Curriculum

Our courses are designed to feature projects that students find personally meaningful and socially relevant, with the explicit intention of motivating all students to pursue computer science, especially young women and students from historically underrepresented groups in computing.

By Teachers, For Teachers

The UTeach CS curriculum is the product of ongoing collaboration between highly experienced and successful secondary computer science teachers and researchers, professors, and thought leaders at The University of Texas at Austin.

Each year, hundreds of teachers teach our courses around the world. Our teachers continually help shape and improve the curriculum and support each other by sharing resources and crowdsourcing solutions.

Comprehensive, Classroom-Ready Teacher Materials

Teachers should expect success the first time teaching a course. That’s why we provide teachers with comprehensive, classroom-ready instructional materials:

• Teacher-tested lesson plans, complete with all lesson materials (handouts, presentation slides, assignments, starter code, sample solutions, single-point rubrics, unit anchor videos, etc.), differentiated instructional strategies, and pacing guides for both traditional and block-based schedules
• Detailed formative and summative assessments, including robust AP®-style item banks for each unit
• Resources for meeting College Board course requirements, including a College Board–approved syllabus and lessons directly connected to resources in the AP Classroom

Teachers can access our course materials through a dynamic, web-based learning management system, which is maintained and updated by the UTeach Computer Science team.

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Student Materials Accessible from Any Device

UTeach Computer Science provides teachers and students with a convenient online student textbook, which includes course readings, assignments, and project rubrics. Many activities can be completed without 1:1 computer access. Programming assignments are completed through open-access, Chromebook-compatible integrated development environments (IDEs), and no additional materials costs are assumed.

Computer Science Pathways

Computer Science Principles is an inclusive, foundational course designed to engage all students in computer science. The AP CS Principles curriculum was developed with the explicit intention of broadening participation among young women and others historically underrepresented in the field of computing. The course goes beyond programming to address big ideas like creativity, abstraction, data and information, algorithms, the internet, and the global impact of computing. 

Computer Science A is a rigorous, college-level course designed to prepare students for advanced coursework and potential career pathways in computer science. The course deep-dives into programming concepts, such as abstraction, data structures, iteration, algorithms, and object-oriented programming.

Computer Science Principles is often offered to 9th - 12th grade students after they have completed Algebra I, both for students new to computing and students with previous experience in programming and computational thinking. Computer Science A is often offered as a more advanced course to 10th - 12th grade students after they have completed Computer Science Principles. Whether or not these courses are offered for AP credit, students in UTeach CS courses will discover how to apply programming and computational thinking skills to personally relevant projects.

Specific Program Curricula