Many, many kids, even from top high schools, are highly unprepared by the AP curriculum, especially in the humanities and social sciences. For way too many high school AP teachers, it’s drill and kill test prep rather than training students to participate in academic discourse, oral and written, in order to practice the skills necessary to take part in adding to the body of knowledge, rather than just effectively absorbing and regurgitating information - again, especially in the humanities and social science APs. College Board, I think, made attempts to address this very real complaint by their relatively recent Capstone program, which, if taught well, does in fact teach the right skills. Ironically, many kids and parents are a bit leery of the Capstone program, because test prep is actually not possible for those courses.
Hard grading does not equal more learning. It’s not that simple.
That’s not really how college works, thankfully, but it’s a shame that so many people believe this because it sets kids up with so many anxieties before they even get there. If you can find it in your heart to refrain from spreading this myth, the world will be better off.
Yes exactly right. I’ve reviewed some online AP courses in the humanities and can see immediately the problem with the AP test and what it seems to think is competency. Unfortunately something similar runs through the veins of quite a bit of non-AP college prep high school philosophies of education, and results in hard working kids from “good schools” being unprepared for college.
Maybe they’re prepared for math and some aspects of science.
Interjecting to say that this is why some “elite” boarding schools have eliminated APs. This does not mean their classes have gotten easier.
yeah private schools with a lot of trust already don’t have to struggle to seem “good” and “rigorous” in superficial ways nor do they have to bow to bureaucrats who set standards.You should see the public school standards for English where I live. It’s like 5 pages of things kids are supposed to know, instead of doing what they do in college: read books, write about it, talk about it. That’s like three things, although I’m not a mathematician.
I understand you have taught at 2 colleges. May I inquire what your basis is for the assertion " that’s not how college works". At my kids’ colleges, it most certainly was how it worked. Hard grading and comparative norms. Surely they aren’t the only colleges in the US following this model? Both schools recently were considered the top schools for undergrad teaching per USNWR, admittedly not very important, but it seems unlikely they operate far from the norm.
Easy grading doesn’t = more learning either.
Personally, I’d love to teach to mastery for each student. All As with solid learning.
Alas there’s a time and work ethic issue involved when one is in a school or college setting.
Do either of you @UCDProf grade on a curve, limiting amount of As or Fs?
Absolutely not for the F’s. F’s are almost always about dropping the ball, kind of a choice. There’s no predicting how many people if any will do that, which has nothing to do with a curve. In some cases an inability to write or read well, kind of like not having the algebra or calculus to do physics, will result in an F and that means the student needs intervention
My upper division seminars are limited to 15 kids who I get to know well and their grades are based on their level of effort in the training I provide. This resulted in mostly As pre-covid but was more of a bell curve in distance learning.
Kind of have a curve in my 500 person lecture class. We and the TA graders start out with a “quota” of so many As, Bs, and less than Bs, and some idea of what each means, because with 500 students we can rely on prior experience and not feel we are being arbitrary, and then adjust based on what comes in. In our field, all grades are subjective and there is no right answer to anything, and based largely on literacy. However as I said a big portion of the grade is not based on subjective judgement but on completion of assignments so in a sense some students volunteer to take the Bs. I want the students to feel like they are in control of their destiny. I want them to have an experience of work in = result out, both in terms of grade and in terms of their perceived improvement in literacy in their own eyes. This is very important at the start of college.
There are a hundred other subtle factors like that that people on the outside might not understand.
I guarantee you that all the CTCL if not every LAC understands these hundred things and have incorporated them into their programs, some more, some less. I don’t know which ones are which but I am getting a sense from some replies here on this thread.
It’s still an outside perspective and over simplified, and also reifying the common perception which is so unhealthy.
However I’m not saying the opposite, also oversimplified thing-- that there is no comparison or that easy grading leads to more learning.
Doesn’t sound even remotely familiar for the colleges we utilized. There was one class in high school like that-standards based with options for improvement in grade by repeated effort. The rest were more traditional. Some of my kids’ college classmates seemed surprised by that, so maybe their high schools had more standards or effort based. As you note, if you are used to one system, the transition to the other can be quite a shock
That’s pretty much exactly what the curriculum is in the bay area high schools I’m familiar with, and also what we did in the good old days when I was in HS in upstate NY. It’s been updated of course, the kids today read Joy Luck Club, Maya Angelou, et al and do a lot of writing about it. I agree that talking about them doesn’t happen as much as it should, participation is typically a small percentage of the grade and not forced too much in high school, where it could be in college.
I’m high school, and math or science when I’m full time. Our grades are based upon rubrics and performance with no quotas at all for any letter grade. If I have essays I’m not allowed to grade on grammar and such things - just the science involved.
