|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Home > Pre-AP > Workshops > Pre-AP: Instructional Leadership Strategies--Using Data to Improve Student Preparation for AP Courses
|
Pre-AP: Instructional Leadership Strategies--Using Data to Improve Student Preparation for AP Courses
|
|
| | This one-day workshop is designed for administrators, counselors, and teachers interested in collecting, organizing, analyzing, and using data for continuing school improvement and creating access to AP courses for all students. At the end of the workshop, participants will understand how to use data effectively to make placement and curricular decisions. Topics addressed include destroying achievement myths, using data to close achievement gaps, disaggregating data, and assessing policies and practices.
General themes:
- Plans for increasing student achievement in AP
- Existing perceptions about AP programs and/or courses and how they have an impact on student participation and enrollment in AP programs and/or courses
- Ways that data-driven decisions can improve student performance
- Examples for analyzing and disaggregating data to inform teaching and learning
- Ways that data can be used to close achievement gaps between nontraditional and traditional student groups
- Assessment of policies and practices within the participant's school/district and to determine alignment and next steps in relation to the College Board's equity policy
- Organization of AP data to present achievement data to various stakeholders
- Importance of building and sustaining an AP leadership team
The workshop conforms to:
- The College Board's mission, particularly access and equity
- NASSP
The workshop provides:
- Connection between Pre-AP/AP and student success
- In-depth discussion of various stakeholders' roles within a systemwide approach to improving student achievement
- Achievement data analysis
- Activities for participants that serve as catalysts for future discussions
- Recommended professional development and resources (AP Central, Pre-AP professional development, and so on)
Agenda
Section 1: A Closer Look at Achievement Myths
This section will discuss some of the misconceptions of student achievement, including myths, in an attempt to bring awareness of the need and suggestions for increasing student participation in AP. Participants are asked to share their perceptions of AP through varying perspectives and to consider why those perceptions exist.
Section 2: The Importance of Data-Driven Decisions
This section will focus on data formats and on determining additional ways that data can be used to improve AP programs. Participants are asked to brainstorm ways of utilizing data for improvement purposes.
Break
Section 3: Analyzing and Disaggregating Data
This section will examine a school district's achievement data and show how the district might disaggregate data to further identify key strengths, areas for instructional improvement, and actions to take to improve student performance. Participants are asked to examine their current practices and to suggest possibilities for improvement using the following focused questions:
- What do the data tell us are our key findings and strengths?
- What do the data tell us are our areas for instructional improvement?
- What actions can we take to improve student achievement?
Section 4: Using Data to Close Achievement Gaps
This section will examine, through school exemplars, how school communities can work to close the achievement gap. Participants are asked to identify and discuss the strategies utilized in the highlighted schools. Further, participants are asked to brainstorm what data might have been necessary to close the achievement gaps in each of the highlighted schools.
Lunch
Section 5: Assessing Policies and Practices
This section will examine current policies and practices in each participant's school/district with regard to AP courses and their AP program. This section will further examine the College Board's equity policy regarding AP. Participants are asked to review a provided case study and develop a solution addressing the issue presented, including possible steps that might be taken by stakeholders to improve student achievement.
Section 6: Displaying Data Effectively
This section will address a summary of steps in presenting achievement data to various stakeholders in order to convey achievement data effectively. Participants are asked to brainstorm other possible means of displaying data effectively.
Break
Section 7: Building and Sustaining an AP Leadership Team
This section will examine the importance of building an AP leadership team. Discussion will include the importance of relationships to and between various stakeholders, including school administrators, school counselors, and district administration. Participants are asked to determine who they might include in an AP leadership team (including parents and students).
Section 8: Pathways to Student Success
This section will synthesize the key elements of the previous seven sections to assist participants in making data work effectively for them. Participants are asked to create a potential plan by brainstorming strategies for increasing student participation in AP, as well as increasing participation from nontraditional student groups.
Authors
Lesli Myers is the coordinator of student support and enrichment at Greece Central School District, which is the eighth-largest district in New York. She supervises school counselors (pre-K through 12) and oversees all of the enrichment programs. She has served as an intervention specialist, high school counselor, and school administrator during her nine-year career with the Rochester City School District. She coauthored the manual Using Data to Increase Student Participation in Advanced Placement for the College Board and has presented at the National Advanced Placement Program Equity Colloquium. She is also the president-elect for the New York State School Counselor Association.
Christopher Miller is an administrator in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction of Greece Central Schools in Rochester, New York.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Course Home Pages