Day 1
01 Workshop Opener 02 Reflecting on Equity 03 Break 04 Unit 9 Lesson Jigsaw 05 Lunch 06 Unit 10 Overview 07 Break 08 AP Test Prep 09 Connecting to the Community 10 Wrap Up

Session 8: Preparing Students for the AP Exam

70 minutes

discussion-based

Purpose

There is a logical desire to want students to do well on the AP Exam and often teachers are familiar with doing some sort of “test prep” prior to a big test. This session is designed to provide teachers with a structure and community to create their own plan that meets their students’ needs.

Objectives

  • Participants have a plan for when and how they will prepare students for the multiple choice test.

Supplies & Prep

Room Setup:

  • None

Facilitator Supplies:

Participant Materials:

Agenda

Getting Familiar with the Multiple Choice Exam (30 minutes)

Develop a List of Resources (20 minutes)

Develop Your Plan (20 minutes)

Facilitation Guide

Getting Familiar with the Multiple Choice Exam (30 minutes)

(5 minutes) Introduction

Remarks

Throughout this year we have talked about helping prepare students for the Create Performance task, but the fact remains that the largest part of their AP score will come from the Multiple Choice assessment they will take on May 9th. The multiple choice assessment makes up 70% of their final score.

(1 minute) 💷 Share out at your table. What do you know about the multiple choice test?

(2 minutes) Share out with the full group

💷 Use slides to summarize the take-aways:

  • Students must complete 70 questions within 120 minutes.
  • The multiple choice portion is worth 70% of the final AP score.

  • Different Big Ideas make up a different % of the questions.

  • Questions:

    • There are questions using pseudocode language on it.
    • 8 of the questions require students to select two answers.
    • 5 of the questions will be focused around reading a passage about a hypothetical computing innovation and answering questions about it.

(25 minutes) Understanding the Questions

Let’s look at some example questions from the Course and Exam Description Guide.

💷 Do This:

  • Read about the Single-Select Questions with Reading Passage on page 165 of the Course and Exam Description Guide.
  • Review the Practice Exam Questions starting on page 172 of the Course and Exam Description Guide.

Consider:

  • What content knowledge do I want to build with students further before the exam? Consider both the Big Ideas and the Computational Thinking Practices.
  • What other test-taking skills do I want to build with students further before the exam?

(15 minutes) Have participants complete the task by reviewing the question types.

(5 minutes) 💷 Direct participants to discuss the following at their tables:

  • What content knowledge do I want to build with students further before the exam?
  • What other test-taking skills do I want to build with students further before the exam?

(5 minutes) 💷 Full Group Share Out. Supporting facilitator takes notes in the slides on the following questions:

  • What content knowledge do I want to build with students further before the exam?
  • What other test-taking skills do I want to build with students further before the exam?

Develop a List of Resources (20 minutes)

Remarks

We have just developed a pretty long list of things we want to ensure students are ready to do on exam day. Our curriculum provides some resources but there are many other resources publicly available as well. You might also find you want to create some resources tailored to your students. Let’s first look at what Code.org provides for supporting students in preparing for the exam.

💷 Use the slides to guide this overview:

  • The Multiple Choice Assessment at the end of Unit 10 has a total of 2 reading passages and 10 questions that mirror the “Single-select questions with reading passage” question type students will see on the exam.
  • In Unit 5, Lesson 5, students used some of the “robot code” in the Loops Explore to practice using loops and the pseudocode featuring the robot.
  • Additionally, the checks for understanding or the multiple choice assessments had a few “select two options” questions. But we know there are lots of other resources out there!

Remarks

💷 The next 15 minutes is yours to share out resources at your table and explore some of the resources we have mentioned here. There is also a place to add additional resources that you know about in the slides.

Develop Your Plan (20 minutes)

(10 minutes) 💷 Introduce the Task

Remarks

So far we have discussed what we want to do to prepare students for the exam, and how we can do that. Next, we want to consider when we will do these things. The next 10 minutes will be yours to make a plan for your students. During this time:

  • Check your timing. Look at where you are in the curriculum and how much time is left before the exam.
    • How are things looking for covering the content overall? Consider building out a calendar for any review time you do have space for.
    • How much time do you have to review?
  • Prioritize what you want to work on with students. Consider what resources you have already used or taken advantage of in your classroom.
    • Which skills and content do you see your students needing the most support with?
    • How can you get the biggest “bang for your buck” when it comes to utilizing the review time?
  • Think about engagement.
    • How will you balance engagement and motivation during the end of the year?

(10 minutes) 💷 Share and Review

Give participants 10 minutes to build out their plan individually. After 10 minutes, have them share their plan with a partner, get feedback, and revise their plan based on the feedback.

Wrap up the session by thanking people for their time and highlighting some of the ideas and exchanges you heard.