When I give projects I will take off for spelling and grammar though - telling kids they have plenty of time to run them through some sort of peer/parent/whoever “check” just as if they were creating something for a business. In a test situation - not so much, unless knowing the spelling of something is part of the knowledge they’re supposed to have.
Thank you,
It sounds like a subject that requires certain methods of inquiry and expression.
I am astonished at your criticism of AP English Language, which CB says, “The updated AP English Language and Composition framework included in the course and exam description outlines distinct skills that students should practice throughout the year—skills that will help them learn to think and act like writers.“
“ |Skill Category| Description|exam Weghting Multiple Choice
| 1. Rhetorical Situation: Reading | Explain how writers’ choices reflect the components of the rhetorical situation. | 11%–14% |
|---|---|---|
| 2. Rhetorical Situation: Writing | Make strategic choices in a text to address a rhetorical situation. | 11%–14% |
|3. Claims and Evidence: Reading|Identify and describe the claims and evidence of an argument.|13%–16%|
|4. Claims and Evidence: Writing|Analyze and select evidence to develop and refine a claim.|11%–14%|
|5. Reasoning and Organization: Reading|Describe the reasoning, organization, and development of an argument.|13%–16%|
|6. Reasoning and Organization: Writing|Use organization and commentary to illuminate the line of reasoning in an argument.|11%–14%|
|7. Style: Reading|Explain how writers’ stylistic choices contribute to the purpose of an argument.|11–14%|
|8. Style: Writing|Select words and use elements of composition to advance an argument.|11–14%|
I understand what you are trying to say.
End of the day, we all hope our adult children go to colleges with professors who engage their students in more active learning so they actually enjoy learning.
That’s not looking deep enough into the content to see the point. Yes any excellent teacher could use that rubric for any humanities oriented course, not just eng lang lit. But thats just a list of catch all categories – it does not describe the content that the student is supposed to know for the exam. You have to look at the exam itself and lessons that are oriented to the exam to get the point (and of course understand what a true humanities orientation is like in a decent college).
Short of knowing those things, just think about it logically, does it seem likely that a standardized exam could capture the essence of a humanities field? Would a course seriously oriented to such an exam be like the real thing?
Thank you, appreciate your insights and passion for active learning.
My D took AP Eng. Lang and wrote timed essays a couple times a month, so I have assumed she will be ready for writing in college.
Good luck with your twins’ journey, it is a wonderful time, often with much growth and changes like the seasons and weather.
Timed essays are a big part of any large class size grading at large universities, as you probably know, those “blue book” exams, or part of a lazy professor’s small classes. So in that raw sense that would good exam performance prep.
But in terms of content, the big corporate college board exams and AP certification are not ideal preparation for college, which is why elite private schools are eliminating them. In general, this corporation is on the slide as the stupid hold that it’s stupid philosophy of learning has had on our country is finally slipping, and good for that. If you own stock, sell it. (well, post covid it’s going to be hard to sell that stock).
But the college board corporation is both a cause and a symptom of the problems in this country, so there’s nothing to prevent “holistic” admissions from also reinforcing those problems when it becomes the norm. But at least we can say it’s morning in America.
What do you want schools to use for college admissions? GPAs can be inflated by professors/teachers who give everyone As. Essays can be edited by parents or professionals to the point where they don’t look like the original piece the student wrote.
AP/IB were invented to give some uniformity to education. I personally hate them. My kids went to 3 different high schools and the quality was very different. All offered AP classes, and I’m sure the quality of those was different too.
In general, I want it to be less mechanical and more human. The assumption that we can’t do that, and what would we ever do and how could we imagine a world without the college board corporation is just a limitation of imagination.
But it’s not what do I want, it’s what will they use. That crap is on it’s way out, regardless of what my opinions are. It’s a fact.
Look to the LACs that are doing holistic admissions already to see how it will work. In general, the impression is that it’s so far leading to greater opportunities for economically disadvantaged students. But like I said, and like you said, I think, the underlying unfairness will have a way of creeping back in. Guard has to be up.
Even more interesting, look to the UC’s. It’s already illegal to consider SATs in admissions to UC in CA. California students are a huge portion of the student population nationally (you’d be surprised). They are going to stop taking the SAT and a big part of the national applicant pool will not have test scores.
My impression so far, and this is based on anecdotes from disgruntled parents, all of them privileged and white, it so happens, and totally unfounded to draw any conclusion from, is that UC admissions have become quite unpredictable. So just like Stanford is a gamble for anyone at 5% admissions, UC Davis at 40% is just as much of a gamble.
Again that’s based off of very little but is one tiny anecdotal report that does confirm your suspicion that it’s not going to be easy to wean ourselves off of that corporation.