{"id":810,"date":"2012-09-01T15:42:18","date_gmt":"2012-09-01T20:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/?p=810"},"modified":"2012-09-01T15:42:18","modified_gmt":"2012-09-01T20:42:18","slug":"starting-with-jeroo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/starting-with-jeroo\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting with Jeroo"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really like using \u00a0\u00a0Jeroo<\/a> in my AP CS A class to start the year.\u00a0 I have quite a few students that show up after having taken an intro class, but I also have quite a few that are brand new to CS.\u00a0 I use Scratch and Jeroo early in AP CS A to level the playing field.\u00a0 These environments are pretty light-weight and allow new students to pick up important vocabulary and concepts easily.<\/p>\n

\"Save<\/a>

Save the Jeroos!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"new<\/a>

new Jeroo() for everyone!<\/p><\/div>\n

Images provided by Joe \u201cSubway\u201d Finklestein.<\/p>\n

I use Jeroo to teach many important concepts, including repetition, decision-making, Boolean logic, modularity, and recursion before moving into pure Java.\u00a0 This approach of teaching the core concepts before using pure Java really allows me to compress the front-end of the year.\u00a0 While in Jeroo, students master object instantiation, method-calls, and all of the basic Java syntax they will use all year long.\u00a0 All the while, students are having fun trying to make a fake Kangaroo avoid death, make friends, and occasionally fall in love.<\/p>\n

I try to present interesting challenges and problems<\/a> all year long, having students formulate solutions to each challenge.\u00a0 \u00a0Students learn concepts as they need them based on the problems and challenges presented.\u00a0 This works really well and makes the learning more meaningful as there is clear purpose presented for learning certain things.\u00a0 I like to refer to this approach as problem-centered learning.\u00a0\u00a0 The problem is always at the center and the concepts are added to the solution as needed.<\/p>\n

A new version of \u00a0\u00a0Jeroo<\/a> was just released so go check it out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really like using \u00a0\u00a0Jeroo in my AP CS A class to start the year.\u00a0 I have quite a few students that show up after having taken an intro class, but I also have quite a few that are brand new to CS.\u00a0 I use Scratch and Jeroo early in AP CS A to level […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apluscompsci.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}