Changes to AP biology test?

As a college preparatory high school biology teacher, I am thrilled by these changes. Our current AP Bio text is 55 chapters, over 1200 pages in length. Cramming all of that info into the heads of 17/18 year olds in the course of less than 32 weeks (tests are given in May)is absurd. While college admissions departments seem to love it, biology professors recognize the futility of such activity and departments accept it for credit in fewer and fewer places. And the labs are exercises in recipe following. Narrowing the curriculum, and substituting depth for breadth, is not dumbing down.

The goal, according to the Times, is to allow the students to “focus on bigger concepts and stimulate more analytic thinking.”

I'm not that familiar with the AP tests. The College Board is very protective.

But if my experience is any indication, the revised test items will be field tested this May.

A lot of the tests that I'm working with are trying to do two things; 1) make more opened answers (i.e. short answer/essay 2) Delve into 'innovative items' that are simulations on the computer where the student must manipulate the experiment or data and answer questions, graph results, draw conclusions etc.

The killer for this is money. That's one reason that the AP exams are so expensive, each question on that exam costs between $500 and $1000.

I work in this industry so if anyone's curious, I'll tell you what I can.

Replacing rote memorization with understanding basic concepts and experimentation is long-overdue. JBS Haldane wrote that a good course in systematic botany “taught along the lines of Greek grammar” was sufficient to immunize the student against any further interest in biology.

I always wondered what most of the students in our introductory biology courses really got out of them (when I taught in them in the 1970s). There were tons of Facts they had to learn to regurgitate. I hope that things have improved since then but I fear that they didn't.

I'd like to point out that to teach students things beyond rote memorization, the teachers have to know more than beyond rote memorization... most do not.

I'll further add that every study for the last 50 years has shown that smaller class sizes (especially in science) and fewer classes for each teacher to teach both result in massive improvements in student learning. This has been an uncontroversial fact for decades... yet teachers have more and more classes with more and more students in them.

One year, I taught IPC (physical science), 1 Biology, 2 Chemistry classes, Oceanography, and TAKS Prep. It's just not physically possible to do two days a week (minimum by state law in Texas) for lab with 4 different lab classes.

Better late than never. Wish the bozos had thought about this 15 years back, my daughter walked out of AP Bio in disgust, and my son has sworn that although he is doing chemistry he will never go near biochemistry of any sort ever again. Both of them use applied math extensively in their careers, and aren't science averse. But they tell me that it is impossible to get an integrated view of biology the way it is taught.

This looks good, but I'd like to say a word in favor of insightful, organized memorization.

It is very valuable to have been exposed to a large body of meaningful knowledge and to have made an effort to remember it

The dichotomy between critical thinking and "memorization" is to some degree a false one. For thinking to be critical rather than naive, it is implicit that adequate information must be present.

There is a word for someone who relies on their own uninformed, arbitrary thoughts, without examining the already known facts. That word is "ignoramus". Unfortunately, such individuals often claim to be engaged in "critical thinking".

What is already known should, of course, be examined critically. But it should also be examined honestly. Biased, ignorant denial of things that are well-established for good reasons is not critical thinking.

One common type of "ID advocate" buffoon is the ill-informed and immature individual (*"immature" does not refer to calendar age*) who, believing (or needing to, for psychological reasons)
himself a "genius", assumes that his opinions about a field of knowledge are equal to those of people who possess expertise in said field.

This is literally logically equivalent to a buffoon with no knowledge of the Japanese language assuming that if he is a "genius" he must be able to speak Japanese better than a native speaker, yet it is common.

The questions in the post above are excellent and require both knowledge and critical thinking to answer; I am not objecting in any way to them.

Let me re-emphasize that I am not objecting to the changes in the AP Biology test, and that the questions above look good, but that I am merely pointing out that the term "critical thinking" is often abused, and that it is often falsely presented as a shortcut around actually examining facts about reality that may challenge biases. In short, when I hear someone say "critical thinking" I often worry that they are about to argue for uncritical embrace of superficial biases.

