2009 On Reflection--AP World History Practices: What's Worked I

Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.

--Chinese Proverb

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I actually started drafting this post months ago in January, now that the AP World Exam is over, I finally have time to address it. And that can be my first observation: obvious to those of us who teach AP courses, the time commitment involved is sometimes extraordinary. The rewards in terms of watching AP students grow over a year are phenomenal and well worth the price, but the commitment should not be underestimated.

My goal is to list successes and failures--things that have worked and those that have not--from the current year, draw conclusions based on those lists and then suggest adjustments for myself (and perhaps others) for the upcoming year, and subsequent ones. 

For the sake of sanity and brevity, I am going to only list what I consider to be the top 3 successes and failures of the year. I am quite sure that if I let myself go with the "failures", I would jump out my window halfw--.

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What's Worked

1. Multiple Mock AP Exams Test-Prep Sessions

Let's start off with a contentious issue: mock AP Exams and test-prep. I know many teachers who insist that it "isn't our job to teach the kids to take tests" but I maintain that your stance on the issue has to derive from the context in which you teach. There is no moral absolute on test-prep.

I teach in a high-performing, high-needs high school in East Harlem. My students have no access to the many opportunities the economic backgrounds of the kids right across the island on the Upper West Side grant them. Nor do they come from home or school environments which have nurtured a culture of achievement and a familiarity with high stakes testing and study skills. They want to achieve. Their parents want them to achieve. Even our school wants them to achieve, but no one is showing them how to achieve. 

In my view, the buck stops at AP.

Throughout the year I have weekly afternoon sessions during which my APWH students and I focus on multiple choice problem construction and strategies, essay writing strategies and use a test-prep text to drill on both essays and multiple choice problems. As few of my students' families have the resources or know-how to send their children to Kaplan or the Princeton Review, I feel it is essential to provide that service to them. Not only because they are, however much to our chagrin, necessary skills in today's competitive academic world, but also because AP exams are graded against each other, and if my students have to compete with kids from "Josh Lyman's district," I'm going to make sure they are trained in the Connecticut School of going forward.

I'll support my argument with the collected results of the last 3 mock AP exams of the year, which can be found here, here and here. From the second to the fourth and final mock exam, the class average increased from a 3.12 to a 3.96. Because I was the only grader of the exam, I was careful to evaluate my grading based on the predictive tables provided by the Collegeboard that show how multiple-choice scores correlate to eventual AP scores (this is outlined carefully on the final mock page). The students in my class matched the predictive percentages with an almost eerie accuracy, so I was reassured that my grading was close to what my students can expect at from the readers in Colorado this year. I am also reasonably sure that final average of 3.96 will carry over to the real exam. (We'll see. What with the controversy over this year's Comparative question, we may be lucky to average 2.0.)

I wish I had kept the data from the first mock of the year, but more than scores, the completed nature of the students' exams from the first mock to the final one are enough to convince me that practice exams are both necessary and effective in the context of our school.  On the first mock, only about 1/3 of the students in this year's APWH class finished all three essays and approximately 9 (out of 33) failed to write more than one essay. By the 3rd mock, there were only 4 students who did not finish all 3 essays and all students finished all 3 essays by the final mock exam. Obviously, finishing all three essays will improve a student's chance of earning a good score on the exam, but more importantly, all of my students are now prepared for a rigorous college-level examination, the likes of which they will be taking regularly in 3 years.

 Now that they've done it, there's no turning back: they know what they are capable of and can never reasonably deny having the ability to do so. Moreover, they would no longer want to.

Comments

[Bill Tolley]

A fellow APWH teacher sent me an email asking some questions about the above post. In order to continue the discussion here, I am posting her question anonymously (until I receive her permission). My response will follow.

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Mr. Tolley,

My name is K., and next year I will be teaching APWH
for the first time. I was reading your blog about your reflections of
the year, and I really like your idea of year long test prep sessions. I
think the idea of developing the skills over the year builds confidence
rather than cramming at the end creating anxiety. I teach in a diverse
suburban school, and even in my on-level and pre-AP courses, the
students struggle with the language and order of tests. Once exposed to
them, there is marked improvement.

I would like your feedback on how to pace and organize the sessions over
the year. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and have a great summer!!!

K.

[Bill Tolley]

Hi K.,

First, good luck with the course next year--it will be a challenge! But the best part of teaching AP is that you never reach the end of the learning curve and you will never get bored. So look forward to that.

As for the test-prep sessions, I start right away--first week of school. I like to impart the seriousness of the undertaking to the students right away and start drilling them on multiple choice questions based on Eras 1 and 2 as soon as they arrive. --Note of explanation--our students enter the course as sophomores having already taken 1 year of Global History, so the APWH course continues the narrative from about 1500 to the modern day rather than being a comprehensive world history course like at some schools.

During the test-prep sessions I use the 5 Steps to a 5 prep book from McGraw-Hill

http://www.amazon.com/History-2008-2009-Advanced-Placement-Examinations/dp/007149796X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243779373&sr=1-1

and focus on multiple choice strategies, essay timing, etc. I have to say, it helps a lot. The 15-year olds I teach have no exposure to this type of learning, or this type of test environment and without the prep they would do much, much worse than they do. I have heard some people argue that students need to learn how to handle these situations on their own--sink or swim style. But I find that to be an obnoxious point of view when these kids work their hindquarters off for a year and pay $86 to take a test that will potentially earn them college credits. The mock exams are for sink or swim, not the real test.

As for the mock exams, this year I planned 5 and ended up giving 4. I have several bits of advice for these:

1. Only use tests that are produced by the Collegeboard. I don't know if you have a cheating problem at your school, but when I told my students not to look for the exams beforehand (they are easily available online) they listened and no one cheated. My point is, if you can guarantee that your students won't cheat and won't search out the exams beforehand, the Collegeboard produced materials will give you the best indication of how your students will do. I would, however, plan to produce your own essay prompts. The old free-response sections are just too ubiquitous on the Internet and throughout classrooms to trust as an original challenge for the students.

2. A related note: if you need to use one of the tests from the test-prep books (Barron's, Kaplan, etc.) at all costs avoid the one produced by REA. The tests are poorly written; have lengthy, convoluted questions and responses; and have numerous questions which either have no correct answers or designate wrong answers as the correct ones. Don't go near it!

3. Try to schedule your mocks for Saturday mornings. I gave several mocks after school, and the difference in student performance after a long day of classes is, unsurprisingly, dramatic. The Saturday option requires more logistical work on your part, but it will simulate the real experience much more accurately in a number of ways.

4. Don't start giving the comprehensive mock exams until the 2nd semester (which would be about the 3/4 mark for me)--the students just don't have enough knowledge to attempt the test beforehand. I do, however, like to give them at least one mock exam before we begin the 20th Century. I do this because I find out: 1) How well they apply strategies for skipping questions they do not know. and 2) How much background information they have concerning the modern world.

5. Before you start administering comprehensive mocks, if your schedule allows, make sure all of your Multiple Choice exams correspond to the APWH exam structure: 55 minutes, 70 questions, skipping questions, etc. The more practice the students get at taking a test with these conditions--and one in which students are meant to get less than 70 or 60 or 50 answers correct--they sooner they will adapt to the more challenging testing environment.

So, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I hope it helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best,

--Bill.