Goldie’s AP® Computer Science Principles – Unit 1 Introduction to Computer Science

AP® Computer Science Principles

Unit 1 – Introduction to Computer Science

Complete Unit Plans

*NEW & UPDATED for 2023-24 School Year!!*

This unit was designed to save your most precious resource: YOUR TIME! In this complete unit, you will have everything you need to teach, support, and assess your students on everything involving how computers work, algorithms, and creative development in the AP® Computer Science Principles course.

This unit is part of my larger curriculum bundle: Goldie’s FULL CURRICULUM for AP® CSP

This resource contains the following:

• Student guided notes (3 lessons) with a teacher answer key
• Activity: Exploring Computer Languages Lesson Plan
• Activity: Learning Target Review Lesson Plan
• Teacher PowerPoint slides to accompany each lesson
• 3 homework assignments with answer keys
• 1 Unit Project
• 1 Multiple Choice Assessment with an answer key
• Bonus: Links to my posts on how I spend the first 2 days in AP® CSP

All of the resources are 100% editable, so you are able to modify to fit your classroom needs. The zip folder includes all the Word documents for the resources, which you have permission to edit. The PDF version and answer keys are included for your convenience.

I teach this course without a textbook, so everything that is provided here, can be used without supplementation. The only thing I use in my class that is NOT included in this content is the secured AP® exam questions.

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Lesson 1: Introduction to Computer Science

• Students will be able to define computer science and its scope.
• Students will be able to explain the positive impacts of computer science in various domains.

Lesson 2: How Computers Work

• Students will be able to explain the fetch-decode-execute cycle and the role of the CPU in executing instructions.
• Students will understand the difference between system software and application software.
• Students will understand the role of computer languages in giving instructions to a computer.
• Students will be able to explain the difference between high-level and low-level computer languages and give examples of each.
• Students will understand the difference between text-based and visual-based programming languages.

Activity: Exploring Programming Languages

• Students will be introduced to and given time to explore both Scratch and Python programming languages.

Lesson 3: Algorithms and the Creative Development Process

• Students will understand what an algorithm is and its role when creating a computer program.
• Students will be able to explain the important role collaboration has in creating a computing innovation.
• Students will be able to communicate how a program, or code segment, functions.
• Students will understand the creative development process, including planning, coding, testing, debugging, documenting, and maintaining.

Activity: Learning Target Review

• Working in pairs, students will be assigned a slide in a google slides presentation to review one of the learning targets in this unit.

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Goldie's AP Computer Science Principles Units:

Unit 1: Introduction to Computer Science

Unit 2: Digital Information

Unit 3: The Internet

Unit 4: Big Data and Privacy

Unit 5: Programming in AP® Pseudocode

Unit 5: Programming in Python

Unit 6: Social Issues in Computing

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Goldie’s FULL CURRICULUM for AP® Computer Science Principles (with Python)

Goldie’s FULL CURRICULUM for AP® Computer Science Principles (w/o Python)

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If you need extra explanations or additional guidance, I would love to help!!

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I want to provide the best possible resources to help other teachers out! You will be notified of any future updates and additions to this product and it will be free of charge. Your support is important and I thank you for allowing me to continue doing what I love to do.

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