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Postconference

 

Sunday, July 19
8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

Suggested for: New and Experienced AP Teachers, Middle School Teachers, School Counselors, Administrators

AP and Pre-AP Professional Development


Vertical Teaming


Classroom Strategies


Instructional Leadership


Additional Professional Development Workshops

College Board professional development workshops are designed to ensure that participants gain a working understanding of the topics and concepts listed in each workshop description. For more information on professional development opportunities, visit Professional Development.

List of Workshops Offered on July 19

Administrators

AP Administrator: New
AP Administrators: Experienced

This one-day workshop provides an in-depth survey of effective ways to start and support an AP program. Beginning with a review of the benefits of the Advanced Placement Program for schools, this workshop explores ways that administrators can provide support for their AP teachers and students. In addition, this workshop helps administrators learn how to use data effectively to promote equitable growth and provides tools for assessing strengths and weaknesses of existing AP programs, with an emphasis on areas of future growth. Finally, the workshop covers specific administrative topics, such as models for obtaining financial support from community organizations, effective school policies (grade weighting, setting expectations for exam taking), and effective use of block schedules in offering AP courses.

Pre-AP: Instructional Leadership Strategies—Using Data to Improve Student Preparation in Advanced Placement Program

This one-day workshop is designed for administrators, counselors, and teachers interested in collecting, organizing, analyzing, and using data for continuing school improvement and creating access to AP courses for all students. At the end of the workshop, participants will understand how to use data effectively to make placement and curricular decisions. Topics addressed include destroying achievement myths, using data to close achievement gaps, disaggregating data, and assessing policies and practices.

Pre-AP: Instructional Leadership Strategies—Promoting Equity and Excellence in Advanced Placement Program Courses

This one-day workshop is designed for administrators, counselors, and teachers interested in examining issues related to the development of instructional programs that reflect excellence and equity. The activities and discussions in this workshop are designed to help participants identify excellence and equity concepts that apply to all subject areas and further prepare students for AP courses. At the end of the workshop, participants will understand how to create high-achievement classrooms accessible to all students and how to make curricular decisions to increase student achievement and access to AP courses.

Pre-AP: Setting the Cornerstones for the AP Vertical Team

This workshop offers a step-by-step action plan for administrators and teachers who are planning to build an AP Vertical Team in their schools. Participants will receive a toolkit of concrete applications, including strategies and hands-on activities that can be used to build vertical teams and to begin developing their district’s Action Plan. There will be guided discussions to facilitate identifying and solving potential roadblocks.

AP Subjects

European History: Experienced
European History: New

At every AP European History workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP European History Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP European History
  • 2007 AP European History free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP European History Released Exam

For experienced teachers: Special focus on point of view and primary sources

Veteran teachers attending an AP European History workshop also get a book focused on a specific instruction them. This school year, the book is Special Focus: Whose History Is It?: The Role of Social History and Point of View in the AP Classroom. Essays include

  • Finding Evidence and Working With Point of View in the Document-Based Question
  • Peasants in the History of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Relationships
  • European Anti-Semitism from the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries
  • A Thematic Unit for the Intersection of Gender and Class in AP European History

Government and Politics: U.S.: Experienced
Government and Politics: U.S.: New

Create greater understanding of best practices for U.S. government & politics in the AP classroom. Workshop materials: At every AP U.S. Government & Politics workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP U.S. Government & Politics Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP U.S. Government & Politics
  • 2007 AP U.S. Government & Politics free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP U.S. Government & Politics Released Exam

For experienced teachers, Special Focus: The Incorporation Doctrine

The authors discuss the background, essence, and consequences of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The essays, available exclusively to experienced teachers who attend an AP U.S. Government & Politics workshop, include:

  • Historical Overview: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Selective Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
  • The Key Clauses: The Impact of Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses on State and Local Government
  • Teaching about the Supreme Court and Selective Incorporation
  • The Fourteenth Amendment and the Development of Federal Citizenship

Physics B: Experienced
Physics B: New

Improve your instruction in physics in this one-day workshop. At every AP Physics workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP Physics Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP Physics
  • 2007 AP Physics free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP Physics Released Exam

For experienced teachers, Special Focus: Electrostatics

Given its highly abstract nature, electrostatics is one of the most difficult areas of physics to learn, and therefore to teach. Experienced teachers attending an AP Physics workshop receive a book that looks at a specific instructional theme, and this school year, the book is Special Focus: Electrostatics. The articles include:

  • Basic Concepts in Electrostatics: An Overview
  • Modern-Day Faradays: Teaching Students to Visualize Electric Fields
  • Electric Potential and Potential Energy
  • Teaching About Gauss's Law
  • Conceptual Links in Electrostatics

Each article comes with assessment questions, practice problems, and solutions.

