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Home > Features > The TRC: An AP "Google" With Reviews
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The TRC: An AP "Google" With Reviews
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by Laura Estersohn
Scarsdale High School
Scarsdale, New York
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| | Discovering a Time-Saving Resource
As the school year approached, I thought about the changes I wanted to make in my AP Statistics class. Seventy-eight statistics books lined my shelves, twenty-four Web site links were in my Favorite Places, and three software packages sat on my desk. I'd been skimming and clicking, coming up with some good ideas but spending too much time to find them. Fortunately, a friend told me about the Teachers' Resource Catalog (TRC) on AP Central.
In the search menu, I entered the key word "histogram," one of the first topics I teach. Eight reviews of resources appeared. Now, I'm an avid reader of the Electronic Discussion Group postings and thought I was aware of a good number of Web sites, software, and texts. However, at AP Central I learned about two sites, two sets of exam practice materials, and a free software package. And each review contained a hotlink to the resource itself. So with just another click, I was at a Web site looking at lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations, finding new ideas for my first classes.
One of the links took me to StarLibrary.net, a library of lesson plans. A lesson on comparing the standard deviation of two histograms came complete with a worksheet and even a video of a teacher conducting the class. I used this lesson in my own class, and my students gained a deeper understanding of how standard deviation measures average spread and how the heights of histogram bars measure frequencies.
Another search led me to the Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics, a Web site with applets my students used last year when learning the Central Limit Theorem. On reading the review, I was reminded that the site also had an applet for showing the relationship between mean, median, and distribution shape. This year my students were able to grasp this concept more quickly by interactively drawing distribution shapes, noting relative mean and median positions, and explaining the results.
Preparing for Future Topics
I entered search criteria for future topics. "Simulation" returned 27 reviews, "inference" 26, and "lesson plan" 15. Now as any AP Statistics teacher knows, you can get swamped when you start looking at instructional resources. There are simply so many, and some are repetitive. That's where the reviews come in -- they're written by teachers, some of whom are also AP Readers and textbook authors. Reviewers point out specific aspects of the resources that are most helpful. So I knew when looking at a particular Web site to check out the cartoons. Or when looking at a book, even one I've previously used, to see its alternate derivation of the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of sample proportions. A short biography of each reviewer helps put the review in context.
The Teachers' Resource Catalog was useful in finding sites I had heard about but couldn't remember the name of. For example, I vaguely recalled a teacher telling me about a good site for multiple-choice, AP-type questions, but I couldn't remember more details. The TRC took me right there.
After each review, you have an opportunity to add your own comments. This gives AP teachers a forum to create a community of users sharing how a resource has enhanced their classes. My class is certainly the richer because of resources I've learned about from the Electronic Discussion Group and the TRC. Now we can all give others the benefit of our experiences by adding our comments to the Teachers' Resource Catalog.
Laura Estersohn teaches four sections of AP Statistics at Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York. She holds a master's degree in operations research from Yale University.
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