I wasn't sure who to ask but I think I should complain?

Parents Forum
1

<p>So this is my AP Chemistry's 5th or 6th year at my school and I think she is slipping. She treats her AP classes like luxury hotels or something and pretty much feeds us snacks and coffee whenever we want. Anyway, her type of teaching consists of a powerpoint detailing the chapter. She then makes us outline the chapter and will take a two sentence outline for full credit. She then assumes that we know the chapter and will easily pass. She made us think that we would all easily pass the test and we were not like last year's class. We all did her "homework" every time it was assigned which pretty much consisted of book problems that we never went over. </p>

<p>She assumed that we would come to her whenever we had questions and refused to go over the problem sets as a class. Basically, step one:give powerpont, Step two: make students outline chapter. Step three: assign 50 or so book problems. Step four: give students the answer key to the book problems. Step 5: Only go over a few problems with individual students and never go over the problems as a class simply expecting the class to know the material. Step6 : move on and never touch the chapter again. In two years very few people ended up passing the AP test (only one person).</p>

<p>Last year, in a class with top 5% students in my school, only one person, the saludatorian, passed... with a three. This year, we had 7 students in the class and needless to say, with the practice test we took the day before, none of us passed, not even one three. She claims that at her last school there were several 5s and here we just weren't motivated but I don't understand if she expects us to teach outselves advanced chemistry or something? I expected to go into that class with a teacher actually teaching chemistry and I ended up in a cushy class with a teacher that thought that the fun and easy going method where responsibility is nonexistant and a few practice problems on each chapter after a powerpoint that lasts two days is considered teaching a class. Our class this year got 5s and 4s on several other classes including AP Bio and Calc and US History and Euro and a number of other classes so I am starting to wonder if Chemistry is just an oddly difficult class or if there is something off about the teaching?</p>

<p>The classes this year and last year had kids easily getting 4s and 5s on other tests so I am a bit lost as to what to make of it. We would have just started self studying only the teacher made us all think we would be getting 5s (needless to say we all got straight Asin the class) and when we all failed the Midterm(except one) that was a mock Ap test she simply claimed it was way harder than the real one and if we got a two we would probably pass the real one... It wasn't until the day before that we all realized we were screwed. I am a bit ****ed off over this and am wondering if this is grounds to complain about her class and teaching methods? Also, just an insight into the test: when our class of 7 took it, the guy who got chem student of the year began to curse and yell and say god damn it several times and eventually left the room at the end of the test fuming and claiming it was the hardest thing ever (the proctor was nice so she just told him to quiet down after a while and he did). I don't have high hopes for this year either (one kid said we would all be lucky if we got anything above a one). So that puts the tally at 6 failing and one kid maybe getting a three (she still didn't get the scores yet)... two years in a row...</p>

2

<p>Yes, you need to complain, especially if you weren’t doing the labs. For the last few years our chemistry teacher just couldn’t fit them in with all the other things he had to teach, and the AP Chem test focused a bit more than expected on things that were best learned in labs. It sounds like you needed to do a lot more self-study but it is important to let administrators know what actually happened in the classroom. Please try to frame it in a way that does not appear to be whining or bitter (not that you are comong off that way). </p>

<p>It is possible the teacher needs to rework the syllabus or adjust the timing. Our chemistry teacher took the poor results from last year and adjusted his class syllabus to cover different labs, and saw an increase in average scores. A great teacher tries to identify the problem and make adjustments.</p>

3

<p>

</p>

<p>I am a bit confused after reading a post you wrote on 7/7/12. It appears that you are saying in the above post (correct me if I’m wrong) that you already have your AP score (2), and that your teacher was actually a sub, not the normal teacher.</p>

<p>I read your above post to mean you were still waiting on your scores and that the teacher had several years of poor teaching history at your school. Perhaps you could clear this up before anyone tried to give you advise.</p>

4

<p>Glad to clear that up. I hope this addition is sufficient enough to give a better picture to the original post. Originally (when I made that post) I was completly OK with blaming myself and everything else going on instead of the actual teacher as I only had my score and one other kid’s on the seventh. Whenever I gave a cause for my 2 (be it on a chances thread where I speculated I would get a 2 or on the 7/7 thread) I never blamed my teacher because I thought I would get a 2 because of the circumstances of the year.</p>

