I teach at a school of pretty extreme go-getters, and I decided to embrace that for my review period this year in AP Stats. Rather than do too much review together, I decided to base make review a primarily self-directed affair.
They are required to complete three different things by the AP Exam, at their own speed:
- Free Response – 10 points times 6 problems + 15 points for the long one = 75 points
- Pick 7 free response problems from the AP web site. One must be a long problem #6 and they should cover a range of material (some start by just doing an entire year)
- Do the problem in test conditions
- Study anything you want, then add to the problem in another color or ink
- Read rubric and grade samples, and score yourself (asking me for help ideally if confused)
- Finally, they write a brief reflection (usually 5-6 sentences) analyzing what they did, what they needed to study, what they should review, whether there was anything in the rubric or notes that surprised them, and how they might have gotten a point or two even if they were mostly confused.
- These are handed in as they complete them, either on paper (1 stapled set per problem) or electronically. They fill out a google form for each problem when they hand it in to help all of us stay organized.
- Multiple Choice – 20 points times 2 sets = 40 points
- Multiple choice from two old secured practice test are printed, one each for each student, in the classroom. They work on them during school hours only (for security).
- Work 5-10 problems, with all work on the pages and any questions or comments they make them think about. If guessing, acknowledge on page.
- Check answers. Any wrong answers get a reflection sentence – was this a lack of knowledge, a trick they fell for? Is it worth more prep, or is this one of the “miss it and don’t stress” questions (no more than 5-10 of those per set allowed!)
- These will be handed in the class after the exam, since I can’t get them graded in time and I want them to keep them to study if they want.
- Stats4Stem Review – 10 points times 5 sets = 50 points
- I made a class for them at http://www.stats4stem.org and assign all of the AP Review problem sets to them as they are made available. (Thanks stats4stem.org!)
- They are required to complete 5 of them. These are graded for completion only, though I will be checking for clear effort (if the teacher dashboard shows that they completed the entire set in 10 minutes and miss every problem, they will be required to do another one, in other words).
- More problem sets are optional – some girls love them, some seem to hate them (mostly due to tech issues) so it’s their choice.
Grand total: 165 points worth of test grades, which most of them will make high grades on. Which is good, since their only standard test grade this quarter was kind of rough. I don’t count classwork or homework for anything this quarter; it’s the test grade, plus the review, only.
We have a block schedule, so I see them basically every other day for 80 minutes. I’ve been spending the first 40 minutes doing whole-class review of major trouble topics (probability) or shoring up topics that we sort of skimmed (chi-square tests or linear regression computer output interpretation), then letting them work on review for the other 40 minutes. They keep me hopping with questions in the second half, which is great.
So far, the system seems to be really working. I think we are going to rock the exam this year.