AP Institute Training in Vermont

Starting on Sunday, I will be attending a five day AP Institute Training at St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont for my AP Euro History class. I have heard positive feedback from other teachers that have done the AP training in Vermont so I'm looking forward to a great experience.

I'm very excited about the training but also a little nervous too. As a student in high school, I never took an AP course. I wasn't even in Honors classes. I was that student that probably should've been in higher level courses but I never took high school serious enough to excel in my classes. Yes, I was a educators nightmare! :-)

Based on the intro letter that was sent by the instructor, it looks like there will be 16 teachers taking the training with me. We were even given a homework assignment: bring 16 copies of a teaching unit or teaching activity that we think would be useful with AP students. If we don't teach AP yet, we could bring an activity from our World History class. I photocopied an activity that I do with my freshman to introduce to them to Primary documents. It's a document based question (DBQ) about the causes of the French Revolution. Basically, I break the class into five groups and give each group a primary document to analyze. I give them a worksheet that helps them to analyze the document. I teach them APPARTS (The acronym APPARTS (Author, Place and Time, Prior Knowledge, Audience, Reason, The Main Idea, and Significance) provides prompts that assists students in gaining a fuller understanding of primary sources.). Each group then shares their document with the class. After Q & A, students individually will then respond to the DBQ using the documents and prior knowledge as support for their thesis.

We are also being asked to bring an extra flash drive with a lot of memory. The instructor will be sharing a lot of PowerPoints and helping us to start building our own AP program. Yeah! PowerPoints!!! :=) And, the instructor will be giving us free AP textbooks!!!

When I started this process a year ago of getting the AP course approved, I knew it would be a lot of reading, research, and work. Once the class goes "live" on September 9th (this is our 1st day of school), there is no turning back. I've never taught the "higher level" student before so professionally this is going to be a challenge. The students are excited - they've been emailing me over the summer with tons of questions about the summer assignments - so I hope that I make the class challenging, fun, yet an enriching experience for them.

I will try and post during the week (we will have access to WiFi) but I don't know how much downtime will be given to us. I've been told that the training is a lot of work and they keep you pretty busy with work and assignments.

I come home Friday evening, have the weekend to wash clothes and somewhat relax, and then I have to pack for IL (I leave on that Monday @ 6:00 am for Chicago). Visiting family and friends until August 13th.

So . . . let's go AP Euro History training!!!!!! :=)

Spring cleaning in July????

Source of clip art:

http://www.picturesof.net/_images_300/Woman_Cleaning_Her_House_Royalty_Free_Clipart_Picture_090529-013874-489053.jpg

Over the weekend I decided to do a little cleaning of my curriculum binders. It amazed me of how much material I have accumulated over 11 years of teaching! You are constantly either "stealing" material from colleagues or sharing with colleagues so you tend to gain A LOT of worksheets, activities, or reading material on various topics of interest that MAY pertain to your unit on the Industrial Revolution or Imperialism. But, it gets to the point when a decision has to be made: to keep it or recycle it.

I have to admit that I am a pack rat by nature. I never throw anything away. Never. But, as I went through each binder, I realized that some of the material I've NEVER used nor will I EVER use it. So, out to the recycle bin!

I was also on the hunt for some material for my new AP European History class as well. Since I'm starting this program from the ground up, I figured that I could possibly use some stuff from my World History binders. I was able to find a few things that might work for AP level students.

Another thought: as I was looking through all the binders, I began to reflect and remember some of the activities I did with my students (I usually keep student samples with most activities I do in class so I have a lot of great student work) over the years. I remembered the positive lessons but also the negative lessons and questioned why the negative lessons didn't work. I have some wonderful memories of students having a lot of fun working on the Sistine Chapel activity or creating a modern day manor or going to war in the trenches (my stuffed animals represented the "dead" in No Man's Land).

I feel as educators we should have the time to reflect on what we did great and what we did not so great in the classroom. Unfortunately, we are not given that time during the school year. This school year was insanely busy with the transition program, freshman house dramas, NEASC accreditation, getting the new AP class approved, and just everyday craziness. How can we improve our teaching if we are not given that reflection time?

I still have more cleaning to do (I have A LOT of binders). :-) Plus, I need to go through my electronic stuff on my flash drive to see what is there that could be used.

But, I have to say that I feel cleaner and more organized to start out this new school year.

Happy late spring cleaning. :=)