeking to teach computing in K-12.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between this course and the full Learn to Teach Java course that costs $300 and covers all units?

This course provides only the CS Awesome page overview videos -- and just for Unit 1. The full course includes much more including:

Video series on the following:
- Moving from block to text programming
- CS Awesome Leftovers (things to cover later)
- Classroom Discussions (providing slides and an overview of how to discuss with stduents)
- Developing student debugging skills
- Assessment options (overviewing APCS A assessments and other common assessments)
Activities including:
- Self assessment quizzes (per page)
- Peer Instruction discussion question practice
- Create and share a coding explanation resource for mixed up code
- Create and share resource to help students learn to debug code

Does this course help me fulfill the California CTC Supplementary Authorization to teach Computer Science?

This course does not confer univeristy credit, which is required for the California Supplementary Authorization in Computer Science. If you know you need that take the full Learn to Teach Java course instead. If you decide to take the full course later, there is no discount for having already paid for this course.

Can I pay by purchase order?

Unfortunately, no. The full Learn to Teach Java course can be paid for by purchase order. It is $300 for the full class (all units and all activities).

UCSD: CSED-324-STC-1A Teacher Guides for CS Awesome: Unit 1 Primitive Types