<p>Our school's AP Government class is known as a "GPA killer" and now I know why. The teacher (who also teaches at a local university) prides himself in teaching the class "just like his colllege classes" in that he has a lot of discussion and just a few (very difficult) quizzes. We can see grades on the computer and the class average is 72. For the last three weeks, the teacher has recorded no grades..they've just had discussion, which is great except he doesn't record participation grades.</p>
<p>Early on, when Son's grade was terrible, I asked the teacher if Son should drop down to the regular class and he said absolutely not, because he makes a terrific contribution to class discussion. So, someone can sit in the classroom for three solid weeks without opening his mouth, but ace the quizzes and get an A; someone else can put everything they have into the class discussions, not do well on the quizzes and get a C or an F. I know this was how law school was, but should HS classes really work this way?</p>
<p>I don’t like when an AP teacher mistakes the number of tests as being a factor determining AP level. I honestly think that the best AP teachers don’t lose sight of the fact that mastery of the material is the goal. Some of the best AP teachers my kids have had gave plenty of quizzes, tests, papers. Some of the worst gave a few only - and I think it is because they didn’t want to have to spend hours grading. A high school AP class can’t be equivalent to a college class for the simple reason of time constraints. HS students go to school 8 hours daily with 7 courses. College students take 5 classes spread over 5 days - more time to do out-of-class reading, writing, and studying. If the teacher truly wants to teach the class “just like his college classes” then he needs to also adjust the time factor. :P</p>
<p>Are the quizzes unfair, or do they actually cover the material the students are expected to know? If the quizzes cover the material, I don’t see what the problem is here.</p>
<p>But if this the handholding high school students expect, I understand why so many of them have trouble when they get to college, and I also understand why so many high school students have ridiculously high GPAs.</p>
<p>As for the “fairness” of the quizzes, the kids at the very top of the class are in these classes and with two quizzes, the class average was 63 and 57. There are some fantastic students getting very low grades.</p>
<p>Does your school have a policy? In my school, we are required to report at least one grade per week, because we have weekly monitoring for athletic/extracurricular eligibility, and we have to give students an opportunity to improve their grades on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>I teach APUSH. Tests, quizzes, and semester exams account for 80% of the grade, and everything else is 20%. I use discussion as an instructional strategy, but I make no attempt to grade the discussion. In fact, I really don’t try to grade anything that isn’t clearly evaluative in nature. I think the grade should reflect the product - the degree to which the student masters course content, rather than the process.</p>
<p>As for frequency and scope, I often include a couple of textbook chapters in a single test that would have 50-60 multiple choice questions, 5-10 IDs, and one or two essay questions. With the demanding pace needed to get through the APUSH curriculum, these unit tests come about every five or six class days in our alternating block schedule. </p>
<p>I guess I haven’t really answered your question. I think the level of expected demonstration of learning in AP should be on a par with a college class, and many of the strategies used in college classes are appropriate for AP courses. But it isn’t college, it is part of the high school record students will carry into college. So practices used to calculate the grade should more closely resemble traditional high school practices than those used in college.</p>
<p>AP classes in our school generally have quite a few quizzes, but not as many papers as I think they should.</p>
<p>The class that’s killing me this year is Honors English. They’ve had two in class essays, neither of which were graded until a last week. Even when they finally got graded they only got to see them for a few minutes. My son has no idea how to improve his grade. I’ve told him he should go talk to the teacher, but he hates the teacher so much, he’ll probably just rub him the wrong way instead.</p>
<p>Does your school have a policy? In my school, we are required to report at least one grade per week, because we have weekly monitoring for athletic/extracurricular eligibility, and we have to give students an opportunity to improve their grades on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>That’s what’s bugging the heck out of me. At the three weeks progress report, Son had a low grade. There have been ZERO grades the second three weeks of the grading period. So, teacher sends out a progress report that shows that great improvment is needed, yet gives absolutely no opportunity to improve the grade.</p>
<p>If he was really teaching it like a college class he wouldn’t give quizzes – he’d have 2-4 short papers, maybe a midterm, and either a final or a research paper (or both). </p>
