New APCS trial at UCSD

Lisa Kaczmarczyk is going to blog on Beth Simon’s trial of the new AP course “Computer Science: Principles” at UCSD.  There are five trials total, and Beth’s is clearly the largest.

This pilot poses some exciting challenges. First of all, Beth will be delivering twice weekly lectures to approximately 750 students. Yes, 750. The students will be from two very different audiences: one group will be upper division Psychology students and the other will be freshmen who may end up majoring in any area.  Most have not currently expressed a preference for computing (otherwise they would likely be enrolled in the CS1 course). All of the students are required to take this course. Students will be seated in three adjacent lecture halls. Using various pedagogical techniques that Beth has been refining over several years, including innovative use of clickers to create dynamic interchanges between student and instructor, this pilot will aim to demonstrate that the Principles course can be scaled to the largest of classroom audiences.

via Interdisciplinary Computing Blog: APCS Principles Course Development at UCSD.