Hello there. I teach students. After successfully avoiding the letters A and P during the first 16 years of my career, I have been asked to teach my students the AP Statistics topics.
The good news for me is that I have taught a non-AP introductory high school statistics course for the past ten years or so. The bad news for me is that I feel like I am going to have to completely overhaul my syllabus and employ some of the teaching methodologies I have tried to leave behind in order to meet the demands of the AP course. I have many ideas how to make this process more palatable and to make it a better experience for my student.
The very good news for me is that I found a practical use for Twitter this summer, and that is making this transition a heckuva lot better. In July, I attended CSET's Stanford Summer Teaching Institute and one of my instructors sold me on Twitter. Who knew there were so many wonderful teachers out there very willing to help a fellow teacher out? I just drop a hashtag on a tweet (such as #MTBoS or #statschat), maybe mention another teacher using that @ symbol and teachers from all over place can see what I write and respond to it. And they do!
Besides the wonderful help these twittering teachers provide, it also gives me a new sort of community that makes me feel not so alone in what I am trying to do. And it does my soul good to know that there are so many kind teachers out there who are willing to help a stranger.
Today, however, I had a realization that I am trying to recreate the wheel and I wonder if there might be a much better way. Especially given this online community and the collective resources. My students will have a much better experience this year if they get instruction from experienced AP Statistics teacher. I know I can help my students, but my inexperience will limit me and make it harder for them.
Wouldn't it be better for my students if they could somehow connect directly to the best AP Statistics teachers? Wouldn't it be better for them if someone who has done this ten times designed the syllabus I use in my class?
I did an AP institute this summer and I have resources to help me and I am certainly not starting from scratch here. But does the world really need another AP Statistics teacher? Isn't it conceivable that there exist enough excellent AP Statistics teachers already and that instead of trying to do my own thing, my students could tap into the knowledge and direction of those that really know what they are doing?
Hey Josh! Great to see you blogging! While I definitely agree about harnessing the power of the larger teacher community in not reinventing the wheel, I also think that there is no "best of" Stats teacher or curriculum. Only you know your students and yourself and your school and only you can create a curriculum that makes the most sense in this context. I think that the best case scenario is teaching that is informed by the ideas and research that is already out there, but that you've made your own and feel ownership around (and will hopefully improve on as you continue to teach). I hope that you continue blog and share the ideas that have made an impact on you and how you implemented them in your classroom. Teaching a new class is really fun! I hope that you and your students have a terrific year.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that I need to tailor my AP Statistics class to the students at my school. I guess I was just wishing that, as a brand new AP teacher, I could just pick one of maybe 20 (or 50?) proven AP Statistics syllabi that goes with a textbook and certain software or online programs. Using my experience, I could adapt as I went that first year and then evolve even more in subsequent years. Of course the funny/ironic part is that I have essentially been creating and re-creating curriculum over my last 7 or so years of teaching. Because, as you point out, I teach better when I take ownership of the material: I am more engaged and more enthusiastic and the kids notice all of that.
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