CSD Extended Learning/Final Project



I’ve gone through almost all of the material for CSD and we still have 3 months to go. We are on Unit 6, Lesson 5 and I feel like we are going to have a lot of time left over. Any ideas for additional lessons, or how to extend the final project? I’m thinking of something like in CS Principles, their project spans over a month and requires creating an app that incorporates everything they have learned in the class. Maybe it is because I have high school students, they are finding much of the material in this class fairly easy and get through it faster than the recommended time.



Wow, you are a pioneer! I haven’t heard anyone getting that far, especially this early. Could I suggest you have your students make “Hour of Code” exercises for some of the topics covered in Unit 1 - 6 and then posting them here for others to use? That would be amazing and really helpful to the forum.



I really like @bradleywellsashley’s suggestion of creating an “Hour of Code” - we all know how much more deeply you learn a concept in the teaching of it. I would also point you towards the full versions of App Lab and Game Lab. There’s a lot of curriculum left on the cutting room floor, so these tools are capable of going much further than what’s covered in the course. Some particular places you might point students to explore:

  • Look at the “Groups” drawer in full Game Lab. What is a group? What is the relationship between groups and arrays? Can you go back to one of your previous games and refactor to work with groups?
  • Similarly, go back to any project you’ve made in the course and refactor it using the new concepts you’ve learned (arrays, for loops, and functions with paratemers specifically)
  • We left unit 4 with an interactive prototype, but not a fully fledged app. Return to that project and work to add full functionality.
  • App Lab has a whole set of data tools that we initially wanted to use to teach data in unit 5. Write an app that collects data using the data tools. Return to the final project in Unit 5 and see if you can actualy create an app to make your recommendation.
  • Go all the way back to the project from Unit 1. Given what you’ve learned throughout the course, how would you reimagine that app? Can you make it?
  • Use Web Lab to create a website that showcases all of the topics you’ve learned throughout the course. Can you make it a site to pitch this course to future students?


Great idea - would you suggest using the Hour of Code submission guidelines as a rubric for this project?



I’ve had the students share those with each other and they are the best rubric you can find - they are very honest with each other and that can go into the Problem Solving Process and trying to understand the user they are creating the Hour of Code’s for.

Let me know if you have any other questions!


I am teaching a semester course using the CSP Units 3 and 5 (but our school is not yet approved for AP CSP). My students this semester are blazing through the curriculum also.
I had them work on creating games (rolling dice and card suites) using APP LAB. This was a good project for them because they had to build the entire project from scratch. It took several weeks to build the 21 game.
Here’s are two examples of what my students worked on

The nice part about this is that they can always expand the projects to add another level or more complexity.

**** One thing we learned the HARD WAY — one student was working in Google Chrome. His images kept disappearing and he was getting broken link icons. He switched to Firefox and now is no longer having that problem.

Good Luck with your group !


You are using these CSP units for your CSD class, correct? Did you need to go through the entire unit before they could do the project? I am hesitant to do this since some of my intro students will be taking principles next year, so they would get the same lessons twice.


I have 12th graders, so we aren’t using CSD but we are using two units of CSP for a Semester Long class. I understand your hesitation since they will re-do the lessons in Principles but there is also APP LAB for extension lessons next year. I have found that one of the challenges teaching coding is that students come in with various starting points in terms of their understanding and experience with JavaScript. I try to just give my students who are already proficient some extra activities in Code.org such as Course 3 and Course 4 and then projects in App Lab.
Hope that info helps !