AP Summer Institute - Week 3

July 8-12, 2019


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Calculus AB: Revised

AP 507.300 Gail Kaplan

This session will help teachers to effectively teach an AP Calculus AB course and prepare their students for success on the AP exam. Participants will review the content, themes, and structure of the AP Calculus AB curriculum and focus on effective teaching strategies and learning activities that will lead to their students' success on the exam. Calculus AB is primarily concerned with developing the students’ understanding of the concepts of calculus and providing experience with its methods and applications. The course emphasizes a multi-representational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems being expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. Through the use of the unifying themes of derivatives, integrals, limits, approximation, and applications and modeling, the course becomes a cohesive whole. With the upcoming changes (2016-2017) in the revised AP Calculus AB curriculum, this course will provide information and strategies that help teachers prepare their students to perform well on the redesigned examination.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Chemistry

AP 512.300 Stephen Pulliam

This workshop is geared toward but not limited to new AP Chemistry teachers. During the week, we will look at the unique features of AP Chemistry, review content, and explore the depth of content required by the course. Considerable time will be spent reviewing the syllabus required by the College Board for all AP courses as well as conducting labs throughout the workshop specifically designed for the course requirements. Topics to be covered include kinetics, equilibrium, thermodynamics, and electrochemistry. In order to create a culture of collaboration and community, experienced teachers will have the opportunity to share what has worked well in their course as well as brainstorm solutions for any challenges faced. In addition, we will examine past AP tests with the goal to develop strategies to enable students to perform well on the exam.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Computer Science Principles

AP 595.300 Reg Hahne

This session will help teachers design an AP Computer Science Principles® (AP CSP) course to support the preparation of their students to take Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles® (AP CSP) exam. Participants will review the content, themes, and structure of the AP CSP curriculum and focus on effective teaching strategies and learning activities that will lead to their students' exam success. AP CSP introduces students to the essential ideas of computer science with a focus on how computing can impact the world. Along with the fundamentals of computing, students will learn to analyze data, information, or knowledge represented for computational use; create technology that has a practical impact; and gain a broader understanding of how computer science impacts people and society. The major areas of study in the AP CSP course are organized around seven big ideas—Creativity, Abstraction, Data and Information, Algorithms, Programming, the Internet, and Global Impact—resulting in the creation of software. It also facilitates the creation of computational artifacts, including music, images, and visualizations. As AP CSP is a relatively new curriculum, this course will be devoted to information and strategies that help teachers to design instruction and prepare their students for the AP CSP exam.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® English Language and Composition

AP 521.300 Kevin Howard

This course will focus on the development of an AP English Language course that is based on the analysis of nonfiction texts, with a special focus on argumentation. The course will begin with an overview of the structure, content, and scoring of the AP English Language and Composition exam. Participants will discuss the impact of the various essay and multiple-choice questions on existing curriculum. Other topics include an introduction to rhetorical analysis by examining speeches, memoirs, scientific writing, journalism, essays, documentary films, and visual rhetoric, broadly defined to include advertising, multimedia, and public art. Attention will be given to book-length nonfiction texts as the core of the course. Emphasis will be given to developing feedback mechanisms for student essays. Participants will explore and share practical teaching strategies, including approaches that support the equity agenda of the College Board. Teachers should read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass before the week starts.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® English Literature and Composition

AP 524.300 Frazier O’Leary

This course will combine the examination of methodology and content with sharing ideas, developing strategies, and reviewing samples from the 2013 AP exam. Hands-on strategies can be introduced immediately into participants’ own courses. Participants can expect interactive sessions where they learn and practice the basics that are essential in implementing a successful AP English Literature course with their students. This course uses College Board-developed materials, as well as other resources and guest speakers, to expand the participants’ knowledge base and to provide a framework for teachers in developing a curriculum.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Government and Politics: United States

