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I am not a teacher but I have a son who takes AP classes. I think that part of the problem is that the schools are pushing students to take AP classes who have no business being in the classes. It is no longer just your "cream of the crop" student but many average students as well. There probably isn't much that you can do this year, but before students are assigned to classes for next year, you might want to talk with guidance about the necessary prerequisites for such a class.
I am not a teacher but I have a son who takes AP classes. I think that part of the problem is that the schools are pushing students to take AP classes who have no business being in the classes. It is no longer just your "cream of the crop" student but many average students as well. There probably isn't much that you can do this year, but before students are assigned to classes for next year, you might want to talk with guidance about the necessary prerequisites for such a class.
In some cases it's the parents that choose those classes for their kids.
When my son was in middle school the paper came home with electives and those AP classes were listed with just a warning that the work would be harder.
I thought that one had to test into an AP class but wasn't the case. A teacher told me they couldn't do that (test into AP) because that could be a case of discrimination.
I am not a teacher but I have a son who takes AP classes. I think that part of the problem is that the schools are pushing students to take AP classes who have no business being in the classes. It is no longer just your "cream of the crop" student but many average students as well. There probably isn't much that you can do this year, but before students are assigned to classes for next year, you might want to talk with guidance about the necessary prerequisites for such a class.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan
In some cases it's the parents that choose those classes for their kids.
When my son was in middle school the paper came home with electives and those AP classes were listed with just a warning that the work would be harder.
I thought that one had to test into an AP class but wasn't the case. A teacher told me they couldn't do that (test into AP) because that could be a case of discrimination.
My son took every AP class that was offered at his HS at the time. I asked him how he was "selected" to take them. He said for math classes it was the natural progression, if you took advanced math in middle school then you could take each math class a year earlier than the majority of your grade which lead up to AP Calculus as a senior, the same was true in the sciences, taking Biology a year early and possibly taking two science courses as a sophomore or junior gave you room to take AP Chemistry and AP Physics later on. For something not in a sequence like AP History you usually had to recommended by a history teacher.
My son said that when he was in school he thought that a teacher needed to approve your request to take an AP class (your chemistry teacher needed to sign off that you could take AP Chemistry).
He did not believe that you could just "sign up" for an AP class.
He said that although he didn't think that there were ever any "average" or even borderline "average/above average" students in his AP classes he said that it was clear that there were "levels" of students taking AP classes. Some students just breezed right through the coursework and others struggled with it. I realize now that my son must have had 4 or 5 AP classes his senior year and he certainly didn't appear to be doing any more school work than he had in previous years.
However, this was a few years ago so I don't know if it has changed.
I am not a teacher but I have a son who takes AP classes. I think that part of the problem is that the schools are pushing students to take AP classes who have no business being in the classes. It is no longer just your "cream of the crop" student but many average students as well. There probably isn't much that you can do this year, but before students are assigned to classes for next year, you might want to talk with guidance about the necessary prerequisites for such a class.
I agree with this!!!! When I was in high school, in the stone ages of the 1980s I went to a high school with around 6,000 students (yes it really was that big). We had two sections of AP Physics. My kids go to a high school where the 9-12 population is around 1,000 and they have three sections of AP Physics. We used to have only the kids who are really good at math and really interested in science taking AP Physics.
I also think that prerequisites have changed for certain AP courses. Back in the stone ages we had to take regular or honors Physics before we were allowed to take AP Physics. So everyone in the AP class had a background in basic Physics. These days kids are allowed to take AP Physics without any basis in Physics AND without the required math background. Thus, the OP is seeing students who struggle in AP Physics.
You can argue about whether it is good or bad to have more students taking AP Physics, but it definitely is more challenging for teachers to teach the class these days.
For my general chemistry class - which was pretty weak this year - I gave them a packet of 100 multiple choice questions, of which 60 were chosen for the semester exam. They hade 2 days to complete it. Afterwards, we went over the entire packet - meaning they were given the answers to all the questions. (I really hate doing this type of review/exam because I feel that it's not challenging enough - but read ahead.)
I told them that the math questions would have different numbers (and of course different answer choices) but as for the concept/general knowledge questions, I would simply scramble the answer choices - so they aren't just memorizing that the answer to that question is B. They actually have to memorize the answer as "Charles' Law".
So they now have they actual answers for 50 of the 60 questions, and perfect examples of how to do the 10 math questions. Now how many of you would have gone home and spent whatever time it took to memorize every question on that packet? And even if they wouldn't/couldn't do the math ones, they could still concievably get 50/60 right for an 83.
Average on the test: 74. With 10/29 failing outright.
This is a perfect example of either the lack of ability to memorize or the lack of will.
