Course outline, AB Computer Science, Java Mark Fidler
Text: Java for AP Computer Science by West and Stephenson (Holt)
Software: Ready To Program (comes with the text from Holt)
September
1.5 weeks Karel++ / Computing Essentials (Chapter 1)
(students learn Chapter 4
and Chapter 5 of Karel ++ independently)
Karel Quiz
Week 2-3 Intro to Ready to Program IDE , Chapter 4-6 Basic Programming Language Concepts, intro to objects
(Students Read Chapters 1 and 2 of the Java text independently)
Primitive types of int double, boolean, variables, constants (final), assignment statements, order of operations, simple i/o (including basic formatting of output), programming style (indentation, good variable names, comments)
Java Lesson - lab #2 (Chapters
4-6)
Week 4 If Statements, Methods
October
Week 5 Loops (while, for)
Loops Lecture - Lab (2 days)
approx 2 days: open lab
time to work on loop lab
Week 6 Test: all Java (loops, etc)
Chapter 10 lesson – lab : strings and text files
Week 7 String and Text File quiz
Arrays
Week 8-9 Finish arrays
writing a large program using step-wise refinement (Have the class as a group begin to write the top levels of one of the game labs below)
Lab: write a game (see below) using user-defined methods and arrays (due in 3-4 weeks)
November
Week 10 Chapter 12- Objects and Classes lesson
Chapter 14 lesson: inheritance and interfaces
Quiz: Chapters 11, 12 and 14
Week 11-12 Searching and Sorting lesson
Searching and Sorting worksheet
Searching and sorting extra worksheet
December
Week 13 Finish searching and sorting
test: searching and sorting
Week 14 Recursion lesson
Week 15 enrichment / catch-up week
January
Week 16-18
Linked Lists
linked list test
Week 19 exam week
February
Week 20-21 Trees lesson
Test: trees
Week 22-23 Chapter 20 lesson - lab (iterators, maps, etc)
Week 16-17 Stacks (Bk2, ch 6), queues (Bk2, ch8), priority queues (Bk2, ch9)
March
Week 23-24 Chapter 21 lesson (stacks, queues)
Test: Chapter 20-21
April
Week 25-26 Case study
Week 27-28 AP review
May
Week 29 AP Exam
Week 30-32 post AP projects
(students can work in groups, doing a project which might involve:
GUI
animation
robotics
an AI competition (students write strategy methods to compete at a game)