AP 537.300 Maria Schmidt

This course provides teachers with an overview of the basic structure and content necessary for an AP course in Government and Politics: United States. The instructor will focus on the development the course using the redesigned curriculum framework as well as the development of learning activities and teaching strategies for use with each of the big ideas, learning objectives and essential knowledge included in the redesigned framework. Emphasis will be placed on the use of multiple resources in the teaching of the course as well as preparing students for the redesigned AP examination format. An analysis of AP examination questions will be included as well as a review of the standards for the grading of the exam. A major portion of the course is devoted to the development of units for an AP U.S. Government and Politics course by participants, including the learning activities and resources necessary for the implementation of such a course. This course is suitable for teachers new to AP U. S. Government and Politics as well as those experienced in the teaching of the course. The course will include a “best practices” sharing session and participants are encouraged to bring a copy of a favorite lesson/activity/strategy they have used in, or that could be adapted to, an AP U.S. Government and Politics course. If participants already are teaching the course or know the textbook and/or any other books they will be using, they should bring these as well.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Human Geography

AP 539.300 Pamela Wolfe

This course will provide an overview of the AP Human Geography curriculum and help participants design their own course. Participants will review lesson plans, resources, and websites for teaching each of the major course topics, including geographic concepts, population, migration, cultural patterns, the political organization of space, rural land use, industrialization, and urban geography. The course will focus on effective teaching strategies and learning activities to prepare for students’ success on the AP exam. Participants will begin to develop their own course outline, syllabus, and assessment tools.  Scaffolding of skills for different age groups and ability level will be am additional focus of the course.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Psychology

AP 557.300 Alan Feldman

This course will focus on the teaching of psychology as a science, including an intensive review of the content of the AP Psychology examination and released multiple-choice and essay questions. Additional topics will include teaching strategies and resources, using and designing a rubric to write and score essay questions, test-taking techniques, demonstrations for teaching psychology, and important experiments and studies in psychology. Numerous resources including books, articles, psychology type toys and video resources will be discussed. Approximately 500 of the most important terms for the AP Psychology course will be reviewed (especially those that are troublesome to students) as well as the 96 psychologists with whom students need to be familiar for the AP Psychology test. The book Teaching Introductory Psychology: Survival Tips from the Experts, edited by Robert Sternberg, will be discussed in detail. Participants are urged, but not required, to bring a few of their favorite lesson plans and audio-visual resources to share in class. It is recommended that you bring a large 128 GB flash drive to the class. Please contact the instructor prior to the session so you can be given a Schoology account and if you have any questions or concerns.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Physics 2: Algebra-Based

AP 594.300 Joe Mancino

This AP Physics institute is designed to help teachers build a foundation for a successful AP Physics program. We will focus on teaching the AP Physics 2 course that debuted in the 2014/2015 school year and preparing students for the exam. The first goal involves using the Curriculum Framework which pairs essential knowledge with the fundamental scientific reasoning skills necessary for scientific inquiry. The Curriculum Framework provides detailed information concerning what a student should know and what they are expected to do on the AP Physics 2 Exam. A significant amount of time will be spent considering how the new course does not just change what we teach but also changes how we teach. Other focus areas of this course include preparing a new syllabus for AP Physics 2 and organizing the inquiry laboratory experiments/questions that comprise 25% of the time to be spent in the new course. Special topics related to the revamped course —pV diagrams and probability, entropy, electrical circuits with capacitors at steady state and topics in Modern Physics—will be addressed as well. Copies of the AP Physics 2 Curriculum Framework will be provided in the AP Physics Participants handbook. Copies of the Framework also may be downloaded from the College Board website prior to the course. Participants are invited to bring their laptop, tablet, or smartphone along with their best activities, lessons, or labs to share with the group.

Syllabus


Preparing Students for Advanced Placement® Statistics

AP 566.300 Jim Bohan

This course will focus in detail on the philosophy, content, and pedagogies related to creating and implementing a successful course in AP Statistics. The sessions will engage participants in the four main areas of AP Statistics: exploring data, sampling and experimentation, anticipating patterns, and statistical inference. The approach will be one of using actual AP Statistics’ problems to guide discussion of content and pedagogy. In addition, the course will provide opportunities for discussion about topics such as AP course goals, objectives, content, resources, bibliographies, and equipment; AP exam development and grading processes; syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments; how to refresh and improve existing AP courses; recent changes in AP course descriptions; strategies for teaching students at beginning or intermediate levels; vertical teaming; and use of technology in AP Statistics.

Syllabus