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Home > Professional Development
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Professional Development
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In This Section
There are currently more than 110,000 AP teachers and administrators worldwide. AP recognizes that a critical factor in improving AP student achievement is effectively supporting these AP professionals. An important component involves addressing teachers' particular needs in terms of course-specific content and pedagogical knowledge.
Our goals include expanding professional development opportunities such as our workshops and summer institutes, providing teaching resources for AP courses, addressing equity by building partnerships with universities and other organizations, and advancing the field by continually learning more effective ways to support the AP community.
About AP Teachers
AP teachers are crucial to the Program's success. The AP Program recognizes teachers as the key to raising student achievement and excellence. Their energy and enthusiasm for their subjects inspire students; their knowledge and skills motivate their peers. For many of these dedicated educators, AP proves to be a life-changing experience.
- Most AP teachers derive enormous satisfaction from working in greater depth with a group of motivated students.
- Many teachers who attend AP workshops and Summer Institutes for professional development find they improve as teachers in general, not just as teachers of AP.
- Many appreciate the open dialogue and exchange of ideas with the diverse members of the AP community, which includes college faculty, school administrators, and other high school teachers.
While the AP Program does not have a set of formal requirements that teachers must satisfy prior to teaching an AP course, the Program suggests that AP teachers have considerable experience, and usually an advanced degree in the discipline, before undertaking an AP course. Participating in an AP workshop for professional development is generally one of the first steps to becoming a successful AP teacher. These workshops offer intensive subject-specific training on the content and methods of teaching AP courses, and they serve as a forum for exchanging ideas about AP. In addition, teachers can receive continuing education units (CEUs) for attending College Board workshops. The College Board is authorized by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) to offer CEUs. IACET is an internationally recognized organization for standards and authorization for continuing education and training.
 About Institutes and Workshops
Working with Partners
Providing the depth and breadth of professional support that the AP community merits is a daunting challenge and demands close collaboration with schools, universities, professional associations, and other organizations. AP is building capacity through varied types of collaborations and partnerships, especially to target high program priorities, such as increasing the numbers of minority AP students served and increasing the range of professional development offered.
Some of our partners are:
- Alliance Associations of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ)
- American Association of Teachers of German (AATG)
- American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP)
- American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR)
- American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
- American Historical Association (AHA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- The Asia Society
- Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ)
- Bowdoin College
- Center for Advanced Study of Education
- Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools (CLASS)
- Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA)
- City University of New York (CUNY)
- Computer Science Teachers Association
- The Embassy of Italy
- Environmental Literacy Council
- The Freeman Foundation
- Hanban
- History Teaching Institute at Ohio State University
- The Japan Foundation
- Mathematical Association of America (MAA)
- The Math Gateway (National Science Digital Library (NSDL) portal)
- Ministry of Education, Taiwan
- National Association of Direct Supervisors of Foreign Languages (NADSFL)
- National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT)
- National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL)
- National Council on Economic Education (NCEE)
- National Italian American Foundation (NIAF)
- National Teacher Training Institute (NTTI)/Channel 13
- National Writing Project
- New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)
- The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL)
- Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA)
- Organization of American Historians (OAH)
- Rice University
- The Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of American History
- Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT)
- The Starr Foundation
- SUNYSAT/New York Network
- UNICO National
- University of California: Riverside
- University of Virginia's Center for the Liberal Arts (UVA-CLA)
- World History Association
Joining and Building the AP Community
We believe that "professional development" goes far beyond attending workshops, and involves becoming an active participant in a teaching community beyond one's own institution. We encourage teachers to become part of the growing collaborative community that is AP. Professional opportunities include serving as an AP Reader and as a Workshop Consultant. During June each year, college faculty and high school teachers from all over the world gather at sites around the United States for the annual AP Readings, in order to evaluate and score millions of AP students' answers to free-response sections of the AP Exam. Workshop Consultants are innovative, dedicated, and successful AP teachers, pre-AP trained teachers, and college faculty members who work with their peers on teaching methods in their particular disciplines. Other opportunities include service on development committees and special working groups, as well as developing content and materials for AP Central®.
Become a Workshop Consultant
Become an AP Exam Reader
Other Available Resources
The College Board also offers teachers other program resources. The AP Program produces a variety of print materials -- both about the program and in specific subject areas. There are over 189 print and/or online resources currently available through the College Board Store, the ETS Store, and the AP Document Library.
The College Board Store
AP Document Library
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