PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Early Thoughts on Changes to APHuGe

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At times, flipping the script on teachers is met with rolled eyes, sighs, and the feeling that someone keeps pushing our heads under water. But for the sake of my mental health, I’ve learned that it’s best to embrace change and enjoy picking apart a new challenge with other like-minded professionals.

With that being said, are you all ready for some changes?

Beginning in the 2019-2020 school year, it appears that the AP Human Geography course will make our course more analytic in the way that it assesses student’s understanding. I think it might be pretty cool. I think.

Disclaimer: I have not personally attended any of the APSI courses or received training on the new Course and Exam Description (CED), so my current observations are rather superficial. Use or refuse.

According to the College Board, the biggest changes appear to be:

  • This series of units represents a sequence that is found in widely adopted college textbooks and that many AP Human Geography teachers have told us they follow: 
    1. Thinking Geographically
    2. Population Migration
    3. Cultural Patterns and Processes
    4. Political Patterns and Processes
    5. Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes
    6. Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes
    7. Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes

Even though we can teach this course in any order that best suites our needs, it would be interesting to hear why units 6 and 7 are flipped as the suggested order. They’ve also added the words “Patterns and Processes” for units 4-7, perhaps to greater emphasize the analysis of patterns of spatial data and how it comes to be. Though, I wonder why it is not relevant for unit 2. I am most curious about unit 1 and if emphasis on content will change; Thinking Geographically. The current title, Geography: It’s Nature and Perspectives had many scratching their heads.

This next part might sound pretentious, but please don’t perceive it as such.

Admittedly, until I began my Master’s in Geo., the “perspectives” part would have been way over my head as a new teacher. Teachers really need to understand the historical “turns” of the field of geography to understand where the current field of geography is coming from. I am curious if this topic will be less emphasized. I only began to scrape the surface and I still don’t come close to understanding it fully. Many of us teaching HuGe at the high school level have not taken 400 level courses in Geo, instead being trained in history departments. The philosophy is over most of our heads. I think it is also worth noting that I think many teachers may perceive the title, “It’s NATURE and Perspectives,” as an invitation to teach about the natural environment, instead of the “nature of Geographic study.” I think the new title, “Thinking Geographically,” might help clarify this. Besides, AP offers a whole other course on environmental science.  If you are interested in beefing up your understanding of geography’s nature and perspectives, two books that discuss the historical turns to current perspectives of geography are below.

These books would not be accessible to most high school students, and is more intended for personal professional development. In writing this, I recognize that I would be best served to re-read them myself.

Next AP Bullet Point Change…

  • By organizing the course content and skills into units, we’re able to give you and your students free formative assessments—personal progress checks—that you can assign throughout the year to measure student progress.

This appears to be a new focus of College Board, one that ultimately gives students the ability to have a single “portal” where they can access all of their AP coursework information and formative progress. It looks like teachers across all subjects will also be given more detailed score reports that tell us how students score with content specifics and analytic skills.

I’ve always been a bit cynical of Sal Khan and his neon videos, but this seems to be the direction. As a social science person, it fascinates me how much AP permeated into our school’s coursework. With such a pushback for a standard national curriculum, it is exactly what is happening, just through private enterprise. AP is already beginning their march into “pre-AP” courses, AP seminar, AP research, and it’s WE service learning designation. These of course do not offer college credit, but are nice asterisks for student transcripts. I really enjoy the Human Geography curriculum and I have no doubt, other courses enjoy theirs, but WOW, what a takeover! Kudos College Board. I am blown away with the product they produce, neither in a positive or negative way, just simply impressed. They are a machine.

I do think there are many traditionalists who feel that AP should only be for their best students, but if their school hasn’t already begun their shift towards Equal Opportunity Schooling (EOS), they are in for a culture shock. AP is no longer AP, nor is it meant for only the brightest. It will be an increasing point of frustration for many who hold firmly to the belief that this is a college-leveled course that must be absorbed through college-level means. We must be ready to adapt.