For my general chemistry class - which was pretty weak this year - I gave them a packet of 100 multiple choice questions, of which 60 were chosen for the semester exam. They hade 2 days to complete it. Afterwards, we went over the entire packet - meaning they were given the answers to all the questions. (I really hate doing this type of review/exam because I feel that it's not challenging enough - but read ahead.)
I told them that the math questions would have different numbers (and of course different answer choices) but as for the concept/general knowledge questions, I would simply scramble the answerchoices - so they aren't just memorizing that the answer to that question is B. They actually have to memorize the answer as "Charles' Law".
So they now have they actual answers for 50 of the 60 questions, and perfect examples of how to do the 10 math questions. Now how many of you would have gone home and spent whatever time it took to memorize every question on that packet? And even if they wouldn't/couldn't do the math ones, they could still concievably get 50/60 right for an 83.
Average on the test: 74. With 10/29 failing outright.
This is a perfect example of either the lack of ability to memorize or the lack of will.
I'm absolutely stunned that the students did that poorly when the had the answers to 50 out of 60 questions.
I have difficulty doing addition and subtraction without counting on my fingers sometimes. :P Let's just say, I can crank through one of the old "Mad Minute" multiplication and division tests in about 10 seconds, but it takes at least 20 for addition and subtraction. For some people it's just easier to do one over the other. (Actually, I second-guess myself on +/-, but am confident in my multiplication & division. Dunno why.)
I think there are three major factors in the seeming fact that kids can't seem to memorize things nowadays. First, we're dealing with groups of kids who have been praised all their lives, no matter what level of achievement they have. They're used to the concept of getting rewarded just for participating and they don't understand the concept of failure. They don't understand the need for hard work to correct failure like previous generations did.
Second, many teachers and parents no longer focus on memorization in children's early years, making it more difficult for the kids to grasp the need for memorization of early concepts in order to build upon those for more advanced concepts. Memorization is unfamiliar to them.
Third--and perhaps most important--in day-to-day life, most people no longer have need for traditional memorization. If you don't remember a fact about elephants, what do you do? The easiest thing to do is go to wikipedia and search "elephant." There you have all your facts (as much as you can trust the community editing). Can you recite 20 current telephone numbers with 100% confidence? Or will you need to check your phone for accuracy? Culturally, we've begun relying upon technology for recall.
But I think that here, right here, we're seeing an everyday need for traditional memorization. Another example: When I was working in the restaurant/bar business as a server, it was absolutely vital to be able to multiply and do percentages in my head, because a calculator would've taken too much time and take up valuable real estate on my tray that could have been occupied by product.
What I wonder -- and very possibly unfairly, unfairly to my elementary-school colleagues, certainly -- is whether students are learning anything at all. They're certainly not learning facts. Without facts and information, it certainly becomes difficult for them to make sense of anything they're reading. Without anything they're reading making sense, it becomes impossible for them to remember anything. Without being able to remember anything, they certainly can't think creatively or synthetically or apply information.
In short, we're not teaching them anything.
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But I think that here, right here, we're seeing an everyday need for traditional memorization. Another example: When I was working in the restaurant/bar business as a server, it was absolutely vital to be able to multiply and do percentages in my head, because a calculator would've taken too much time and take up valuable real estate on my tray that could have been occupied by product.
What I wonder -- and very possibly unfairly, unfairly to my elementary-school colleagues, certainly -- is whether students are learning anything at all. They're certainly not learning facts. Without facts and information, it certainly becomes difficult for them to make sense of anything they're reading. Without anything they're reading making sense, it becomes impossible for them to remember anything. Without being able to remember anything, they certainly can't think creatively or synthetically or apply information.
In short, we're not teaching them anything.
Excellent points! Our education system is missing the point about what learning is. Much of learning is building on the foundation that a person has already established. Much of that foundation is based around facts. Facts gives us a frame of reference on which to build understanding. It applies to every subject that you will ever study. We do not get understanding without grasping some facts first.
Many of the teachers I see spend a great deal of class time on projects such as posters and other drawings. This has its place in the earlier grades but what purpose does it serve to do a poster in high school English? What information are these students remembering from that exercise? The goal seems to be classroom work that can be hung on the walls. I've noticed a trend where there seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of classroom projects hanging on the wall and the amount of actual learning taking place.
I subbed recently in an 8th grade math class. The students were below average since this was a class that the brightest students had taken in 6th grade. The students were taking a test. As I walked around the classroom, I was asked a question by a couple of students. They were having difficulty with the following problem. "What is √25?" They had a problem because they could not find the square root function on their calculator. It was obvious that some of these students had no clue what a square root is, but if they could plug the square root sign and 25 into their calculator they would have the answer. The calculators where so complicated that even though the square root function was obviously on the calculator, you had to look for it. When I collected the tests, I noticed that several students had given 625 as the answer.
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