The results from this past year’s AP Psychology Exam are in now, and I’m relatively pleased with the results. I’m particularly glad that so many students passed the exam.
Looking at the four that did not, I feel bad about not pushing them more — but this is always a struggle that I have. I’m a great believer in students taking personal responsibility for their own learning; with Seniors, that means they sometimes do not do as well as they otherwise could — and there’s a lesson in that for them.
Castro 2014 AP Psych Instructional Planning Report by Eric E Castro
Looking at the Instructional Planning Report above, I’m gratified to see that my students outperformed the national average in every category. But, if I ever watch a sporting event, I like to see a blow-out… and the same is true here. In some categories, for example Psychological Disorders and Treatment, I would’ve liked to see my students outperform the national average by a larger margin.
Looking at the report, I do not see any curricular areas that I need to dramatically increase my focus on, but I think there are instructional areas that I can improve upon — and those really have to do with motivation. I despise using grades as motivators, and so I’ll be tweaking other course policies and procedures in an attempt to get students more engaged with their own learning… without having to rely on the carrot & stick of grades. That will be a topic for another day.