After teaching A.P. biology for years, all I can say is " it's about d@#m time. The A.P. curriculum was far too long and now that I'm teaching intro biology in college I can see even the college courses don't try to cover as much as A.P. tries to do. The only school I have ever seen that could cover it all had block schedule and double blocked all it's science A.P. courses. I would love to see better labs that allow more investigation but unless they have a good team work them up I'm afraid too many courses will revert to "look see" labs

harold said: This looks good, but I'd like to say a word in favor of insightful, organized memorization. The questions in the post above are excellent and require both knowledge and critical thinking to answer; I am not objecting in any way to them.

Memorization is indeed quite valuable. But what was asked of AP students was not memorization, but pre-Med short term recall. The very worst kind of learning where large amounts of information is crammed and then forgotten. My biggest concern if you read the New York Times article is the extent to which the AP is influencing college curricula. That's way too much tail wagging the dog. A much more elegant solution in my opinion happens in Minnesota where Juniors and Seniors can apply and pass selection criteria to complete advanced coursework at a local college free of charge.

I share the enthusiasm of several others posting here with regards to the forthcoming improvements in the A. P. Biology curriculum. These are changes that are long overdue, and those that truly mirror what happens at some of the most selective colleges and universities. For example, I know that for years Ken Miller has taught at Brown University the equivalent of two semesters of freshman biology in a one semester biology course in which critical thinking and laboratory work are emphasized over mere rote memorization.

JGB said: Memorization is indeed quite valuable. But what was asked of AP students was not memorization, but pre-Med short term recall. The very worst kind of learning where large amounts of information is crammed and then forgotten.

Jkelp said: ...they tell me that it is impossible to get an integrated view of biology the way it is taught.

Paul Burnett said:

Jkelp said: ...they tell me that it is impossible to get an integrated view of biology the way it is taught.

Perhaps there are enough biologists already, and the biology class structure has evolved to drive away students who would otherwise clog the field with an excess of talent? Are we talking about preparatory classes for entry-level professional biologists, or introductory / "executive summary" classes for non-biologists - biology for liberal arts majors and such?

I personally don't think that there should be a serious distinction in content expected of majors and non-majors in the introductory course. If we as science educators truly desire that students be scientifically literate that does put a very high content expectation on the nonmajors.

My experience is as a biology professor teaching both introductory courses for biology majors and general education courses for non-majors. I have always tried to teach biology from a how did we come to know what we know, and why did we think it important to find out foundation. All of biology is important, but cannot be covered in a single introductory or general course. So I have evolved into teaching less and less about less and less. I think it better that students have good understanding of a few basic principles, rather than a superficial understanding of a lot of principles, some pretty minor.

Memorization is an important part of learning; but, as far as I know, there is little or no teaching of techniques for efficient and effective memorization. This should be taught at a fairly early level, as ability to efficiently memorize is useful throughout life.

I agree on the early teaching of memorization skills. My own experience is that except for the core ideas in my major that were covered multiple times, I don't recall factual information nearly as well as I do stuff I learned when I was still in high school. Concepts seem to stick much better, but the individual facts, much less so.

JGB said: I agree on the early teaching of memorization skills. My own experience is that except for the core ideas in my major that were covered multiple times, I don't recall factual information nearly as well as I do stuff I learned when I was still in high school. Concepts seem to stick much better, but the individual facts, much less so.

My brief experience teaching AP Bio has me looking at this announcement as another step in a process that the College Board has been moving for some time now. This isn't a radical departure.

What has me interested is how creationists teachers and creationist sympathizer teachers are going to react to it. There's quite a few of them that insist on making human physiology the main concept of their AP Bio course, as well as many who feel compelled to offer creationism books as suggested reading. Then there are some who simply steal the name "AP Bio" and teach "the strengths and weaknesses" in a class or two in a course that doesn't treat evolution as a primary concept.

Mike said: My brief experience teaching AP Bio has me looking at this announcement as another step in a process that the College Board has been moving for some time now. This isn't a radical departure. What has me interested is how creationists teachers and creationist sympathizer teachers are going to react to it. There's quite a few of them that insist on making human physiology the main concept of their AP Bio course, as well as many who feel compelled to offer creationism books as suggested reading. Then there are some who simply steal the name "AP Bio" and teach "the strengths and weaknesses" in a class or two in a course that doesn't treat evolution as a primary concept.

JGB said: I personally don't think that there should be a serious distinction in content expected of majors and non-majors in the introductory course. If we as science educators truly desire that students be scientifically literate that does put a very high content expectation on the nonmajors.

