This year, Mr. Ryan Baber, the new Computer Science (CS) department head, has made some substantial changes to GA’s CS curriculum, including new course offerings and the implementation of new teaching styles to these classes.
Previously, under Mr. Jason Oswald’s leadership, the CS department offered Computer Science 1 (CS1) at the standard and honors levels, AP Computer Science Principles (APCSP), and an Advanced Topics class. However, Mr. Baber has now eliminated the Honors CS1 course.
“The biggest reason for this change was that all three [Computer Science] classes were taught in the same room,” Mr. Baber said. “It’s kind of a tall order to have three different lesson plans for each meeting. It also seemed like Honors Computer Science one was a little redundant, considering that there was already an intro level and an advanced level present.”
Additionally, the Advanced Topics class, which had previously been much more focused on individual students pursuing different projects they were personally interested in, is now following the AP Computer Science A curriculum, a course that Mr. Baber hopes to formally offer at GA.
“I want to bring AP Computer Science A (APCSA) to the school, but I didn’t want to change the title of the course, because I didn’t want anyone to feel like they were forced to take the exam when they hadn’t signed up for it,” Mr. Baber said. “But in the future, I’m considering actually formally offering AP Computer Science A.”
Similarly, the APCSP and CS1 courses are now being taught together and more strictly adhere to the APCSP curriculum, starting by learning the basic fundamentals of CS. In contrast, the previous CS1 and AP courses were taught separately, with APCSP requiring an intermediate level of familiarity with Computer Science.
Through these changes, Mr. Baber hopes that more students will find the CS courses more approachable, especially for beginners.
“Next year, when students start to sign up for courses, I hope that we can get the messaging out that APCSP assumes no prior knowledge of programming,” Mr. Baber said. “Everyone starts from the ground up.”
Similarly, in the future, Mr. Baber hopes to expand the CS course offerings at GA in order to encompass a broader area of interests, as well as creating shorter courses where students can try a CS course out without having to commit for the entire year.
“I’m definitely interested in expanding our course offerings,” Mr. Baber said. “The way that it kind of exists right now, [all of the courses] seem to be heavily coding focused. I would definitely like to go beyond with something that involves design, whether it’s graphic design, 3D printing, or even something with a more hands-on application.”
Additionally, Mr. Baber is looking to create shorter, semester-long courses for students who may not want to commit a significant amount of time to CS.
“I would also like to offer semester courses. Right now, the only way to dip your toes into CS is to sign up for a year-long class with honors and AP students, which I feel is not really truly dipping your toes.”
The common thread tying all of these changes together is Mr. Baber’s broader goal of making Computer Science at GA more accessible to all students, regardless of their CS experience.
“I hope that any and all changes we make to the curriculum bring in more people,” Mr. Baber said. “I hope that we can start to provide some offerings that appeal to a broader subset of the student body, even people who wouldn’t necessarily think of themselves as Computer Science students.”