<p>Anyway I thought it was clear in the original post but if not this is what I said: 5 other kid’s and I have gotten our scores and they were below threes and one Additional kid who didn’t get a score yet remains. I got the rest of the scores, except the 7th score, across this week. I wanted to say that 6 of us (me included) failed and one kid has yet to get the scores and may have passed. I am sorry if this wasn’t clear. Moving on, yes we did have a sub for a part of the year. Our teachers husband died so we had a sub for a month and a half (half meaning about 12 days which in totality felt like most of the year to me) and during this time when my teacher was doing whatever (the rumor was that she was too depressed to work or something but I have no clue) our sub continued the routine but at 1/5 the previous pace. When my teacher came back we got back into the routine and kept going a good 3x faster. I thought this is what killed me as I began to slack a bit in this 3x faster session due to the quote above and thought that I would never know all the material needed now, although I was pretty confident before, perhaps due to the confidence inflation. </p>

<p>When I got all of the scores across this week (except the 7th score) I started to question my original opinion. I felt like I wouldn’t do to well because of the one month and a half slump due to everything else going on but it seemed fishy to me that all of the other highly motivated kids in my class would do poorly as me while being in easier AP classes (easier meaning a lesser workload like AP lang and Calc) and were not in the same situation as me. Thus I have concluded that because I was in a different circumstance, I should blame my self for the 2, but I can’t blame other kids on the poor scores they got when they worked just as fast as the teacher expected them to. We caught up according to my teacher (athough I was not too confident on my own ability due to everything else going on) and we all did “just as well” as ever. We still passed all her tests and still had similar grades and work as we did before the incident.</p>

<p>Oh and an important note: It should also be known that I am basing this on the past two years of preformance from the top 5% (meaning they were all top 5%) kids in our school who took the class. I am not sure about how well they did in the years prior to last year and this year but I am assuming it was okish as she said she had a few 3s and 4s spread across the other years.</p>

<p>Oh and one more note: with the teacher the labs were basically just her spoon feeding us the answers and helping us through it. We weren’t entirely sure what was going on but she said that was normal and that the next powerpoint would clear up the labs so we just went with it.</p>

5

<p>Thanks. I just wasn’t clear which teacher you were concerned with. While it is tragic your teacher lost her husband this year (and certainly reason for her to take a leave of absence), it sounds like her teaching style was the same for the past several years.</p>

<p>To answer your question…no, this is not how you are supposed to be taught AP Chem. My son’s teacher was actually so notoriously difficult that now two year’s later enrollment is so low it is no longer offered. The students who had A’s by the end of the year however were getting 5’s on the AP. Her students were prepared. As MizzBee stated you are supposed to be doing labs, which you clearly were missing. In short, this is not an adequate way to teach a college prep class, let alone an AP class that theoretically you would be getting college credit for and using as base knowledge for the next level class. I’m surprised with the consistently low AP pass rate the administration has not taken notice.</p>

<p>I suggest as MizzBee that you speak to the administration. I also caution you to be careful of your tone as to not be too accusatory. Your frustration is warranted, however approaching with a neutral, matter of fact attitude will be better received.</p>

6

<p>Who do you mean by administration? I would love to complain and hopefully change the way she teaches her next year class but I don’t want to get caught as although I am really annoyed as are the other classmates, they are practically in love with her, although not her teaching style. I am scared that I will be caught by them and although it is the right thing to do, I also want a good senior year. So my new questions are who should I complain to and how can I do it anonymously. Also, we did have a lab period, a seperate class period for it actually. I just want to note that. We just used that extra day (the first time we got this extra period was this year as we apparently needed one this year and we also switched to block scheduling) to relax and do what we did usually in th class a nd the type of labs that I mentioned above.</p>

7

<p>You do not have to go into the school and lodge a complaint. It would be much more productive if you went to the school and “expressed your concerns and provide constructive feedback so that if there is anything that school can do to help future students improve their scores, they can intervene appropriately.”</p>

8

<p>The people you would talk to would be principal, possibly a vice principal if their is someone identified as in charge of curriculum.</p>

9

<p>I don’t think the school would tell the other students specifics about who lodged a complaint.</p>

<p>It also might be a good time for your parent to be involved if you have a parent that is so inclined. This is still high school and I think high schools can respond better to parents than students – my high school administration didn’t really respect students all that much. Your parents also presumable paid for your AP test, will be paying for whatever college class you weren’t able to test out of, and pay taxes for you to have a good education. It just might be a case where a parent would bring some more clout.</p>

