NACOL’s Position on Advanced Placement Science
Article link: http://www.nacol.org/docs/NACOLPositiononCollegeBoardAPScienceCriteriaFINAL.pdf
This position paper comes from the North American Council for Online Learning or NACOL. It was released as a response to the Advanced Placement Audit being conducted by the College Board. Ostensibly to protect its' reputation and copyright, the College board has created a process by which AP courses must be approved in order for a school to have permission to use the AP designation on its transcripts. To enforce this, colleges and universities are sent a list of all schools approved to offer AP courses and the courses they are approved to offer. Here's my short commentary on this process before I move on to the paper:
Rant over. On to NACOL's position. My present annoyances aside, I've been a pretty big supporter of the use of virtual labs, and I still hope to get them working in my class. I'll always use all sorts of simulations as demos, but I really hope to get them working in my class. NACOL is arguing that a virtual school offering virtual labs is equivalent to a face-to-face school with wet labs. They cite their higher AP pass rate as a prime example of why their system works. I think they are wrong, and they fail to build even a mediocre argument for their opinion.
Before I taught in the high school classroom, I taught in an undergraduate chemistry lab at FSU. While most students didn't do much more in the way of chemistry lab classes (maybe one more class), many did continue on to further chemistry courses, and they needed all of the lab skills they acquired to be successful. AP exams do NOT measure laboratory skills, nor do they measure the understanding students gain of concepts in the laboratory. Students in a virtual course should have no disadvantage, because the lab requirements of the program are not assessed. The pass rate at a virtual school should be higher than the national average, because it is above average students who choose to take an online AP course. Virtual AP courses are true electives, while county and state initiatives currently push severely underqualified and underprepared (and undermotivated) students into AP courses, then tell them they have to pay money NOT to take the exam.
In the grand scheme of things, I think AP is being ridiculous with their force behind the lab requirement, and shame on colleges if they choose to grant lab credit to a student who has never touched a buret. The onus of enforcement of AP lab requirements should fall on the colleges and not on the high schools. If a student wants to take the AP exam, and wants to take an online course to prepare him for it, the inability to do wet labs should not prevent it. Those students, however, should only receive lecture course credit, instead of lab credit.
This position paper comes from the North American Council for Online Learning or NACOL. It was released as a response to the Advanced Placement Audit being conducted by the College Board. Ostensibly to protect its' reputation and copyright, the College board has created a process by which AP courses must be approved in order for a school to have permission to use the AP designation on its transcripts. To enforce this, colleges and universities are sent a list of all schools approved to offer AP courses and the courses they are approved to offer. Here's my short commentary on this process before I move on to the paper:
Colleges are NOT going to look through a list to ensure that classes were approved by an AP audit. Schools that have no qualms about putting inappropriate AP designations on classes are not going to change that fact. On top of that, the audit process is a joke, with identical submissions receiving different feedback and the process does not evaluate the teacher in any way, just the curriculum. I don't see what good they expect to come out of this process.
Rant over. On to NACOL's position. My present annoyances aside, I've been a pretty big supporter of the use of virtual labs, and I still hope to get them working in my class. I'll always use all sorts of simulations as demos, but I really hope to get them working in my class. NACOL is arguing that a virtual school offering virtual labs is equivalent to a face-to-face school with wet labs. They cite their higher AP pass rate as a prime example of why their system works. I think they are wrong, and they fail to build even a mediocre argument for their opinion.
Before I taught in the high school classroom, I taught in an undergraduate chemistry lab at FSU. While most students didn't do much more in the way of chemistry lab classes (maybe one more class), many did continue on to further chemistry courses, and they needed all of the lab skills they acquired to be successful. AP exams do NOT measure laboratory skills, nor do they measure the understanding students gain of concepts in the laboratory. Students in a virtual course should have no disadvantage, because the lab requirements of the program are not assessed. The pass rate at a virtual school should be higher than the national average, because it is above average students who choose to take an online AP course. Virtual AP courses are true electives, while county and state initiatives currently push severely underqualified and underprepared (and undermotivated) students into AP courses, then tell them they have to pay money NOT to take the exam.
In the grand scheme of things, I think AP is being ridiculous with their force behind the lab requirement, and shame on colleges if they choose to grant lab credit to a student who has never touched a buret. The onus of enforcement of AP lab requirements should fall on the colleges and not on the high schools. If a student wants to take the AP exam, and wants to take an online course to prepare him for it, the inability to do wet labs should not prevent it. Those students, however, should only receive lecture course credit, instead of lab credit.
posted by MJS at 6:29 PM
5 Comments:
WOW! I love your comments and opinions. We are going through the audit as well. My calculus teacher has submitted hers and recieved the acceptance. We are still working on AP Statistics. I do think the College Board is trying to lend some credibility - not that I agree with the process. There are a lot of schools who let the kids enroll in an AP but not take the test. I am not sure how Stanton works. We have a very high pass rate at Episcopal and it is very hard to get into some of these courses. They are required to take the AP test. In recent years, we have had a lot of pressure to let more students in because of the competition to get in college. We are letting more students in and they are doing ok. I think this will all come full circle - we are expecting too much at times, after all this is suppose to be "high school".
I agree with your comments about the virtual labs and when the are appropriate!
Beth
Matt,
It is interesting to hear you and Beth talk about the AP process. Aparently there is an option for a pre-AP marine biology course for middle school levels. I don't know much about it. My principal told me about it in passing. I wonder if it is worth all the hassle.
Jessica
Thank you for bring this to my attention. I was a microbiology major in college, and I can tell you real lab experience is invaluable. I think virtual labs are a great way to practice and allow students to become familiar with a technique, but they should not be allowed to replace real, hands-on labs.
An online course can use virtual labs to learn real science, but not simulated labs.
Would you argue that the Mars rovers are not science?
By blending virtual labs using real experiments with do-it-yourself experiments, students can get all that is required for real understanding of science.
Of course, they won't get to use a buret. However, that would not take long in an actual lab anyway. Let the colleges provide an "Intro to Lab Work" mini-course for those with lab experience deprivation.
A science course should have science as its purpose, not passing some exam.
Take a look at http://www.nacol.org/docs/NACOLPositiononCollegeBoardAPScienceCriteriaFINAL.pdf
for my take on all of this.
We can do beter!
Oops. Most sorry to put in wrong link. Also, for truncation.
Just go to smartscience.net and click on "Open AP Letter" button.
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