So if you quadruple the number of exams taken, the number passed will... ?

I was browsing a few old files in preparing to clean up my hard drive, and noticed this one... 

In 2006-2007, a huge push was made to get more students to take AP courses, because (I love this) students who take AP courses are more likely to graduate than those who don't. So being in AP courses obviously motivates kids to stay in school. Move along, logicians -nothin' to see here. Principals were given incentives to increase AP enrollment as much as possible.

What harm could it do? Even if a bunch of kids who didn't really belong in the course were in it, the ones who did belong would still get what they needed, right? And the kids who didn't belong would realize that and either drop out or struggle through.

But wait, there's more. If a senior is taking a core course - say, in math, English or science - that is also an AP course, they generally must pass that class to graduate. Principals are also highly incentivized to increase the graduation rate. So flunking, say, 8 or 10 seniors who don't belong in your AP course is  (a) a great way to never teach another AP course, and (b) futile, since the administration will find a way to pass them in the final 3 weeks of school anyway.

Given that, if you teach an AP course at my school, you have two options: (1) teach the course as a regular AP course, lose 1/3 to 1/2 of the class within 8 weeks, resign yourself to having those students stay lost for the next 30 weeks and thus learn absolutely nothing in your course, but give them a C anyway, or  (2) water down the content to the point that everybody learns a little something but only the most diligent have any hope of passing the exam, and then only by doing a lot of independent study.  For the past 7 years, AP Statistics was taught using option 2, and no one has passed the exam. I chose option 1. We'll find out in mid-July if I did any better.

But meanwhile, it seems clear that a lot of teachers choose option 2. (After all, who wants to teach a class every day in which half of the students have given up weeks ago, but know they're going to pass anyway?) Here's what that does to the number of students passing the AP exam:

In the first year (2007), exams passed increased by 9% while exams taken increased by 350%. After that, exams passed declined significantly, and is now at 60% of the number it was at prior to flooding the classes with unprepared students.

Addendum: I did have a student pass, which I'm told is the first time in 7 years anyone from MHS has done so. However, I only had one other student get a 2, with the other 18 in the class getting a 1. I was somewhat disappointed with this result, and would have loved to take another shot at it in 2011-12. Nonetheless, I did prove that Option 1 at least provides a few students the chance to pass the course. I'm convinced that if all AP classes were run that way, fewer unprepared students would take the course, but a much higher percentage would pass.

Another in a long, long line of excellent examples of unintended consequences. Although in this case, it should not have been (and wasn't, by some) unanticipated consequences.

Wired Loops

Wired is an awesome magazine (thanks, Abe!). This month, the cover story is about how our brains and behavior are driven by feedback loops. According to the story, in the 1960's, Albert Bandura "observed that giving individuals a clear goal and a means to evaluate their progress toward that goal (in real time) greatly increased the likelihood they would achieve it." (I added the parenthetical "in real time," because elsewhere in the article that element is shown to be critically important.)

We provide lots of feedback to students, but a lot of it is time-delayed, and very little of it is directly applicable to evaluating their progress (or the extent of their progress) toward the goal (which is often poorly defined anyway.)

So I've been thinking about (1) how to very clearly define the goal in a course, (2) what role interim goals should play, (3) how to measure progress toward the goal or interim goal, (4) how to give immediate feedback about that progress, and (5) how to publicly track my students' progress while keeping each individual's information private.

Here's where I am so far... (more as I think more about it)

Create a pre-test for each 3-week block of work.

Lay out the calendar for the next 3 weeks, showing what's going to be covered each day and which questions on the pre-test could then be answered based on what's been covered through that day.

Give exercises (via class work) on whatever got covered that day.

Have students self-grade that work, and turn in a slip of paper with their name and score so I can track and publish it (with the names stripped out).

Give homework based on their scores (higher score = less homework). Caveat: if their quiz grade is significantly lower than their self-reported class work grades, they automatically end up in the "most homework" category.

Give quizzes I can grade within 10 minutes (10 questions, answers are right or wrong, worksheet pre-configured to spit out grade after answers are typed in). Give an in-class assignment on quiz days so that the class looks like: 5 minute warm-up, 15 minute quiz, 15 minute in-class exercise (while I grade the quizzes), 10 minute quiz return and wrap-up.

Give tests I can grade during my planning period (45 minutes) so I can return them the next day.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

My principal doesn't want me back next year... OK, I can live with that. Thus, he'd rather not praise me at today's end-of-year luncheon... makes sense to me. Unfortunately for him, my kids did really well on the state-mandated exam, and he likes to use the luncheon to hand out awards to teachers for various accomplishments during the school year. So to avoid handing me a lovely inkjet-printed certificate, he made up a category for which I didn't qualify, available only to teachers of "standard" courses (since I taught only Honors). But he neglected to notice the person he gave it to instead of me also didn't teach any standard courses. Sad, really. If he'd just come to me before-hand, I'd have told him to make the category "Most gains by a teacher who isn't me," and we could have all enjoyed the award.