Overview of Commit2Code’s 12 Week Python Program

Week 1

In this week of the course, students learn about the fundamentals of computer science and programming. Students also learn about Python and its use cases.

We will also discuss IDEs(Integrated Development Environment). For this program, we typically use Online Python due to ease of setup and use.

Finally, students learn about the print() and input() functions in Python and write their first line of code!

Fundamentals of Computing

Week 2

This week, students learn all about the various data types in Python, including

  • Integers

  • Floats

  • Strings

  • Booleans

Students will also build a simple shopping simulator as a coding exercise.

Introduction to Data Types

Week 3

In Week 3, students will learn about the sequence data types in Python including lists, tuples, and dictionaries. Key concepts like list methods, indexing, and mutability will be covered.

Sequences

Week 4

Introduction to Control Flow and Conditionals

To start week 4, students will participate in a debugging race activity to test their knowledge of what was previously taught. Students will be given a piece of incorrect code and will need to correct it to achieve the correct purpose

Next, students will learn about conditional statements. If, else if, and else statements will be covered in depth.

Weeks 5 and 6

During weeks 5 and 6, students will learn about for loops and while loops in Python. Students will also be given a loop-escape room activity, where they code various programs using both types of loops

Loops

Week 7

Methods/Functions

Students will learn about methods/functions in Python. Students will be introduced to modular programming and writing code that can be reused later. Students will also learn about arguments and parameters for functions.

This week’s project/exercise will be building a simple calculator app

Week 8

Students will take a short quiz to test their knowledge of everything that was previously taught in the course

Diagnostic Quiz

Week 9

Review of Concepts

After the students take the diagnostic, we will score them and identify which topics were most missed by students. We will then prepare additional review material and go over those concepts during this week.

Week 10-12

Final Project Weeks

Students will build their final projects to put all the skills they learned into practice. The product should incorporate methods/functions, looping, and conditional statements. Projects past students made include:

  • Shopping Simulator

  • To-do list application

  • Calculator