U.S. HISTORY
Keith Wood
kwood@murrayschools.org
Keith has taught in Utah schools since 1974, beginning at a private alternative high school then moving to Murray High School where he currently teaches Honors Sophomore English and AP* U. S. History. He was for sixteen years an adjunct instructor at Salt Lake Community College where he taught introductory college writing courses. He graduated from the University of Utah with a major in history and a minor in English and has an M.Ed. in instructional technology from Utah State University. He is a graduate of the Utah Writing Project and is a six-time winner of the Rotary Club Meritorious Teacher of the Year Award, and is a recipient of a U. S. Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award. He was an on-site AP* reader 1999-2007 and is currently a distributed reader scoring short answer responses online. He has been a College Board faculty consultant since 2001.
4-day AP U. S. History Institute Agenda
AP* Seminars Silicon Valley
July 29-August 1, 2019
Please come to the institute with the following:
Information about the textbook you will be using in the upcoming school year—version or edition, number of chapters, quality of publisher-provided supplementary and online materials.
Your school calendar for the upcoming year with holidays and breaks. If you are new to your school, this might require a phone call to the school or the district. This information may be available online at your school or district web site.
Computer—notebook or tablet, PC or Mac. You will have internet access during the institute. There will be group and individual work time to develop and share yearly pacing guides and on preparing a course audit syllabus (important for new teachers). I will also make available about 5 GB of downloadable resources
=================================================================================
AP U. S. History Summer Institute Key Takeaways
What teachers should know and understand after participating in an AP Summer Institute
What teachers should know and understand after participating in an AP Summer Institute
Understanding the Course
• AP* courses focus on building conceptual understanding and developing transferrable skills.
• AP* history courses focus on building conceptual understandings through the teaching of linked learning objectives and historical development statements, all contextualized around course specific themes.
• The course framework defines the scope of the course and specifies what students must know and be able to do on the AP* Exam.
• Knowing what happened in the past is only the first step; students must be able to make meaning out of historical knowledge by organizing and explaining it.
Planning the Course
• Helping students develop mastery of the course skills requires careful planning to sequence skills in a developmentally appropriate way so that students master prerequisite skills before being asked to complete more complex tasks.
• Sources and examples used in class should be relevant and accessible to your students.
• Teachers should use multiple instructional strategies throughout the course in order to reach and challenge all learners.
Teaching the Course
• Students need multiple opportunities to practice the skills and processes in order to develop mastery over time. Certain strategies can help students explicitly practice those skills and processes.
• Sequencing, pacing, and scaffolding are essential for building students’ understanding and ability to transfer and apply knowledge with the thinking skills and reasoning processes.
• Many of the themes and unit topics connect with each other. Students need to be taught what these connections are and how to use these connections in the development of their claims/arguments.
Assessing Student Progress and Understanding
• Assessments, instruction, and resources should be aligned to learning goals and matched to performance expectations.
• Students need to demonstrate understanding of both the content of the course and the AP historical thinking skills and reasoning processes.
• Assessments and meaningful feedback enable both teachers and students to know what students know and understand.
