AP Bio Instructional Adjustments after attending the 2022 AP Read

 

The view from Loews Hotel in Kansas City, MO.

This year, I went to the in person Read for the first time.  Readers always say that doing the Read will make you a better AP teacher. I want to make sure to reflect on my learning now while it is fresh in my mind to get the most out of the experience. 

I read last year, but it was virtual. After last year's Read, my big take away was to tell students to write more. Not off topic and don't contradict yourself, but make sure to answer the whole question in detail. So often I'd be reading an FRQ and although the student was going in the right direction, they were missing a little piece of critical information and didn't earn the point. There were other students who wrote an answer, and then added a little more detail in another sentence, and often times, the information required for the point was in that second sentence. 

Being in person left me with so much more to reflect on, or at least being trained on and reading the two FRQs that I did gave me plenty to consider. Here are a few:

1. If the FRQ has a data table that includes SEM, make sure to talk about statistical significance in your answer (and don't leave out the word statistical). It's also fine to talk about overlapping error bars. 

2. Remember, even if the means look different, if error bars overlap, the means are the SAME.

3. Be more specific in your answers. Keeping it general will not earn you any points. And keep track of what the question is actually asking. (I know this is a challenge when students feel time pressured.)

4. If asked to describe how some process will happen, make sure to describe the process from beginning to the very end. Don't stop half way through the process. To me, this is one of the biggest takeaways. 

5. I'm planning to find more data sets that are graphed best with scatter plots. I'll do some scouring of Data Points in HHMI Biointeractive such as Patterns of Predation. In fact, I may encourage students that when in doubt, graph a scatter plot and add a line of best fit if they feel they must.

6. Spend less time on how the processes happen correctly and more time asking students what will happen if something goes wrong along the way.

7. The independent and dependent variables should never be one word answers.