1.     4124 Computer Science Fundamentals (.5 credit) (graduation requirement)
2.     4134 Programming and Algorithms (.5 credit) (gateway course to other offerings)
3.     4225 Data Structures (.5 credit)
4.     4506 AP Computer Science (Spring Semester Only) (.5 credit)
5.     4295 Computer Software Engineering (Fall Semester Only) (.5 credit)
6.     4215 Web Application Development (Spring Course) (.5 credit)
7.     4605 Applied Discrete Structures and Mathematics (1 credit)  

• Courses 1-4 create a pathway that many students take. 

• Courses 3-7 require courses 1 and 2. 

• There are no test-outs available in the Computer Science Department. 

• It is understood that some students may teach themselves rudimentary programming and attain a skill set that satisfies them, however, it is believed that what they miss in moving along and through specific CompSci courses at CSW is detrimental to their overall understanding of the field.

• Students often use their electives to take more than one CS course simultaneously, if the prerequisites have been met.

• If AP CS (A) is not taken at CSW, the test may not be taken at CSW. However, the student may go to another AP center for test administration.

Each instructor has their own specific course expectations, but there are some policies that are department wide.  These are contained within CS Policies Document (to be added).  Instructors in CompSci tend to use the LMS System, Schoology.  It allows for the distribution of assignments, information, and taking online-assessments.  It is not always the case that every assignment, assessment, and bit of information will be  on Schoology.  We expect students to start maturing, taking notes relative to important and relevant course information, and acting on that information without it having to be repeated and reproduced  multiple times and through multiple sources.  This expectation helps prepare them for higher education.

Computer science is a thinking, inferring, computational, and skill-based discipline that requires students to extend and challenge themselves as they progress through the curriculum.  Memorization techniques that may have worked in middle-school will only garner success in the CS courses for so long.  We encourage students to make the most of their in-class time to focus, absorb, and ask relevant questions of the instructor.  We expect students to use out-of-class time to practice, review, read, and reinforce concepts and skills and these on a daily basis.

We also expect students to make appointments with instructors to help them iron out problem areas for them. CompSci instructors are often available after school for extra help in courses.

The CompSci program at Charter is at a curricular level and has the in-house instructors with Professional Memberships in the ACM–both necessary to establish a high school chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).  This is not a computer club, but an extension of the ACM professional society (the largest and most prestigious in the world).  Local and national memberships are open to any student at CSW who exhibits an interest in computing and computing activities.  For more information on activities, goals, and membership, please visit the CSW Student Chapter of the ACM website.  At last investigation, there were three of these chapters world-wide–one in KY, one in India, and here at The Charter School of Wilmington.

Through grants written in the department to outside agencies, an amount of $75,000.00 has been attained to update CompSci at CSW and to encourage CS research.  To date, the majority of this money has been spent and set aside to outfit our computer science research laboratory.  CompSci outreach to other school systems in the state will be one objective as well as continuing to build the in-house CS Research program.

To date, relative to research starting in 2011, eight research papers have been completed and submitted to international, blind, peer-reviewed conferences in the areas of CS, HCI and CS Education.  All of these are in the area of Human and Computer Interaction which was the primary research agenda of Dr. David W. Brown, former chair of the CompSci Department.  Dr. Brown and Mr. Christopher Kramer have collaborated on a paper delivered in New Orleans, LA (2013), and to date three others have been student-instructor, co-authorship’s, accepted to professional, peer and blind-reviewed international conferences.  See citations below:

Venkataraman, R., Agarwal, E. & Brown, D. (2013). Traditional High School STEM Curriculum Ineffective in Promoting Female Interest in Computer Science. In T. Bastiaens & G. Marks (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2013 (pp. 2255-2260). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. 

Kramer, C. & Brown, D. (2013). Educational Technology: Teaching and Learning with its Negative Potential. In R. McBride & M. Searson (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2013 (pp. 2184-2189). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Carlson, J., Carlson, K., Kurian, M., Agrawal, N., Xiang, A. & Brown, D. (2012). Changing Speed and Pitch of Synthesized Voices: Perceived Effects on Attributes and Retention. In Proceedings of Global Learn 2012 (pp. 239-244). AACE.

Kuykendall, B., Janvier, M., Kempton, I. & Brown, D. (2012). Interactive Whiteboard Technology: Promise and Reality. In T. Bastiaens & G. Marks (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2012 (pp. 685-690). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Fish, F. & Brown, D. (2011). Student Perceived Efficacy of an Adult Initiated Social Networking Intervention. In Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2011 (pp. 2575-2579). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Please note that instructors at CSW cannot accept calls during the class day.  Phone calls will be routed to voice mail and calls will be returned as soon as possible after the school day.  E-mail contact may be faster and more efficient if the need is felt to be pressing.