Note: Special focus materials reflect important topics in AP courses, and the materials are meant to provide teachers with resources and classroom ideas. However, special focus materials should not be taken as an indication that a particular topic will appear on the AP Exam.

Statistics: Experienced
Statistics: New

A one-day workshop on best practices in statistics instruction. At every AP Statistics workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP Statistics Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP Statistics
  • 2007 AP Statistics free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP Statistics Released Exam

For experienced teachers, Special Focus on Inference

Veteran calculus teachers attending an AP Calculus workshop receive a book on a specific instructional theme. For this school year, the theme is Inference. The authors offer classroom activities that translate the abstract aspect of sampling distributions into a more tactile and visual reality. They examine sampling distributions by addressing their foundations, and address:

  • Motivating the what-ifs
  • The what-ifs with hands-on simulation
  • The what-ifs with technology

Spanish Literature: Experienced
Spanish Literature: New

This one-day workshop will promote best practices in the AP Spanish classroom. At every AP Spanish Literature workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP Spanish Literature Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP Spanish Literature
  • 2007 AP Spanish Literature free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP Spanish Literature Released Exam

For experienced teachers, Special Focus: The Road to Success for Language Learners

This special focus material, available exclusively to experienced teachers who attend the AP workshop in AP Spanish Literature, is designed to offer a new perspective for teachers in Pre-AP and AP Spanish Language. The authors offer ideas for using literature as a toolbox for teaching the language, by means of vocabulary, inquiry, and art and writing. Essays include:

  • Engaging Students in the L2 Reading Process
  • The Power of Images
  • Teaching Unit for Lazarillo de Tormes
  • Isabel Allende y Dos Palabras

United States History: Experienced
United States History: New

Create greater understanding of best practices for U.S. history instruction. At every AP U.S. History workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP U.S. History Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP U.S. History
  • 2007 AP U.S. History free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP U.S. History

For experienced teachers, Special Focus: Antebellum Reform

This period lays a strong foundation for students' future study of major reform movements of the twentieth century. Experienced teachers attending the AP U.S. History workshop receive a collection of essays that help define this critical period. The essays include:

  • Antebellum Reform: An Overview
  • Five Lesson Plans for Teaching Antebellum Reform
  • Two Lesson Outlines on the Antebellum Women's Movement
  • Exploring the Lane Debates of 1834

World History: Experienced
World History: New

Create greater understanding of best practices for world history instruction. Workshop materials: At every AP World History workshop held by the College Board, each participant receives a copy of the course's Exam Resources and Program Information book, which contains:

  • AP World History Course Description Essentials
  • AP Course Audit information
  • Sample syllabi for AP World History
  • 2007 AP World History free-response materials (student samples, scoring guidelines, and commentary)
  • Multiple-choice questions and answers from the most recent AP U.S. History

For experienced teachers, Special Focus: Teaching About Twentieth Century Latin America & Africa in World History

The lessons and resources in this book are aimed at helping students analyze points of view, context, and bias. The material, available exclusively to experienced teachers who attend an AP World History workshop, covers the whole twentieth century, from Marcus Garvey's movement to films produced in the past decade. The authors encompass teachers from secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Their essays include:

  • Why bother with Africa and Latin America?
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Black theology and liberation theology
  • Teaching approaches for including Africa and Latin America in teaching the Cold War
  • Films in Latin America and Africa

The collection is geared toward the non-expert in Latin American and African history, and therefore appeals to a broad spectrum of educators.

AP Coordinators and Counselors

NOSCA: Use of Data as a Tool for Systemic Change for School Counselors

This one-day workshop is for practicing school counselors. Participants will learn how to access, analyze, disaggregate, cross-tabulate, and chart longitudinal data directly linked to student achievement through the use of data sources such as national databases; state, district, and school report cards; and outside sources such as College Board reports. Additionally, participants will learn how to assess their current programs and services to begin the process of developing a data-driven school counseling program.

Pre-AP English

Advanced Topics for AP Vertical Teams in English—Grammar

This one-day workshop draws from cognitive research on language acquisition and examines some of the best practices from traditional grammar instruction, linguistics, writing, and the whole language approach. Experienced English teachers understand that grammar cannot be isolated from other aspects of language arts instruction. They also know that there is no single correct approach to this complex subject. Specific topics include rules of usage, parts of speech, patterns of words, structure of sentences, and arrangement of sentences. Through activities, participants will examine the role grammar plays in promoting clear communication and close reading skills. When appropriate, discussions of rhetoric and style will be added.

Pre-AP: Interdisciplinary Strategies—Argumentation and the Writing Process

This one-day workshop is designed to help social studies, English, and humanities teachers address a task that challenges many middle and high school students: developing a logical and effective argument. This workshop offers middle and high school teachers strategies that enable students to discover and work with the elements of argumentation. Topics addressed in the workshop include using texts to analyze and construct arguments and assessing written performance.

