Teachers learn how to give students the reins in AP course at Plain...

PLAINFIELD — To prepare for new curriculum in Advanced Placement science courses, many teachers went back to class for four days last week to learn a new way to teach.

“It’s basically a 180-degree change. They are going from teacher-directed activities to student-directed activities,” said John Polka, AP biology consultant who teaches high school teachers the new curriculum designed by the College Board.

“I think it’s much more student-oriented. The kids are going to learn more rather than just sitting down and memorizing,” Polka said. “So questions on muscle physiology are out the window.”

Last week, Plainfield School District hosted its third annual College Board-endorsed AP Summer Institute at Plainfield East High School where teachers received 30 hours of training on what to teach in AP courses.

The AP program provides college-level courses to high school students who can take an exam at the end of the semester. Depending on their scores, they can get college credit.

Studies show the best predictor of college graduation is if students passed AP exams. That’s why many school districts, such as Plainfield, have been increasing their curriculum’s rigor. Plainfield School District has increased its AP offerings by 20 classes, offering four AP courses in 2006 and now 24 this fall, said Glenn Wood, director of high school curriculum and instruction.

Wood said teachers leave energized and chock-full of resources, new labs and instructional strategies.

Consultants, who are certified by the College Board, taught 300 teachers the latest information, sharing what students get wrong most on the AP exams and demonstrated new experiments that high school teachers can bring back to their own classrooms.

Acting like scientists

The College Board that administers the AP exams thought all the science courses needed an overhaul. Biology is rolling out new curriculum and exams in 2013. Chemistry is currently being studied and redesigned, said College Board consultant Annis Hapkiewicz who is on the commission to help redesign chemistry.

Students will be acting more like scientists, she said. Teachers will give them a question to research and design an experiment in order to come up with the answer. In the past, students were given step-by-step instructions to come up with the correct answer in a lab.

Even though chemistry’s overhaul isn’t until later on, Hapkiewicz is already working with teachers on how to change their labs.

Last week, teachers got a taste of it as they conducted a lab to discover how much energy it takes to convert liquid nitrogen into a gas.

“I am having them to do more inquiry-based learning with their students so the labs aren’t really cookbooks. They are more authentic like how scientists do things,” Hapkiewicz said.

Teachers won’t tell students how to do the calculations, but rather let them design their own data tables and analyze the data, she said.

Socorro Cichoracki, a chemistry teacher at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, took the class to learn about the changes to the AP curriculum.

“I think we can probably gets more hands-on activities in (the lab). I’d love to do liquid nitrogen. It depends on if we can get the liquid nitrogen,” she said. “There were a couple of labs that I thought would be interesting to do. … There are some concepts that could be covered by doing a very short lab. It was nice to experience a lot of labs in a very short period of time that we can bring back with us.”

First up

AP Biology is the first science class to undergo the redesign. Polka is one of 72 teachers endorsed by the College Board to teach 10,000 AP biology teachers the new curriculum. Next summer they will focus on the new student-centered, inquiry-based labs.

Instead of teaching eight major concepts, AP biology teachers will be focusing on four: Evolution, genetics, energy flow and ecology. The College Board is dropping the need to learn about the anatomies and physiologies of plants and animals.

“There was too much material,” Polka said. “We can’t cover it in a year. It’s unfair.”

Teachers would have a general idea of what’s on the AP exam, but all of the sudden a question would show up that would just blow the kids out of the water, he said. Now, students will be tested on the four concepts and how they relate to teach other based on what they learned during the labs.

The majority of high school teachers are in favor of the new curriculum, including Polka, who teaches at Fenwick High School in Oak Park.

“Students are going to walk out there with the ability to think. With the ability to analyze material and not having the teacher do it for them,” Polka said.

Teachers will need to provide eight student-directed labs — two each quarter.

“I’m showing them that the labs they are doing now can also be converted to student-directed labs,” Polka said.

Polka is excited for students, but knows they are not going to like it at first because they are used to relying on the teachers for answers. Polka said teachers will need to redirect the question back to the students and get them to keep on problem-solving.

“You don’t give the answers,” he said.

“The test is doing a radical change as well,” he said.

Instead of 100 multiple choice questions, there will be 55. Instead of four open ended essays and there will be two. There will also be a series of seven short-answer questions based on what students learned in the labs and a math section which they never had before.

“They are going to have to bring a calculator,” Polka said.

Joe Kamper and Maureen Howe, both science teachers at Plainfield Central High School, took their first AP class in order to help prepare their freshmen for the AP biology class which they can take during their junior or senior year.

“I think I’m going to try student-centered labs. I don’t do any,” Kamper said.

“Since we know this is the direction they are going, I think it’s more of an incentive,” Howe said.

Kamper said it will be a challenge since freshmen don’t have that science background and experience in labs that a junior or senior would.

At freshmen level, the teacher will have to explain the concept and procedures so it won’t be entirely student-centered. But Kamper and Howe said by the end of the school year, freshmen will be able to participate in student-centered lab.

“It will help with their problem-solving skills. It will help them become better … creative thinkers,” Kamper said. “I think they’ll enjoy it more as well because when they take ownership of it, they will remember it more and they also get to explore the things that they are interested in,” he said.