Ashni Pillai

Thomas Casavant teaches freshmen how to fix a section of their Java code.

For the first time in his 8-year teaching career, AP Physics 1 and 2 teacher Thomas Casavant is instructing one class of  Introduction to Computer Programming (ICP), alongside his four physics classes. 

With experience in programming from his career at Lockheed Martin, an aerospace and defense company, Casavant is taking the opportunity to utilize his skills in a different context.

“Right now, I have a very narrow footprint [at school] of just AP Physics, and if I teach other things, then I’ll have a bigger impact and be able to meet more kids — and that’s interesting to me,” Casavant said.

In previous years, Chinese teacher Sara Tseng taught the ICP classes, but after taking an opening to teach Chinese full time at Los Gatos High, she couldn’t continue teaching the computer science classes. 

Casavant teaches ICP during sixth period while Lalitha Maruvada, who is also teaching ICP for the first time, teaches during first period. Casavant is observing Maruvada’s class once a week in order to gain a stronger grasp on the best approach toward teaching the material. After each class, both teachers discuss and refine plans for future lessons. 

“[Maruvada and I] met with [Tseng], who has been extremely helpful, and she provided us with all the [knowledge] that we needed to teach the class,” Casavant said. “But taking that collateral and turning it into a full class is something that needs refining and is always ongoing.”

Another large shift for Casavant is the transition from teaching solely  upperclassmen in AP Physics to primarily freshmen in ICP. He welcomes the opportunity to connect with freshmen, though notes working with younger students can be challenging at times.

“I was worried about that, because freshmen are not as mature as juniors and seniors. But, I’ve been delighted by what I’ve seen,” Casavant said. “I think that’s a testament to the community over here.”

Because ICP is an elective course, most freshmen take the subject by choice and are usually more motivated and interested in the material. To maintain this engagement and ensure they stay on task, Casavant slightly adjusts his usual loose teaching style and enforces more discipline by being stricter to the freshmen.

So far, Casavant has enjoyed teaching ICP and says his students have been performing well in the class and seem to enjoy it. He looks forward to teaching Java later in the year, a programming language that he has never used before. 

“Whenever I do something new, that’s kind of exciting,” Cassavant said. “Learning something new is always great. Teaching [ICP] has been a fun opportunity and it worked out as well as I had hoped.”