Pre-AP: Strategies in English—Beyond Acronyms: Inquiry-Based Close Reading

This one-day workshop is designed to help middle and early high school teachers facilitate inquiry-based practices through close reading in their classrooms. Questioning strategies are used to promote critical thinking, starting at the introductory level. The workshop teaches participants classroom strategies that allow students to ask and generate questions, develop the ability to actively engage with any text, and analyze and document their own thinking while reading. Topics addressed include close reading questioning, critical thinking question stems, dialectical journaling, analytical writing, and holistic assessment.

Pre-AP: Strategies in English—Rhetoric

This one-day workshop is designed to help teachers understand the classical art of rhetoric in its two senses: language as crafted for an audience; and the ability to find, evaluate, and use all of the available tools of language to achieve a specific purpose or a desired effect in a given situation. Participants will learn effective techniques by engaging in activities that will enable them to teach their students important rhetorical theory principles—such as the importance of the unstated assumption in both the creation and analysis of arguments, the nature of arrangement, and relation of style to form—that underlie the effectiveness of excellent writers and support the clear thinking and sound judgment of successful readers.

Pre-AP: Strategies in English—Writing Tactics Using SOAPSTone

This one-day workshop is designed to help middle and early high school social studies teachers address some of the problems students encounter in their writing. When teachers from all grade levels work together to introduce and reinforce critical reading and analytical writing strategies such as SOAPSTone, students are more likely to acquire the habits of mind and skills of sophisticated writers. Workshop topics include the writing process, narrative, the persuasive essay, and analytical writing.

Pre-AP: Strategies in English—Differentiated Instruction in Middle School Language Arts

The focus of this one-day workshop is differentiated classroom strategies that allow all students access to high-level language arts content. Although the activities can be modified for high school students, the content is more appropriate for a middle school audience. High school teachers who are part of an AP Vertical Team in English benefit from this workshop by modifying the strategies for their students. Administrators might be interested in the strategies as they can be applied to all disciplines. At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to apply differentiated instruction strategies to product, process, and content in their language arts curriculum; understand why it is important to build a strong relationship with students; understand the need to assess students continually; understand how to present all students with an equally challenging curriculum; and empower students to take charge of their own learning.

Pre-AP Math

Pre-AP: Advanced Topics for AP Vertical Teams in Mathematics—Assessment

This one-day workshop teaches middle and high school math teachers techniques of assessment designed to support instruction for students as active learners and problem solvers. Educators increasingly recognize that the purpose of classroom assessment of student achievement is to help teachers make decisions about instruction. Assessments, reliability, validity, scoring guidelines, and performance appraisals are the key topics covered in this workshop.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Mathematics—Chance, Variation, and Probability

This one-day workshop uses recent research on the learning of probability to engage teachers in classroom activities that enable students to analyze and understand chance events. The activities progress through elementary definitions and concepts of probability, culminating in the use of simulation to model probability problems. Participants gain significant knowledge about finding and correcting student misinterpretations about these events, and then discover ways to improve student understanding through reflection and communication. Teachers learn to develop activities for the classroom that help connect the content to events relevant to students and their lives. Specific topics include classical probability; law of large numbers; and probability rules, distributions, and conditions.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Mathematics—Developing Algebraic Thinking

This one-day workshop is for mathematics teachers in grades 6–10. It provides teachers with hands-on activities and techniques to help students develop algebraic reasoning. A key feature of this workshop is the use of graphing calculators to help students visualize and explore algebra from graphic, numerical, and analytical perspectives as well as from traditional symbolic representations. Objectives for participants in this workshop include learning to develop techniques by using inquiry learning in teaching algebraic thinking, using patterns to find relationships, using tables in investigating relationships, and describing patterns using both recursive and closed relationships.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Mathematics—Analyzing and Describing Data

This one-day workshop enriches the data analysis topics taught in the middle and secondary grades by providing examples of activities where students collect data, use graphs and numerical summaries to get information from data, and communicate that information. By assuming the role of the student and through discussion, participants will learn engaging strategies to discuss data collection and experimental design issues as they work through exercises and share observations and conclusions. Please note that science educators will also find this workshop beneficial.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Mathematics—Functions

This one-day workshop allows teachers to develop a deep content knowledge of functions for teachers and discusses grade-level-appropriate content and classroom strategies, including using technology to promote understanding. Teachers will acquire skills that promote methodical thinking and clear communication of thought processes by all of their students. This workshop illustrates a guided-exploration approach as a pedagogical model that emphasizes student thinking as the key to learning, and communication as the key to assessing understanding. Specific topics include linear, quadratic, and nonlinear functions.

