AP® Computer Science A

Advanced Placement® (AP®) Computer Science A is designed to prepare students for the College Board’s AP® Computer Science A Exam. The course curriculum covers the topics and activities of a first-year computer science course at the undergraduate level. It is designed to be engaging and motivating for the high school student.

AP® Computer Science is a course designed to awaken and support students’ problem solving skills. The course will introduce the Java programming language while emphasizing universal language techniques like syntax, semantics and readability. While Java is the official AP® CS A language, the concepts taught are applicable to any industry standard language such as Python, C++, C#, and JavaScript.  Students will gain mastery in programming concepts by using a subset of Java features that are covered when needed throughout the course content. This allows the student to understand and master important concepts that will apply to programming problems in many additional languages.

Students in AP® Computer Science will gain initial exposure to Object Oriented Programming through Alice, a highly-visual and engaging environment where students can creatively explore and apply basic programming elements including control statements, functions, control structures, variables, events and lists.  Students will encounter situations that involve solving problems with the use of primitive data types, methods, and control statements. Later in the first term, this inquiry will evolve into the use of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) which is today’s most common and practical way to develop software.

VHS Learning students will learn complex algorithms using gamification in Alice and will use industry standard tools for software development such as the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment, JUnit Java testing framework, and the CheckStyle static code analysis tool.  These tools make learning easier by providing students multiple opportunities to complete tasks with instant feedback on functionality of their code. Programming assignments are carefully scaffolded to move students progressively toward better understanding and greater independence as programmers.   

This AP® course has a required summer assignment. Students are expected to complete their summer assignment before the course begins and submit their work by the end of Week 1. Students who register on or after September 1st will receive an extension to complete the summer assignment by the end of Week 3. The summer assignment is intended to review crucial content associated with pre-requisite knowledge for the course, where applicable, as well as to allow students to better understand the rigor associated with the content.

Students enrolled in VHS Learning Advanced Placement® courses are expected to take the exam and to report their AP® exam scores to VHS Learning. By enrolling in an AP® VHS Learning class, the students authorize their school administration to report AP® exam scores to VHS Learning. Exam results will not affect the student's VHS Learning grade or future enrollment in VHS Learning courses.

Students will:   

• Discuss and debate programming languages, the software development process and computer technology and its impact on society.
• Design and implement computer-based solutions to problems in a variety of applications.
• Design and analyze portions or complete code structures to drive decisions towards improvement and implementation.
• Identify and apply well-known algorithms to address software requirements.
• Develop and select appropriate algorithms and data structures to solve problems.
• Apply code fluently in an object-oriented paradigm using the Java programming language.
• Incorporate standard Java library classes from the AP® Java subset to solve complex problems.