OgreMkV said: A school that teaches AP Biology without having a CollegeBoard certified teacher and curriculum can get into a lot of trouble. "AP" in that instance is a trademark and CollegeBoard is serious about making sure that students are getting what they need out of it.

Off topic but fun
I received a postcard from ARN and the first paragraph sounded like good news to me.

"Greetings from the ARN Staff. The economy has taken its toll on us here at ARN with our donations and product sales this year at less than half of what they were two years ago. In order to cut costs we are mailing out this postcard rather than our Annual Report."

"Less than half", could we hope that it's donors getting smarter rather than just a bad economy?

Sylvilagus said:

OgreMkV said: A school that teaches AP Biology without having a CollegeBoard certified teacher and curriculum can get into a lot of trouble. "AP" in that instance is a trademark and CollegeBoard is serious about making sure that students are getting what they need out of it.

Actually, College Board no longer "certifies" AP teachers, only the AP curriculum.

OgreMkV said: Really, when did that happen? I took my AP class classes less than 4 years ago...

Interesting. When I took the AP Environmental Science course, the instructors were very hardcore. And CollegeBoard had to approve the curriculum you used.

I don't know if they blanket approve everything, but I was told it would take about 6 weeks to get approval so I had to submit the curriculum (under the username I got when I attended the course) by May preceding the fall I wanted to start.

Weird.

Ah well, I never actually got to teach the class anyway.

OgreMkV said:

Sylvilagus said:

OgreMkV said: A school that teaches AP Biology without having a CollegeBoard certified teacher and curriculum can get into a lot of trouble. "AP" in that instance is a trademark and CollegeBoard is serious about making sure that students are getting what they need out of it.

Actually, College Board no longer "certifies" AP teachers, only the AP curriculum.

Really, when did that happen? I took my AP class classes less than 4 years ago...

Well so much for that. Since they just certify the curiculum and don't do any classroom visits, then there's nothing preventing the liars for jesus to... well... lie.*

*Not that there was anything preventing them before.

JGB said: I agree on the early teaching of memorization skills. My own experience is that except for the core ideas in my major that were covered multiple times, I don't recall factual information nearly as well as I do stuff I learned when I was still in high school. Concepts seem to stick much better, but the individual facts, much less so.

W. H. Heydt said: That was the attitude of the UC Berkeley Chem. department in the late '60s when I was there. The policy was that they taught chemistry to everyone who took a chem course, major or non-major. Unlike the Physics department, where Physics 10 was a non-science-major course.

harold said: This looks good, but I'd like to say a word in favor of insightful, organized memorization... In short, when I hear someone say "critical thinking" I often worry that they are about to argue for uncritical embrace of superficial biases.

Chip Poirot said: Several years ago I attended a workshop on teaching and media. It was about what would be expected. The primary speaker spent a considerable amount of time talking about how badly his colleagues taught, what a great, innovative teacher he was because he taught concepts (instead of details) and used media in the classroom. He then went o to disparage research (apparently he no longer does research but instead travels-and gets paid!-to talk about how bad a teacher the "traditional teachers" are). He then touted another biology teacher who didn't have her students do research projects to graduate, but instead encouraged them to teach.

A good deal of the problem of what to teach and approaches is that students need to know more when they get to college. I'm completely dumbstruck by the silliness of what generally passes for learning in middle school, when standing beside what the students are expected to do to get AP credit just a couple of years later. If more was expected of students at a younger age, when they are better memorizers there would be a much more natural progression to concept heavy and dense material in their college years. I've done the experiment, 8th graders can get some valuable insights into nature by reading some of Feynman's lecture for example (I recommend his presentation of quantum mechanics in the Messenger lecture)

JGB said: A good deal of the problem of what to teach and approaches is that students need to know more when they get to college. I'm completely dumbstruck by the silliness of what generally passes for learning in middle school, when standing beside what the students are expected to do to get AP credit just a couple of years later. If more was expected of students at a younger age, when they are better memorizers there would be a much more natural progression to concept heavy and dense material in their college years. I've done the experiment, 8th graders can get some valuable insights into nature by reading some of Feynman's lecture for example (I recommend his presentation of quantum mechanics in the Messenger lecture)