10

<p>A letter to the school board signed by “a group of concerned parents” asking for information concerning the school’s data with regard to AP tests and scores would bring this situation into the spot light without blatantly targeting the teacher. My sons’ school requires all students taking an AP class to take the test, or they do not get the GPA boost.Over 80% of the students at the school take APs by the time they graduate, and the pass rate is also over 80%. Weak teachers do not get to teach the AP classes.</p>

<p>Do you think that the teacher’s performance this year (and maybe the previous year as well, if her late husband was seriously ill during that year) is due to the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death? I am sure her heart and soul were not totally in to teaching this year, despite her efforts to get through each day.</p>

11

<p>I think you have a very naive approach to study and learning. There are many books on AP Chemistry. You should have bought a couple, studied from them, worked through problems, done many sample questions from previous exams.</p>

<p>People can get a 5 with no teacher at all if they actually do the work.</p>

12

<p>If you had 50 or so problems that were assigned on each chapter, and you got the answers to those problems, then provided that the book was a college freshman chemistry text of decent quality, you had all of the lecture-based material that you needed to pass the exam. You say that the teacher expected you to come to her if you had questions. Did you do that? </p>

<p>It looks as though you had labs as part of the class. Generally speaking, you do need the lab experience to answer some of the questions on the AP Chem test. In a really good school, lab will be scheduled separately from the lecture component, on top of the lecture. Probably in most schools, chemistry is just scheduled for one period a day, and the labs have to be worked in.</p>

<p>Some teachers “coach” their students so that they are carefully prepped for the AP exam. However (just in my opinion) if you are really ready for AP Chem, you do not need a coach, you just need someone who is capable of explaining how to get the correct answer, if you have the wrong one. I can’t tell from your exposition whether the teacher could do this, and was rarely asked to do so, or could not.</p>

13

<p>Also realize that AP classes are meant to replicate a college level experience. </p>

<p>In college, you will not be spoon fed information or answers…you will be assigned a variety of readings, a professor will lecture on the topics he finds most interesting to himself (and generally do not cover what is covered in the readings, because you are deemed mature enough to do the readings on your own, and to get help if there is something you do not understand), the labs will illustrate various important principles, and it is up to you to put it all together.</p>

14

<p>I agree that this is a time for parents to step up, if you think they are able. If not, if you are sure that you will not have this teacher for a class again, you could speak to the principal. If you will have another class with this teacher, wait until you have completed that course. You will be doing a service to students who will follow you to flag the problem. The case you make can be simple: is the principal monitoring the AP scores from all AP classes at the school? Are records compiled on a yearly basis and kept to see five and ten year trends? Does the principal know how scores compare with average scores from similar high schools? The AP folks can give the principal this last piece of data. My suspicion is that the teacher did not major in chemistry in college and therefore is in over her head in this course. My daughter had a similar experience: she did not take the AP test because she realized that her teacher was in over her head and that she would not do well on the test. In fact, for all I know you are writing about the same person! In many states, high school teachers can be certified to teach chemistry with only general and organic chemistry as background courses in college. AP courses have a basis in physical chemistry; therefore, if the teacher did not take courses in physical and inorganic chemistry they are completely lost. Furthermore, if the teacher is in her 50s, even if she had a chemistry major in college, she might be in trouble. Physical chemistry has become the foundation of chemistry majors only in the last twenty years. The school most likely needs to get a new AP chemistry teacher, perhaps sharing with another high school. A very high percentage of public high schools in the US do not have teachers adequately trained in physics or chemistry. These teachers have majored in biology and have taken only 1-2 courses in physics or chemistry. Until the US decides to invest in high quality science education at the high school level, your experience will continue on a widespread basis.</p>

15

<p>I think the real question is: If the students had problems with the homework, could the teacher explain how to solve the problems, or not? If the teacher could not explain how to do the problems, then libartsmom might be right that the teacher is in over her head. On the other hand, if the teacher could explain them, then I would fault the students for not asking about problems they couldn’t solve. If a teacher pushes students along to a level that the students could not reach themselves, by intensive coaching, that will help with the performance on the AP exam, but leave the students only weakly prepared to put in the kind of independent effort that is required in higher level chemistry classes, where no one is acting as a coach.</p>

<p>The AP chemistry course covers the same material that is in general chemistry at most research-oriented universities at present.</p>

16

<p>A “two sentence outline” of the main ideas of a chapter is NOT the same as knowing the material! This teacher clearly took the easy way out all year and the students paid the price.</p>

