UW in the High School
This page has links to various resources for teachers involved in offering CSE142 and CSE143 through the UW in the High School program.
Curriculum
The table below has links to resources from the CSE142 course at the University of Washington. Some of these resources are not publicly available. If you need the id and password, contact Stuart.
We have used various assignments that are not part of CSE142 but might be useful in an AP/CS A course.
- Shopping Cart assignment:
- GeoLocation assignment:
- writeup and resources (homework 8): GeoLocation (Word version )
- solution: GeoLocationClient.java, PlaceInformation.java
- zip of all files: geo.zip
The table below has links to resources from the CSE143 course at the University of Washington. Some of these resources are not publicly available. If you need the id and password, contact Stuart.
Resources
- PracticeIt, a great tool for your students to practice coding questions and to prepare for the exams
- recent CSE142 course page taught by Brett Wortzman (see especially the "calendar" page that includes links to videos of Brett's lectures and sample programs discussed)
- recent CSE143 course page taught by Stuart
- outline of how CSE142 is taught versus how we would expect an AP/CS A course to be taught
- textbook page
- exam page with old CSE142 and CSE143 exams, solutions, and criteria
- old CSE142 midterm questions and old CSE142 final questions
- old CSE143 midterm questions and old CSE143 final questions
- Pacing Guide for AP/CS developed by Hélène Martin (not as relevant now because it is based around the old GridWorld case study)
- overview of Building Java Programs useful materials
- two style guides for CSE142 are available here and here
- AP/CS labs that include links to content specific labs on topics like recursion and ArrayLists
- AP/CS review page with tips on how to do well on the exam
- jGRASP development environment
- Puget Sound Computer Science Teachers Association
- CSE14X TA program
General Expectations
We provide a great deal of flexibility for how you structure your high school course. We expect you to pattern the course after the UW version, but you have the freedom to modify it to work in your environment. You can rearrange the order of topics or include additional topics, but we expect you to cover the same basic material that we cover.
Homework
You are encouraged to use our assignments, although you can replace them with other assignments that are similar in character. In the UW courses, homework counts for between 40% and 50% of the grade. You can have homework count anywhere from 20% to 50% of the grade depending upon how much you want to rely on exams for assessment.
Exams
You are allowed to design your own exams, although you are encouraged to include the same basic questions that are included on the UW exams. We give a 75-minute midterm and a 110-minute final. You can break up the exams in whatever way you choose. For example, you might want to give three or four exams that are each 50 minutes long.Grade Setting
This is a dual enrollment program, which means that you will produce two grades for your student. You can grade in whatever way you prefer for the high school grade. For the UW grade, we ask that you use your best judgement to figure out what grade your students would have received in our CSE142 course. You can see how grades were set in fall 2016 by looking at the cutpoints in this spreadsheet.
For the fall 2016 course, homework counted 40% (mean 84.3, median 89.8), the midterm counted 20% (mean 78.8, median 82), and the final counted 40% (mean 71.3, median 78). Keep in mind that the kind of students who sign up for an advanced class in high school and particularly the students who sign up for dual credit tend to be higher performing students. As a result, we do not expect that the grades submitted by UW in the High School teachers will have the same distribution as in our class. We would expect most students would get grades in the 3.0 to 4.0 range.
Intro Courses at UW
The Computer Science & Engineering Department at the University of Washington is consistently rated in the top 10 departments by the Computing Research Association, US News & World Report, and GRE Guide. The department has produced several videos featuring our students and faculty that address the question of Why major in CS?".
The University of Washington teaches a fairly traditional CS1/CS2 course combination called CSE142/CSE143 that is similar to what AP/CS has called A and B. We teach them in a large lecture format with 350 to 700 students in a single lecture hall meeting three times a week and a discussion section with 20 students each. CSE142 has one section a week and CSE143 has two sections a week. Sections provide the small-group experience where students can ask questions and work on problems.
Intro enrollment at UW has increased significantly in recent years and has now reached record levels. Approximately three thousand students take CSE142 each year and approximately two thousand students take CSE143 each year. Around half of the undergraduates at UW take CSE142. We have been attracting more women to our courses in recent years. CSE142 is now up to 37% women and CSE143 is up to 30% women. Historical charts of intro enrollment can be found here. We made a video about intro enrollment available here.
Computer Science is now the most popular choice of major for incoming freshmen as indicated by this chart. Admission to the major has become highly competitive with around 26% of applicants being admitted in recent admissions cycles.
Stuart Reges