Reviewing for the AP Exam
Two weeks away from the AP Exam, and I had finally finished
the curriculum for my Environmental Science class. My CT and I wanted to spend
two weeks reviewing the material for the year to get the students prepared, but
how? We knew that we needed to make it student engaged and interactive to keep
them interested, but there was a lot of material to cover. The other problem
was making the students accountable in our class for all the material as well.
Our solution was two-fold, a jigsaw and an exam.
First, we divided the main content areas for the exam into
21 parts (the number of students in each class). We had each student become the
expert for one of the sections of material. The students had to create a study
sheet for the other students in the class and they had to give a short
presentation in class on the material using Powerpoint, Prezi, or a similar
tool.
Second, to make the students accountable and ensure they
were paying attention and following along, we decided to give them their final
exam during this two-week period. We broke the final exam into four parts which
were given on four different days. Each final exam part was given after the
material for that part had been presented by the students. We also decided to
design the exam to be like the AP Exam, so that they could also practice their
test taking skills. Each part of the final exam consisted of 25 multiple-choice
questions and one free response question.
I was extremely impressed with the quality and depth of the
presentations and materials produced by my students. The study sheets were well
prepared and easy to follow. The students used multiple sources to gather
material, including the text, AP study guides, and the internet. Their visual
presentations were fantastic, with lots of pictures and solid information. Some
of their presentations were better than mine!
The students also did well on the final exam and stated that
they thought that adding the free response questions helped them get ready for
the AP Exam. They also liked having the final exam broken into smaller parts
that allowed them to fully concentrate their study time to those parts of the
material.
They took their AP exam on Monday and all of them felt
confident that they will get a passing score.
Now that they are finished with exams and materials – what
do I do with them? Read my blog post on Senioritis to find out!
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