tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post7047127583770030158..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: The “5-Page Topic Outline” and the “98-Page Framework”Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-55675837554162871872014-09-13T19:56:50.406-05:002014-09-13T19:56:50.406-05:00The pedagogical model the new AP course is using r...The pedagogical model the new AP course is using runs more towards essay answers than multiple choice answers. It is not a joke that test answers are a huge business on the Internet. We are finding whole papers, discussion forums, entire tests, and other stuff from previous years out there for sale. In some cases an entire class's output has been discovered.<br /><br />Now a great deal of this is due to laziness among teachers who never change anything. I deal with both online and ground classes so I vary my stuff a lot. I am moving more and more of my stuff to essay based assessment with quizzes used as learning tool. I also set those quizzes to random questions out of a large question bank so they never get the same quiz. If they want to memorize the answers to the questions more power to them. But they have to put it into action with the essays so at that point the learning kicks in.<br /><br />That is a major advantage of using an inquiry based pedagogical model. I did not want to say Krieger was complaining because of business reasons. However, I think you're making a valid point. He is retired and this is a new pedagogy which he would have to adapt to in order to develop study guides. Part of his business is also due to the huge expansion in the AP in the last three decades and that has led to a problem with people actually able to teach the course. <br /><br />If you plan to address this later, I am more than willing to wait until then. This model does work, but instructors have to learn it in order to use it. As I said earlier, cheating is a big business right now because a lot of college level instructors are more interested in lecturing and do not want to change their model.Xathoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05910312481367024828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-79856592198711591962014-09-13T17:12:16.990-05:002014-09-13T17:12:16.990-05:00Krieger does have a lot of experience teaching the...Krieger does have a lot of experience teaching the A.P. course, and he’s put that experience toward a series of test-preparation books. Those books are necessarily based on the old test. The current team at the College Board has said that one of the goals of the new test is to make fact-cramming and other strategies that Krieger teaches less effective. (Whether that can work is another question.) I plan to talk more about that soon.<br /><br />I don't see Krieger as necessarily aligned ideological with the right-wing (and especially religious right) websites that are quoting his criticisms of the test. It looks more like an alliance of convenience over this issue. Both he and people who have picked up his complaints are misrepresenting the new guidelines, but in different terms and with different emphases. <br /><br />You're right that the historiography of the new guidelines is very much in line with the field—and, based on your experience, with school teaching. The far right has ideological objections to that approach, as well as baseless suspicion of any change they associate, however tenuously, with the current President (see Common Core). Krieger just seems to find the new approach harder to coach for. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-87169751224797375642014-09-13T16:02:36.786-05:002014-09-13T16:02:36.786-05:00I really have to question the validity of the grou...I really have to question the validity of the groups behind the attacks on the AP History course. Looking at Larry Krieger's dislike for the changes, we find his comments distributed across a multitude of conservative forums and websites. Also, many of them are religiously based and I have a strong feeling that is playing a major role in the reaction to the changes. I am not going to attack Krieger because the man obviously has been an educator for quite some time. <br /><br />I just do not see what Krieger sees. You've noted that in several instances what Krieger says is not true. In fact, as I go through Krieger's comments I am left wondering if Krieger is not guilty of falling behind on current scholarship in most of these cases. <br /><br />What I really think is going on is that Krieger is from the older school of teaching US history which relied upon a top down approach via the so called Great Men of History. This new AP course is reflecting the current scholarship with a varied approach that relies a lot on the bottom up method. When I break down what Krieger says that seems to be the key element linking all of it together. <br /><br />One thing that is important in the teaching of history in courses like this and the survey courses in the delivery method and the instructor themselves. That matters a great deal. I've got my textbook from my courses right here for the American History to 1865 portion and it is closely aligned with what the AP History course is saying. I did not select the textbook as I had no say in the matter (it was here when I got here), but this text has been around for a while now.<br /><br />One of the problems with the survey course has always been the amount of content to cover and short time to do so. That has not changed and sooner or later will have to. Hopefull these politically driven attacks on the teaching of history will fade away and we can get on with actually teaching.Xathoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05910312481367024828noreply@blogger.com