Classrooms Post AP Testing
May 16, 2017
As the last day of school gets closer and closer, so do those menacing final exam dates. The ending of April, as well as the entire month of May, is jam-packed with awkward scheduling days to fit in AP exams. Eventually, though, towards the end of May and the remainder of the month of June, the final exams stop piling up.
So what do students do in their classes when they finish their finals and have no more material that needs to be learned?
Surprisingly enough, there is plenty of information that can be taught or reviewed that will take the classes until the last day of school. Whether the AP teachers have a well-thought out plan, or are just going day by day, they certainly have enough material to provide to their students.
Kate Ehrlich, teacher of the Advanced Placement Psychology classes, has a list of activites for her students to do post testing. “We are now in aftermode,” she states, “I gave them a project where they can pick any topic that is interesting to them, and create a trifold presentation of the research. The students picked different things such as animal testing, personality disorders, or the effect that cocaine has on the brain.”
However, creating research projects isn’t the only course of action a teacher can take. In the past Ms. Ehrlich has let her students create board games on psychology terms, or they had in-depth discussions on subjects interesting to them, such as the case study of Genie Genovese.
Ms. Ehrlich added, “We do different things depending on time. Since majority of my students are juniors and I’m not losing any, we can do more expanded projects.”
Other teachers, such as Jerry Walker, teacher of the Advanced Placement Calculus AB class, have a slightly different approach towards post-test activities. Although he does not have an extremely packed schedule, he usually does the same thing each year.
“We are not really doing anything too exciting,” he comments. “We will have a bridge building contest, a day where we build and fly tetrahedral kites, and SAT prep with juniors once the seniors leave.”
So even though a course may be over after the exam, the learning that students do in the classroom never ceases. When there are no new facts being brought to the classroom, teachers still find entertaining ways for their students to learn or review concepts.
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