The College Board proposes to create a new Advanced Placement (AP) course - AP Computer Science: Principles - that will focus on the principles and practices of computing, preparing more students for a competitive 21st century workforce. The new course will be consistent with the 2002 National Research Council recommendation that AP courses "reflect what we know about how students learn; build students' transferable, conceptual understanding and inquiry skills; and convey the content and unifying concepts of a discipline." The course will be engaging, accessible, inspiring, and rigorous. It is intended to foster a wider appeal for the CS discipline and better prepare STEM majors. The College Board's meticulous AP course development process, already proven and thoroughly vetted in the NSF-funded redesign of several other AP science courses, will provide the framework for developing the new course's curriculum. Specific deliverables of the proposal will be: 1) the AP CS Principles course; 2) the design of course pilots in both secondary and post-secondary settings; 3) implementation of the pilots and curriculum evaluations; and 4) a suite of computer-based, prototype assessment items.
AP Computer Science Principles: Goals and Outcomes Thirty years ago, the College Board opened a door to the future for students by launching the first Advanced Placement® (AP®) course in Computer Science. Though that course has adapted effectively over the years to keep pace with changes in the field, the proliferation of technology in today’s world has exponentially increased the demand for computer science majors in the workforce as well as for widespread computer literacy across disciplines. To meet this demand, the College Board is opening the door to the future even wider. Beginning in the fall of 2016, high schools will have the opportunity to offer a new AP course in Computer Science: AP Computer Science Principles. AP Computer Science Principles was developed through a unique collaboration between the College Board, the National Science Foundation, and computer science educators from colleges and secondary schools around the country. The course will provide rich experiences in computational thinking and prepare a more diverse student population – including groups typically underrepresented in computing – for the demanding skills in STEM and computing fields. The call could not be more urgent. Over the last 10 years, growth in STEM jobs was three times as fast as growth in non-STEM jobs.[1] And by 2020, over half of the STEM jobs in the U.S. will require computer science degrees.[2] As a nation, we are not graduating nearly enough STEM majors to meet this need. Since research shows that students who take AP math and science are more likely than non-AP students to earn degrees in STEM disciplines, we have a duty to make these courses as accessible as possible. AP Computer Sciences Principles has been designed to draw more students into the discipline by focusing on foundational computing skills and exploring the creative aspects of computing. Multidisciplinary in nature, it teaches students to analyze problems, create programs and other computational artifacts, and collaborate to find solutions to real-word issues – making it applicable to a wide array of careers in addition to careers in STEM. Outcomes of the Award: The number of participating high school students who intended to major in computer science grew from 18% to 26% from the beginning to the end of the course. More than 94% of instructors expected their students to have sufficient opportunities to learn all the course materials, although a substantially smaller percentage, 77%, agreed that their students had such opportunities during the course. When asked to compare the engagement and learning of their students by demographic group, about half of the HS instructors explicitly indicated equal engagement of these groups of students. Students gave the programming task positive ratings, and found it to be useful. Instructors found the programming task easy to implement, and students were productive and engaged. Inclusion of portfolio tasks impacted the teaching and learning of the course content – including planning, course sequencing, pedagogy, and formative assessment practices. Before each pilot course began, instructors submitted a plan for recruiting more females and under-represented minority (URM) students into their course, meeting student recruitment requirements. Student sample was 41% female and 29% underrepresented minority in the second year of the pilot; the gender difference is smaller for the C/U sample compared with the HS sample. In year two of the pilot, the majority of students in both institutional types (HS and college) took the course because they were interested in the subject matter. Self-rated abilities significantly increased for many students. Six instructors were selected from among the second year of the pilot sample to teach the course again in year three. In the third year of the pilot, about 75% of the students with gender data were male, 25% female and 14% underrepresented minority. Instructors valued being connected to the pilot community. [1] U.S. Department of Commerce [2] Bureau of Labor Statistics
