Preparing Students for Advanced Placement United States History

AP 590.100 Geri Hastings

This course will provide participants with an overview of the AP U.S. History course and exam and give them the opportunity to analyze and integrate the course’s three major component parts – the Topic Specific Learning Objectives, the Historical Developments, and the AP historical thinking skills and reasoning processes. After examining the Curriculum Framework and identifying the characteristics of, and reasons for, these three component parts, participants will begin to plan student-centered lessons for some of the key concepts in the Concept Outline. As they design their lessons, participants will determine the connections between the three main parts of the course, connections that are assessed on every question on the exam. Emphasis will be placed on daily planning for each of the units – planning which involves chunking content material and creating lessons that cover a great deal of assessable material. Woven throughout the course will be opportunities for participants to take part in high interest, student-centered lessons that were developed to support the new course and engage students. In addition, there will be a strong focus on argumentative writing, especially for the Long Essays and Document Based Questions. The updated scoring tools will be used to evaluate student responses from the 2020 testing to give teachers a better understanding of what students must know and be able to do to be successful in this course. In addition, teachers will discuss best practices, practice writing questions based on testing models, evaluate available AP U.S. History resources, and learn more about the new online resources that The College Board has provided. This course has been designed to provide both new and effective activities for experienced teachers and an in-depth introduction to AP U.S. History for new teachers. Instructor support for teachers will continue after the course ends!

Geraldine Hastings

Geraldine Hastings

Geri Hastings has served as a University Supervisor of Social Studies student teachers for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a College Board Consultant for AP US History and Pre-AP programs, and a College Board mentor for both AP US History teachers and AP US History consultants. A member of the Committee on State Standards for the American Historical Association, she has presented at many College Board and history related conferences. Prior to this Ms. Hastings taught high school social studies in Baltimore County for 39 years, a career which included teaching AP U.S. History for 30 + years and serving as Social Studies Department Chairman at Catonsville High School. The National Council for the Social Studies named her Outstanding Secondary Social Studies Teacher of the Year for 2003-2004 and the Daughters of the American Revolution named her as their Outstanding National U.S. History Teacher of the Year for 2004-2005. Ms. Hastings has taught the AP U.S. History Summer Institutes at Goucher College in MD since 1995, and has conducted AP and Pre-AP summer institutes for Texas Christian University, Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, Bellevue, WA School District, the University of Louisville, Montgomery College, MD, Spokane Public Schools (Inland Northwest APSI), the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix, Harbin, China, Taipei, Taiwan, and the American School of Doha, Qatar. She also participates in the AP US History Reading and has served as a reader, table leader, exam leader, and question leader presenting at many of the reading’s “best practices” nights. A member of the steering committee for the AP National Conferences in 2012 and 2013, she served on the Advanced Placement (AP®) U.S. History Curriculum Development & Assessment Committee (CDAC) and the Advanced Placement (AP®) U.S. History Test Development Committee from 2007-2015. In addition, she has created and presented several online and face to face College Board workshops and programs. Ms. Hastings graduated summa cum laude with a degree in U.S. history from St. Bonaventure University, Olean, New York and received a Masters’ Degree + 60 credits in U.S. History from New York University. She focuses her workshops on student-centered learning and experiential education. She believes that students learn more when they are actively involved in teaching and learning!