Prior to becoming an Instructional Technology Facilitator (EdTech coach), I taught AP Macro & Microeconomics to high school juniors and seniors (I know that sounds fascinating). These AP course are half unit courses. Typically, you take one course in the fall and the other in the spring IF you take both. Most students took AP Macroeconomics in the fall semester, followed by AP Government in the spring.
College Board offers AP exams during the 1st two weeks of May each year. There is not a December date because you took a semester course during the first half of the year. I knew my kids were prepared when they left my class in December, but I wanted to find a way to help carry that knowledge over to help them prepare for their AP exam. So, how do you prepare a student for an exam 5 months from the end of the class)?
My solution was to create a book in Pages.
I created 6 unit templates for my students based off of the units in the College Board Course Description. They received the new template on the day of the unit test for the previous one.
Students completed the book for that unit as we learned in class. They would add recordings of themselves drawing graphs and explaining the rules for proper setup, steps to solve our calculations for a variety of problems, analysis of economic prescriptions when looking at both the graph and the calculations together, and sometimes just tips of things that helped along the way.
Each unit setup was similar.
- Table of contents
- Vocabulary to define
- Questions to have students explain how they know what would happen in certain economic situations
- I used the same images as placeholders across all 6 units.
- I made adjustments to the template based on student feedback at the end of the unit.
By the end of the course, my students had a custom-made study aid for the course. Everything in a student's book was explained by themselves in a manner that made sense for them. As they studied these books for the exam, they, essentially, were teaching themselves the material again. My percentage of AP students who passed the AP exam with a 3 or higher increased by 48% that year. I couldn't believe that one change in my course made that much of a difference.
Check out my experience with the video and sample unit file below.
How can you use this idea in your class? Thanks for reading and watching!
April 10, 2024
I love this!! I did a much smaller version with my Algebra classes this year. Algebra 1 created a mini book over slope-intercept form, and Algebra 2 made a mini book over solving quadratic equations! Thanks for sharing!
This action is unavailable while under moderation.
This action is unavailable while under moderation.