<p>I recall Chemistry (ok it was YEARS ago, but I did well in it) as a lot of memorization, in addition to understanding concepts. We had to be able to recognize compounds from their chemical symbols, know if they were bases or acids, be able to balance chemical equations…You couldn’t just waltz into an AP exam without lots of preparation. </p>

<p>The teacher’s tests all year should have reflected the difficulty of the AP exam and prepared them for it.</p>

17

<p>The teacher accepted a two-sentence outline. </p>

<p>However, it was the students who were taking the easy way out, if they just wrote two-sentence outlines, and didn’t understand the chapter contents. </p>

<p>With all the discussion on other threads of boys hating busy-work when they “get” the material, it might not be wrong to accept a two-sentence outline from a student who gets it, but learns better by doing things other than re-writing the text book.</p>

<p>The complaint here seems to be that the teacher, in an AP course, let the students get away without learning the material. And that led to undesirable results. In college, the faculty will rarely do anything to force their students to work. The result of a low score on an AP exam, rather than a failing grade in a college class, seems to me to be an easy way to learn that effort is needed.</p>

18

<p>Yes, but it sounds like the teacher was not making an effort to teach the material, in fact assuring the students that the AP test was well within their capability and they shouldn’t worry.</p>

<p>Her behavior was unconscionable, in my opinion, and the administration should be upset with the AP results for this class.</p>

<p>My kids best AP teachers (AP history, chem) told them all year that the test is HARD, and THIS is what you need to learn to do well on it. They all got 5’s.</p>

19

<p>You can take a couple of different view of this, but I think it is a teachers responsibility to have his students prepared to succeed. This type of preparation isn’t tolerated in sports, and it shouldn’t be tolerated in academics…especially the objective disciplines. </p>

<p>The idea that this is to simulate college doesn’t resonate with me. It sounds like the teacher is lazy and unwilling to assume responsibility for the students results.</p>

<p>I’m assuming the class had a good cross section of 700+ type math students. And that the entrance requirements for the course are adequately high. </p>

<p>I was looking for the grade distribution nationwide, but haven’t found them. However, below is a page which should be of interest to you. It has many resources for teachers about designing their instruction. I suggest that you look through it and compare it to what your school is doing. That might help you if you decide to raise the issue with administration. </p>

<p>[AP</a> Central - AP Chemistry Course Home Page](<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>AP Chemistry Course – AP Central | College Board)</p>

<p>There appear to be decent support resources out there for teachers who give a **** and aren’t sure that they already know everything.</p>

20

<p>I have probably become curmudgeonly (although there is only one curmudgeon!) after so long on CC. It seems to me that if the OP has a complaint, it is that his school district let him get this far without realizing that it is actually necessary to study, in order to learn material at a college level.</p>

<p>The teacher seems to have come from a different district, which might have had more conscientious students, so that her methods worked there. I don’t really see that her behavior was unconscionable, particularly if the same methods worked elsewhere.</p>

<p>Are there really people who think that freshman college chemistry is easy, for a student who hasn’t taken it before? If the student didn’t get the material, then I think that the student is at fault if he wrote a two-sentence chapter summary, even if the teacher accepted it. I think the administration might consider whether the entire school system had adequately prepared the students to approach college-level material in a college-student manner–where the students’ approach, as described in the OP’s post, clearly would not fly.</p>

<p>As mentioned, I may have just become curmudgeonly lately. Or maybe it’s a case of “Physical Scientists band together,” but if the OP expects coaching in college, and returns to CC, he’s going to be part of the group complaining that college math and science courses are killing his GPA. I don’t intend to be mean. I am sorry, but I think this is the logical consequence of the OP’s current approach to classes.</p>

<p>The teacher might have been misleadingly optimistic, perhaps based on the outcomes of her classes in a different school. But the OP clearly has the internet. I think the most cursory look at AP Chemistry exams that can be downloaded for free from the College Board site would have eliminated illusions that the course is easy.</p>

<p>Telling students that material is hard, but that they can master it with effort, is the most honest approach, of course. But if the students at the OP’s school were hearing in all of their other classes that the AP tests are hard, and they were receiving intensive coaching for them, why would they believe that AP Chem is easy?</p>

<p>There is another factor here, that of the teacher’s losing her husband during the year. Coming face-to-face with mortality in that way could make anyone reflect on the purpose of what the students are doing, as well as what they are doing. I wouldn’t really fault someone for concluding that the time the students spent talking to their parents, writing their grand-parents, helping siblings with their school work or just helping them in general, was really more beneficial than spending the time on chemistry chapter outlines.</p>