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Welcome to Westminster's High School Programming Class
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This class is designed to teach students that have an interest in science the high level thinking skills that become critical later in college. Students with an interest in business should consider Computer Applcations. This class employs an educational technique called the discovery method of learning first developed in the 1960s. The discovery method is widely acclaimed for its ability to produce high level thinking skills and originality in students.
In the first few weeks of the class, you will learn enough about programming to write simple programs. At that point, you will be given a demonstration of a video project and will be asked to propose a project of your own design. As you progress, new and powerful programming and mathematical tools will be introduced. It is common for students to employ Trigonometry, Vector Physics, Euclidean Geometry and Polar Coordinants to produce a video project. These and many other topics are discussed at the request of students, like yourself,who are excited about what they are learning and how these fields of study apply to the problems they want to solve.
What you need to bring: 1. Implements for note taking. e.g. paper, pencil, notebook
2. One 3.5 inch high density floppy disk. (Used disks are acceptable as long as they are in pristine working condition and the data on them is disposable.) USB bus drives are welcome.
| Follow Directions. |
| Wait your turn. |
| Respect people and property. |
| Use wholesome language. |
| 1. Tests: Almost all tests will be unannounced quizzes. In these quizzes, students will be asked to solve short progamming problems directly on their computer. In this class, it is not uncommon for students to ask for quizzes because their programming and problem solving abilities improve so quickly that quiz grades can often be straight As |
| 2. Home work: Home work is voluntary, but many students take work home. As a result, some students feel pressure to do additional work out side of class room hours. |
| 3. Average: In most cases, your grade will simply be the average of all your work plus the number of extra credit points you accumulate from your analysis of other people's work. In certain cases, student abilities improve suddenly and profoundly during the course of the class. In these cases, the instructor reserves the right to ignore the earlier grades as not representative of the student's ability or performance. |
If you miss a test, your grade can usually be calculated by giving more weight to other tests. If you miss several tests, make-up tests may be given after school. Project deadlines are inflexable, because many of these projects participate in contests within our school and late projects often cannot participate. If you happen to be absent on the day your project is due, efforts will be made to retrieve your work. If these fail, see your instructor for instructions.
Instructor's hours and lab hours:Mr. Bouwsma (or a computer lab attendant) is available Monday through Friday from 3:10 to 5:30 PM in the computer lab. The computer lab is used by the Middle School After Care Program, as part of a project to determine if playing strategy games effects student mathematical abilities. As a result, the computer lab is not a quiet place to think after school. If you can excuse some noise, you are welcome to come any day work on your project or use the computer lab for any work that assists you or your parents. We are glad to help in any way that we can.