weekly

or for 30 classes

AP Computer Science A - Full Semester Course

Completed by 1 learner

Ages 15-18

Live Group Course

This is a complete "AP Computer Science A" course based on the content in the College Board's website. AP CS A is a college level "Intro to Computer Course (CS)" taught in US High Schools. I have taught "Intro to CS" at Emory University.

Dr. Shun Y. Cheung

Average rating:

5.0

Number of reviews:

(2 reviews)

Live video meetings

2x per week, 15 weeks

4-14 learners per class

75 min

About Learning Overview Teacher Reviews

What's included

30 live meetings

37 hrs 30 mins in-class hours

Homework

1 hour per week. Learners will receive frequent assignments to reinforce the material learned in class. They should complete the assignment individually. Most assignments are simple and will take less than a hour to complete. But when enough material have been covered to do questions in AP Computer Science exams, I will assign some past exam questions as homework.

Class Experience

US Grade 9 - 12

Beginner Level

This is a complete AP Computer Science A course based on the curriculum described on the College Board website at this URL:

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-computer-science-a-course-overview.pdf

The AP Computer Science A course teaches students computer science using the Java programming language. The course content is similar to the "Intro to CS 1" course that I have taught at Emory University which is the first course of the Computer Science curriculum at Emory. Students will learn the fundamental concepts in computer science including variables, assignment statements, conditional statements, loop statements, functions/methods, scoping rules, recursion, classes and inheritance. Students will also study the one-dimensional array, the two-dimensional array and the ArrayList data structure to organize large set of data and design solutions to problems. Homework assignments will reinforce material learned and some past AP Computer Science exam questions will be assigned as homework.

Prerequisite: there is no prerequisite for this course.

Book: the course material of this AP Computer Science A course is based mainly on the book "Introduction to Java Programming" by Daniel Liang and it is available at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Intro-Java-Programming-Comprehensive-Version/dp/0133761312/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1VA8N5V7799E1&keywords=Daniel+Liang&qid=1684942002&s=books&sprefix=daniel+liang%2Cstripbooks%2C92&sr=1-2

I made teaching slides with the book material and re-wrote some portion to make the explanation clearer and used more practical examples to illustrate the programming concepts.

Chapters of Liang's book covered this course:

1. Into to Computers and Computer Programs and intro to Java programming (my material)
2. Chapter 2: Elementary Programming
3. Chapter 3: Selections
4. Chapter 4: Mathematical Functions, Characters and Strings
5. Chapter 5: Loops
6. Chapter 6: (Static) Methods
7. Chapter 18: Recursion (I find it better to dovetail into recursion after learning methods)
8. Chapter 7: Single-Dimensional Arrays
9. Chapter 8: Multi-dimensional Arrays
10. Chapter 9: Objects and Classes
11. Chapter 11.11: The ArrayList class (Learn to use the ArrayList objects after studying objects in general)
12. Chapter 10: Wrapper classes for primitive types
13. Chapter 11: Inheritance and Polymorphism
14. Chapter 13: Abstract classes and Interfaces

(The "Chapters" referred to in the curriculum descriptions are book chapters in Liang's textbook)

Learning Goals

The goal of the course is to give students a complete understand on how to use a computer programming language (in this case: Java) to develop computer programs to solve problems. Students will also learn the full content of the AP Computer Science A course curriculum specified by the College Board in their overview:

       https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-computer-science-a-course-overview.pdf

Syllabus

30 Lessons

over 15 Weeks

Lesson 1:

Intro to Computers and Computer Programs

 Overview on how a computer works

75 mins online live lesson

Lesson 2:

Introduction to Java programming

 How to compile and run a Java program with BleuJ

75 mins online live lesson

Lesson 3:

Elementary Programming

 Writing a simple Java program. Defining variables, Identifiers and Primitive data types.

75 mins online live lesson

Lesson 4:

Elementary Programming

 Arithmetic operations. Mixed data type operations.

75 mins online live lesson

Other Details

Pre-Requisites

Basic Math skills at 9th grade level

Language of Instruction

English

External Resources

In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:

Amazon

Sources

The course material is based on the textbook "Introduction to Java Programming" by Daniel Liang and it is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Intro-Java-Programming-Comprehensive-Version/dp/0133761312/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1VA8N5V7799E1&keywords=Daniel+Liang&qid=1684942002&s=books&sprefix=daniel+liang%2Cstripbooks%2C92&sr=1-2 Learners should purchase a copy for reference.

Meet the teacher

Dr. Shun Y. Cheung

Joined November, 2022

5.0

2reviews

Profile

Teacher expertise and credentials

Doctoral Degree in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology

I have a PhD degree in Computer Science and have taught Computer Science courses for over 30 years at Emory University. I have taught the course "CS170 Intro to Computer Science" at Emory which has a similar content as the AP Computer Science A that I am offering at OutSchool. A course evaluation from students on my teaching performance in CS170 is available at this URL:

              http://www.cs.emory.edu/~cheung/OutSchool/Evals/S12-Cheung-CS.170.002.pdf