<p>If an AP class is really supposed to be the same as a college level class, and students can earn college credit for it, then technically it should be taught and assessed like a college class. But I do understand that given the time constraints, the structure of the AP test at the end, and that these are HS students, I concede that adjustments need to be made. Which is one of my issues with AP classes.</p>
<p>As for this specific class, what I would want to know is, based on those grades, why isn’t he using a curve? Many college classes grade on a curve.</p>
<p>missypie–son has a teacher almost exactly like that. He’s ‘teaching the AP class like a college course’ (he says). So…son turns in essay early, assuming it is graded, teacher assumes it’s a draft & gives him a zero on 100 points for not re-submitting it in timely fashion (a misunderstanding, I guess…likely at least partly son’s fault). </p>
<p>Because of the zero, son’s grade goes from an A- to an F. Meanwhile, in teacher’s level 2 class, he lowers them a letter grade for each day an assignment is late (so son would have received a ‘B’ – teacher said it was one of the best essays he’s read in recent years). Whatever.</p>
<p>The fact is that if whole class performs below other classes, it will be reflected in teacher’s performance review. They are aware of it. So, just stick to it, see what happen at the end. My D. Honors Freshman Bio was using the same textbook as her college Bio class, and it was not even AP.</p>
<p>If you want college credit, take a college class. If a class is AP and you can get college credit for it, then the class should be designed similar to or “just like” the equivalent college class.</p>
<p>Interesting, hops_scout. But (it’s been a while) do you think all college prof’s grade/test like the scenarios described above (very few tests, automatic zeros for late work on 100 point assignment)?</p>
<p>Only THE RESULTS of the AP tests determine whether a students gets credit or not at college (assuming a college gives credit for AP’s). How AP classes are taught has nothing to do with colleges. There is no such thing as standardized AP lesson plans and AP grading systems that high school teachers need to respect (like with IB exams). What AP teachers do need to respect though is that they teach interesting classes in ways that are suitable for high school students, that meet the requirements of high schools, and that help high school students to pass the AP tests.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the OP’s question. D is a major overachiever who may have a slight learning disability that makes her a very slow reader and contributes to struggles on standardized tests (but not pronounced enough to qualify for accommodations.) Her AP teachers used assignments as well as tests to prepare them well for AP exams, and she did well enough on all of them to get credit at the public flagship she attends as a freshman. But now she is struggling with the way her courses are taught (by and large like the OP’s AP Gov course example) and is frustrated and discouraged. I wonder if she had had a course like that in high school she would have been better prepared to deal with them in college. </p>
<p>So, I’d be like the opening poster in wanting to feel that my child is having a chance to succeed in the class and on the exam but now am second-guessing a little the courses that didn’t help D figure out how to learn more on her own. From my perspective, if the AP class has a reputation of being a “GPA killer” in the high school and top students are taking it anyway, there’s probably enough passes on the AP exam and awareness of its grade distribution in the guidance office and among the schools to which these students most frequently apply that somewhat relatively lower grades in the course will not hurt the students. That’s true of the AP classes at our local high school which have the toughest grading policies.</p>
<p>It may be worth asking the teacher to hold a curriculum meeting inviting parents to attend, to explain the expectations for the class and the grading standards. In colleges, syllabi often include such information, eg.: class participation 10%; mid-term: 25%; 2 response papers (or one term paper): 25%; final :40% or something like that.
In math/science classes, grades are curved so that a 60% might end up being a B instead of an F. Finally, in colleges, the transcript only record the final grades. Not quizzes, weekly response paper or problem set grades. It would be worth finding out what will appear in the transcript and how the grades will be weighted (or not) and incorporated into the GPA. It would also be worth asking about the policy regarding late submissions, whether students are expected (or encouraged, which is a totally different thing) to submit first drafts, and so on.</p>
<p>As far as I know, college profs vary greatly in the way they approach teaching and grading, so I don’t think it is particularly helpful for the teacher to say s/he is teaching the class like a college class.</p>
<p>That’s just a bad teacher. Any Honors English teacher who doesn’t grade and return papers in a timely fashion isn’t doing the job for which they have been hired. I doubt it would do much good to talk to him or her.</p>
<p>Well, the teacher finally input the six weeks grades into the computer this morning (4 days after the deadline). He put in a couple of 100s as daily grades, which brings Son up to a C. The thing is, Son loves the class. They are spending weeks going over “major” supreme court cases and son is just eating that up, so to him, the grade is irrelevant. Glad one of us is relaxed about it!</p>