My kid who is a TJ senior who has taken many CompSci classes. Most teach well. Yes, there are post APCompSci classes where certain CompSci teachers don’t teach. My kid had one last year. They only answer questions on the board if asked. It makes it extraordinary difficult if you don’t have a parent or older sibling/cousin with a degree in CompSci. There aren’t even web videos to explain the assignment concepts. Same thing for the math classes. Most teachers my kid had teach wonderfully. One teacher at TJ my kid had did not. Kids dread this teacher.

It isn’t fair to do just assign things and say “you can figure it out” with high level subjects. Then getting a good grade isn’t who is smart or puts in the effort, but who has access to someone to teach them outside of class. The free online tutors FCPS started is great, but don’t cover many of the TJ subjects.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the intro CS class. Several sections taught by math teachers. focus is on logic to solve factorial etc type of problems.

limited focus on syntax etc. thats what I think. but open to hear from others.

Yes this sounds like what DD is talking about. She’s supposed to figure it out rather than learn a new language. Given she has never coded before and this is the basic class that strikes me as beyond bizarre.

- OP

My son took AP CS as a freshman at TJ and we were concerned since he didn't have any programming experience at all and no coding classes either. However, he found TJ AP CS relatively easy and most in his AP CS found the class easy (easier than other classes) and this class was viewed as a way to get easy As.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank PP. Yeah she has been using the packet but it sounds like sometimes she gets stuck and then the teacher is unwilling to help explain the approach needed and seems annoyed by being asked questions. This is as they are all working through the packets so it’s not like she’s interrupting while he is trying to lecture the full class.

So what does the teacher do during the class period? Help out students when they are stuck? Walk around and give guidance check that they are on the right track? Something else?

Instagram, twitter...

Thank you. Helpful. DD finally figured out what she was doing wrong on the thing she was stuck on this week but all the advice above is very helpful but for next time. Appreciate it as I try to help support her in understanding this new model of learning!


- OP