Syllabus

Mr. Zendt - Lab Room C133
Email: jzendt@alvinisd.net
Tutoring: Wednesday 3:00pm – 4:00 & Friday 3:00pm – 4:00 or by appointment.

Welcome!
To be successful in my (and any) class, students must be able to:
• Complete all work (even if not collected for a grade).
• Study outside of class.
• Ask for help when stuck.
• Bring an open mind and try new things.
• Work independently and in groups.
• Participate in all Classroom Activities

Course Materials
Each student is required to bring:
• Flash Drive with one gigabyte (1 GB) free.  USB 2.0 or 3.0 (3.0 is preferred).
• Pencils or Mechanical Pencils for Notes and Written Assignments.
• 3 Ring Binder: About 1" thick, or space in a larger binder
• 5-Tab Binder Dividers: To keep the binder organized, see below.
• 3 Different Color Writing Utensils: pens, markers, highlighters, or pencils, etc.

The Binder
You will receive quite a few handouts of programming references and notes. Organization is a major key to success in this class. So here's how I recommend setting up your class binder:
• Reference: Function Reference Cards
• Notes: Printouts of notes in class
• Worksheets: Various homework and worksheets
• Tests: Tests and Quizzes

Curriculum:
• Pre AP Timeline

Software used in class (in order of use):
• Jeroo: http://home.cc.gatech.edu/dorn/38
• BlueJ: http://www.bluej.org/index.html
• JCreator: http://www.jcreator.com/index.htm
• Greenfoot: http://www.greenfoot.org
• Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.org/

Assignments
All programming assignments will be turned in via assignment upload on Google Classroom.

Remember students have access to the Internet and a printer through the Manvel High School library.

Grades
This class is graded on the expectations that the students are responsible and are prepared to study. Please refer to the Math Department PreAP Contract for information about Late Work and Grading (basically, no late work except in the 1st nine weeks).

Homework/Classwork (10%): Daily Programming Assignments and take-home worksheets fall into this category.

Quizzes (10%): In-class quizzes will fall into this category, as well as any binder checks.

Labs (25%): There are usually one to two major Labs per unit.  These are Labs that might span from 2-4 days of class and have a scoring rubric.

Tests (55%): This category includes major tests structured like AP exams, and may contain multiple choice questions and free response questions. This category also includes larger programming projects that span multiple weeks. You may retest once per semester, as per the Pre-AP guidelines for a maximum of a 70.

A note about assistance from peers: you may ask others for help on an assignment, but copying of another student's program (or small sections of) is NOT allowed and will be considered cheating/plagiarism. Changing variable names does not count as original work. Ask HOW they solved the problem, not WHAT is the solution. If you are helped by another student, please include them as a "with help from" in your program header!

Google Classroom
I will use Google Classroom as the primary means of assignment submission and grading. Please create an account (if you haven't already) and join my class. I will check Google Classroom during most evenings, so if you ever have any trouble with an assignment, post a question and myself or another student will try to answer. I will stop checking around 8pm-9pm, so don't post at midnight expecting an answer!