About
Henry Fan
Community college CS education researcher and curriculum designer. Mentee of Prof. Jeff Anderson (Foothill College). Application Support Analyst at CVC-OEI supporting cross-enrollment infrastructure for 115+ California community colleges.
About This Curriculum
This curriculum is designed by Henry Fan — CVC-OEI Application Support Analyst at Foothill–De Anza CCD, CS curriculum designer, and mentee of Prof. Jeff Anderson (Foothill College). Henry's day job supports cross-enrollment infrastructure for 115+ California community colleges; this site is the curriculum-design work he is preparing alongside it for a future CS Education / Learning Sciences PhD. The courses on this site represent a multi-year design project to redesign introductory CS at the community college level — building courses that are technically rigorous, project-driven, and designed from the start to serve students who have historically been pushed out of CS. The framework is a proposal in development, not a currently taught program: every design decision is open for remix.
The pedagogical foundation of this work is built on the mentorship and teaching philosophy of Jeff Anderson (Foothill College), whose commitment to antiracist learning science, ungrading, and the principle that every classroom decision should map back to research in cognitive science has shaped how every course on this site is designed and assessed. His five anti-racist, research-based, learner-centered learning objectives are the invisible architecture of this entire curriculum.
The curriculum is connected to ongoing research into help-seeking behavior in introductory CS courses, curriculum dependency structures, and the experiences of students who leave STEM at community colleges. That work lives at the CS Education Research Portfolio
All course materials are free and open access. Instructors who want to adapt any of these courses for their own institutions are encouraged to do so. For questions, collaboration, or to share what you build with these materials, reach out directly.
Teaching Mission
A design statement for courses others may teach — grounded in pedagogical research and the conviction that every student deserves technically rigorous education designed for their success.
Every Student Can Compute
The difficulty students experience in introductory CS is not uniformly about ability. Most of it is caused by courses that teach abstractions before problems, syntax before meaning, and efficiency before understanding. When the structure changes, who succeeds changes with it.
Building Is Understanding
Students learn CS best when they build real things, earn abstractions through struggle, and understand that every algorithm encodes a set of values about the world. The capstone is not a test — it is a public exhibition of work the student is proud to show.
Research Informs Practice
Every classroom decision maps back to research in cognitive science, the psychology of learning, and the scholarship of equity. Teaching is not a solo craft practice — it is a discipline that improves when grounded in evidence and accountable to the students it serves.
“The top 100% of learners deserve the best teaching in the world.”
Jeff Anderson · Foothill College · Mentor & Collaborator
Jeff Anderson’s commitment to antiracist learning science, ungrading, and the Strategic Deep Learning framework is the foundation on which every course on this site is built. His five anti-racist, research-based, learner-centered learning objectives are the invisible architecture of this entire curriculum.
Jeff Anderson MathThe principles that drive this work, expressed as design decisions that show up in every course.
All course materials are free and open access. Textbook cost should never be a barrier to learning computing.
Assessment is portfolio-based. Students present their work at public exhibitions and propose their own grades with evidence.
Tracks are depth choices, not ability groups. Track I requires no prior programming. Tracks are chosen weekly, not at semester start.
Students demonstrate understanding through what they build, not what they recall. Every course ends with a public exhibition, not a final exam.
Open access is not a feature — it is a requirement. Community college students should not pay for the privilege of learning to code.
Get in Touch
Let’s Connect
For questions, collaboration, or to share what you build with these materials, reach out directly.