Reply to AP Statistics as a 10th grade elective

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I teach AP Stats at an IB school.

Yes, AP Stats is frequently taken as an elective before starting the IB sequence (at my school you take IB Analysis 1 followed by IB analysis 2, so keeping those two courses together is ideal). The only prerequisite for the course is algebra 2.

The prior posters have a bit of misinformation in their comments.  There is no calculus, it is taught from a purely algebraic/conceptual standpoint, and honestly the kids who have already taken calculus have a tougher time with stats because they want to spit out straight calculations and stats is more logic/interpretation than calculation.  It is a very conceptual course.  The kids who go back to IB from AP stats tend to write very strong IAs.

The super strong math kids honestly have a hard time with stats because it feels "fluffy" to them.  It's a logic course with an undertone of math, but it's not pure calculations.[/quote]

If you teach Statistics and claim there are no calculus [b]concepts[/b] in the class, then that’s really concerning, not being aware of basic things that calculating probabilities from critical z scores involves integration, I’m wondering if you actually have a degree in math, or what your professional background is.

Even your claims that statistics is more logic/interpretation than calculation and that it is a very conceptual course tell me all I need to know about how good of a teacher you are. Sure, your class is conceptual with a sprinkling of plug and chug formulas but that doesn’t mean that’s what statistics is.

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My degree is in math and I was a computer programmer before I became a teacher.  The AP Statistics curriculum is extremely prescribed, there is no real room for going off into calculus.  90% of the kids who take the class haven't seen calculus, and only about half have even seen precalc.  There is no room for calculus in the intro level material.

Sorry that bothers you.  Please complain to the college board--I didn't decide what should be taught, I just teach it.[/quote]

It’s not bothering me that you’re teaching the prescribed recipe that college board wants you to, it’s more that you decide posts are misinformation based on how you are teaching your own class, which from what you say, doesn’t seem too rigorous.

The response to the OP, there is the nuance that the same AP stats class can be taught differently before and after calculus, and often when taken early, like in the 10th grade, there are a lot of shortcuts, simplifications, ‘conceptualization’, and brushing over that can result in a poor score on the AP exam.
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It's the same class, whether you take it in 10th grade, 11th grade, or 12th grade. [/quote]

This. You have a mix of students with all different backgrounds. Usually there are 20-30 students per class. You cannot customize much for individual students. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that conceptual means easy. AP Physics 1 is conceptual but most students don’t find it an easy class or easy AP exam.[/quote]

Unfortunately in education speak, conceptual almost always means watered down, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the AP Physics 1 course. Among all AP math and science classes AP Physics 1&2 are probably the most misguided of all, they don’t do a good job in teaching the fundamentals, are not good for STEM major credits, and take way too long (2 years) for what is an introductory course. It’s so bad that I can’t think of a good situation to recommend it. For first encounter with physics, a high school level class works fine, for the students advanced in math, AP physics C is much better.

For statistics, I get that students come at different levels, but you often see just formulas thrown around when it would really be beneficial to spend a few minutes on the how and why. I’ve also seen AP Stat classes that never mention the explicit formula for the normal distribution and college board or not, there’s no excuse for it to be missing in what is a college level class.[/quote]

We will have to agree to disagree. AP Physics 1 has a very low pass rate. 
It is a good foundational course that really gets students to think about physics. Perhaps you have only encountered bad AP Physics 1 teachers. My son had an amazing AP Physics 1 teacher in HS and he loved the class. He breezed through first year college physics as an engineering major as he said he had already developed a deep conceptual understanding of Mechanics in his AP Physics 1 class. You sound overly rigid and opinionated. [/quote]

We’re definitely disagreeing on this. I’m glad that your son enjoyed the class, that does matter the most, but if I were to recommend one class it would be dual enrollment 3 semester calculus based physics.

Signed,
Course 8 PhD, ‘11[/quote]
The MIT advice here is spot on. Conceptual physics taught in an algorithmic way without a very strong teacher who can explain a lot of the intuition and devise ways to get students to understand and connect, can become a recipe for disaster for many kids. Especially for many of the kids who are math capable, but have a hard time understanding physics without math. Especially if they rush through a trillion topics (as they do in the AP curriculum) without understanding something in depth. The hope for most kids is that they will enjoy mechanics early in the class.. if they don't catch on to it, it's highly likely that with an absence of math, they will find the rest of the topics a truly miserable experience, akin to learning math formulas without deriving meaning by connecting ideas together.[/quote]

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