Pre-AP Science

Pre-AP: Strategies in Science—Inquiry-Based Laboratories for Middle Schools

This one-day workshop introduces middle school science teachers to inquiry-based laboratory instruction. Through activities and discussions, participants will learn to use inquiry-based laboratories to teach science processing, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to students and prepare them for the rigorous course work in high school and college. Topics addressed include laboratory roles, traditional versus inquiry-based laboratory activities, using inquiry-based labs to teach critical thinking skills, and assessing inquiry-based laboratory activities.

Pre-AP Strategies in Science—Energy Systems

This one-day workshop was developed for high school science teachers interested in designing integrated, theme-based instruction to prepare students for AP science courses. The activities and discussions in this workshop are designed to help teachers identify concepts in energy that extend across all science subjects. At the end of the workshop, participants will understand how to identify energy concepts in biology, earth science, chemistry, and physics and how to make curriculum decisions to increase student achievement and better prepare students for AP science courses. Topics addressed include kinetic versus potential energy, heat versus temperature, bonding, and energy transformations in living systems.

Pre-AP Social Studies

Pre-AP: Advanced Topics for AP Vertical Teams in Social Studies—Developing Reading Habits

This one-day workshop gives social studies teachers new strategies to develop their students’ ability to read critically. The workshop is based on the premise that a coherent, articulated program of effective strategies will improve student performance in essay writing by giving students a framework that allows them to develop their writing proficiency. Although individual teachers will benefit from the strategies presented here, the power of the strategies is best realized through an AP Vertical Team that spans social studies classes (grades 6–12) at both the Pre-AP and AP levels. Topics addressed include reading research, questioning grids, main idea clusters, text charting, reading pods, and utilizing the AP Vertical Team to develop analytical and critical reading skills.

Pre-AP: Interdisciplinary Strategies—Argumentation and the Writing Process

This one-day workshop is designed to help social studies, English, and humanities teachers address a task that challenges many middle and high school students: developing a logical and effective argument. This workshop offers middle and high school teachers strategies that enable students to discover and work with the elements of argumentation. Topics addressed in the workshop include using texts to analyze and construct arguments and assessing written performance.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Social Studies—Using Visual Materials in Middle Grade Classrooms

This one-day workshop will present middle school teachers with strategies for analyzing and synthesizing nontext sources in middle school history and geography classrooms. The participants will examine models of questioning for works of art, cartoons, quantitative data such as charts or graphs, and photographs. Once these models have been presented, participants will use them to construct thesis statements and written passages about issues affecting middle school social studies courses, with the aim of promoting student skills of source analysis, evaluation, and synthesis.

Pre-AP Spanish

Pre-AP Strategies in Spanish—Writing Skills

With the completion of this one-day workshop, participants will gain a better understanding of how to design writing instruction that enhances students’ preparedness for AP Spanish Language courses. Topics addressed include the writing process, essays, and writing assessments.

Pre-AP: Strategies in Spanish—Literary Analysis

The goal of this one-day workshop is to enable teachers to help students develop the reading skills necessary for the AP Spanish Literature course. The focus is on reading comprehension of Spanish text passages. Prereading, reading, and postreading skills are emphasized. Assessment is also discussed.

Pre-AP Studio Art

Pre-AP: Topics for AP Vertical Teams in Studio Art

Participants in this one-day workshop will become familiar with the College Board’s mission to provide access to and equity for all students. Participants will learn strategies used by AP Vertical Teams in Studio Art in developing curricula for 2-D, 3-D, and Drawing courses; learn the content and skills necessary for student success in AP Studio Art; and become familiar with the standards of a vertical curriculum and the role of Pre-AP in helping to develop those standards. Topics addressed include making the case for an AP Vertical Team in Studio Art, depth and concentration, portfolios and portfolio evaluation, strategy development across grade levels, using sketchbooks and journals, and assessment.

Pre-AP World Languages

Pre-AP: Strategies in World Languages and Cultures—Building Proficiency

The goal of this one-day workshop is to present world language teaching and learning strategies, grounded in the ACTFL Standards, that build beginning and intermediate students’ proficiency in the target language. By examining the best ways to achieve acquisition of a new language, target language production, and retention of acquired skills, participants will learn how to prepare their students for more advanced language study. The workshop will focus on integrating communicative and cultural skills, designing activities for a variety of learning styles, and building success for new second language learners. This workshop will be presented in English with examples in English.

Pre-AP: Topics for Vertical Teams in World Languages and Cultures

During the course of this one-day workshop, participants will learn about topics related to the creation of strong teams of language educators, within the same school setting and across grade levels, with the goal of growing effective, advanced programs of language study. Curriculum articulation, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) FL Standards, and shared reflective practice will be discussed. Participants will also consider skills articulation across grade levels and learn how to build students’ fluency for long-term retention and success. This workshop will be presented in English with examples in English.

 

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