Good News: AP Biology Is Changing, Part One

Advanced Placement Biology is a beginning college biology course for high school juniors and seniors.  The AP Biology course actually belongs to The College Board (Educational Testing Service); that’s the outfit that also owns the SAT, the GRE, and various other qualifying exams used in higher education.

         The College Board outlines the AP Biology course so that high school teachers can teach it.  The College Board also writes, administers, and grades the final exam.  Many colleges and universities will give entering freshmen college credit for taking AP Biology if they get a high enough grade on the final.

         For years, I taught AP Biology at Tinley Park High School in Illinois District 228.  It was an exciting and rewarding experience.  Since there were four high schools in District 228, and since the AP Biology class lasted two hours, we started every morning at 7:00 AM so that students could get back to their home high schools without missing too much of the day.  Getting to know and work with students from a variety of schools was great for me, the teacher, and for all the students.

         But there were also problems.  The amount of material we had to cover each year was overwhelming.  I was always looking for a textbook that could lop off 300-400 pages without dumbing down.  The course called for a lot of rote memorization, yet we had to cover whole chapters in three days, leading to 3 exams every two weeks, nearly impossible for even the most dedicated students if they were also going learn anything in their other courses. 

         We also had to cover 12 required labs throughout the year.  These were fun, but the hypotheses were built in and so called for little independent thought.  There was never any time to go back and reexamine or redesign the lab if a hypothesis was disproved.  There was never time to learn from a disproved hypothesis as scientists actually do. 

         But stay tuned: Now there is good news about AP Biology.