New AP CSA Curriculum Changes: A Teacher’s Perspective

We have reached that place again: a curriculum change is upon us! I first started teaching AP CSA in 2014-2015, which was the first year the Grid World case study for CSA was eliminated. That was a big deal at the time, but I was so thankful, as a new CSA teacher, to not have to worry about teaching that. Then in 2019, we got a whole new curriculum design (which we are currently working with in the 2024-25 school year still), that eliminated abstract classes, and interfaces, among a few others. Now for the 2025-26 school year, we are looking at another overhaul of the AP CSA curriculum.

You can read all about the changes in the link above, but a summary of the changes are:

• Adding topics on text files, data sets, and artificial intelligence
• Removing the inheritance unit (Unit 9)
• Consolidating Units 1-8 and 10 into 4 units
• Changing the MCQS to 42 questions and it will now be 55% of the AP exam score
• Changing the FRQs to 4 questions (still) but only scored on a 25-point rubric and worth 45% of the AP Exam score

As with any curriculum change, at first I was a little flustered with this. It always seems that as soon as we get to a comfortable place in the pacing and set up of our curriculum, people from “the top” decide we need to do an overhaul and reorganize everything. I think this is a totally normal reaction, and I can see why teachers are frustrated with it! (Especially myself, who just had to deal with a CSP redesign this year, and an AP Stat redesign taking place 2 years from now)

Now that I’ve had some more time to reflect, I realize that I don’t have to change everything about how I teach. There are some great things being added (I teach an extended lesson on AI already, and text files and data sets are SO relevant to basic programming knowledge), and eliminating Inheritance seems like a logical step. While Inheritance is very helpful, I always felt like we never got deep enough to see it truly working in action. I always felt like I was teaching some very specific situations (aliasing and upcasting were tough on students!) that don’t always come up in the grand scheme of Java programming. I will miss it, and might keep it in as an extended topic after the exam, but I am looking forward to the new objectives being added.

So what am I excited about? You can read the revised CSA CED here, but here are a few of the objectives I’m looking forward to:

3.2.A: Explain the social and ethical implications of computing systems.

While I do teach this in my Extended Topics unit, I would love to spend time developing some activities to help students explore this more! We have always had some good class conversations about it, but there are some more ideas to really dissect here.

3.2.B: Describe the consequences of using artificial intelligence to develop code.

AI is everywhere, and I think any CS class today needs to discuss it. In CSP, we talk about the social implications of using AI, but this learning objective really looks at AI from a coder’s perspective, which I’m excited to explore! I’m already thinking about the lessons I can develop on this; maybe have students enter prompts into an AI chat bot asking them to develop code segments, and then talking about the solutions that are given!

4.1.A Explain the risks to privacy from collecting and storing personal data on computer systems.

4.1.B Explain the importance of recognizing data quality and potential issues when using a data set.

We also touch on these in CSP, but I love the idea of incorporating these in CSA! I think I can work on some lessons that take what we do in CSP and apply it to the “coding side” of data privacy and data quality.

4.1.C Identify an appropriate data set to use in order to solve a problem or answer a specific question.

STATISTICS IN ACTION! I love the idea of merging some statistics knowledge of data sets and merging it with computing algorithms. This will be a really fun lesson for me, I already know!

4.2.A Represent patterns and algorithms that involve data sets found in everyday life using written language or diagrams.

These data-learning objects will be covered before Arrays, and I really think they can provide a great visual introduction to how data is represented on the computer. Programming can be tough for our visual learners, so this feels like an amazing addition for our visual students!

4.6.A Develop code to read data from a text file.

I was always surprised that this wasn’t in our CSA curriculum. It was so prominent in all of my Java classes in college, and used SO OFTEN. While it looks like user input is still excluded from the AP exam, I think reading data from a file is actually MORE relevant for today’s programmer.

The last thing I was thinking about was of course the units now being condensed. We are going from 10 units (well, 9 now that inheritance is gone), into 4 units. This seems to be a styling change across all AP courses, but I think it is leaving a lot of teachers feeling frustrated. Smaller units help us group knowledge into manageable “chunks” of information for our students; and larger units can feel pretty daunting for our students. If you are still working in a traditional grading system, don’t feel like you have to only have 4 units. Make as many units as you want!! Have an assessment for each unit, a project, anything. You, as the teacher, have some freedom for how this might look in your class, don’t be afraid to go with your gut.

The one change in the pacing I see myself making is combining my current Units 2 and 5. Both talk about objects and methods, but they are split up for selection and iteration content. For the 2024-25 school year, I will keep these units in the same spots, but I will begin thinking about how I can merge these together.

For my curriculum, I always want to follow the CED. It is the “gold standard” for what students need to know, and by following their suggested order and organization, it makes the AP Classroom easier to use for teachers and students as well.

We will take these changes in stride, as teachers always do, and we will come out better teachers for our students. At the end of the day, EVERYONE involved in this process just wants to make programming as accessible to students as possible. We want students to succeed and everyone is doing their best to work towards that goal. Let’s embrace the change, and rock this together!!

Kayla aka “Goldie”