Third AP Bullet point…

  • We want to respect your time and expertise by providing a road map you can modify and adapt to your local priorities and preferences. You can choose to follow this suggestion for how content can be sequenced and paced. As always, you’ll have the flexibility to organize the course content as you like.

This point doesn’t change anything that I currently already do.

In terms of the Exam, College Board writes:

Starting in the 2019-20 school year:

  • The AP Human Geography Exam will have question types and point values that stay consistent every year so that you and your students know what to expect on exam day.
  • The number of multiple-choice questions will be reduced from 75 to 60. 
  • There will be more consistency as to which skills are assessed in every version of the exam.
Exam Updates
Currently (2019 Exam) Starting with the 2020 Exam
Section I: Multiple Choice

75 Questions | 1 Hour | 50% of Exam Score

The specific types of questions vary from exam to exam.

 Section I: Multiple Choice

60 Questions | 1 Hour | 50% of Exam Score

There will now be increased emphasis on analyzing quantitative and qualitative sources in the multiple-choice questions:

  • 5 to 8 sets will each include 2 to 3 questions with a quantitative or qualitative source. 
  • At least 1 of these sets will include a paired set of sources.
Section II: Free Response

3 Questions | 1 Hour, 15 Minutes | 50% of Exam Score

Question types vary from year to year, and may ask students to:

  • Synthesize different topical areas
  • Analyze and evaluate geographical concepts
  • Supply appropriately selected and well-explained real-world examples to illustrate geographic concepts
  • Interpret verbal descriptions, maps, graphs, photographs, and/or diagrams
  • Formulate responses in narrative form

Currently, the number of points for each free-response question ranges from 5-8 points.

 Section II: Free Response

3 Questions | 1 Hour, 15 Minutes | 50% of Exam Score

Task and stimulus types will stay consistent from year to year, with the 3 questions now asking students to:

  1. Describe, explain, apply geographic situation or scenario (no stimulus)
  2. Describe, explain, apply geographic data using data, image, or map (1 quantitative or qualitative source)
  3. Describe, explain, apply geographic data using data, image, and/or map (2 sources, qualitative and/or quantitative)

Each free-response question will now be worth 7 points.

I teach an Intro. to AP Social Sciences course to incoming freshman and if you’ve followed any of the new SAT changes, the social sciences make the cut! Wouldn’t you know it? Civics, psychology, geography, sociology, economics, and the founding documents are important!

As it’s currently presented, the SAT Social Science section requires students to read passages and answer a series of 8ish questions. Others ask students to read two passages with questions using both, and others that provide a chart/map with a passage with connecting questions. These typically include questions that look like, “the word oblivious most likely means…”, “the purpose of the author’s response is…”, “which statement most likely contradicts the author’s thesis?”

While I can’t imagine that the new AP Human Geography exam will model these SAT-style questions, it’s more likely to ask questions about geographic thinking skills. I do appreciate the change towards using multiple qualitative and quantitate sources to answer a series of questions-a skill that SAT is looking for.

History teachers might rush to what they know and embrace the historical thinking skills that include:

  1. Analyzing evidence
  2. Interpretation
  3. Comparison
  4. Contextualization
  5. Synthesis
  6. Causation
  7. Patterns of Continuity and Change over time
  8. Periodization

Another confession: whenever a history teacher says that Human Geography should write DBQs, I might do a slight eye-roll. We are not a practice in historiography and do not research or write like historians do. While geographers can be expected to integrate all of the skills presented in the list above, it is not our position to take multiple primary sources and place them in a greater historical context. Can geographers do this? Absolutely! Give me a map of Historically Black Colleges, the data surrounding teaching jobs offered to African-Americans and Jews, some primary sources about anti-semitism, and then I can draw some conclusions about the phenomenon of Jewish professors at HBCUs in the 40’s and 50’s.

Instead, APUSH teachers can jump off their high-horse, take one for the team every once in awhile, and understand that contemporary and future careers will rely on:

  • Analyzing evidence USING SPATIAL DATA
  • Interpretation OF SPATIAL DATA
  • Comparison OF SPATIAL DATA
  • Contextualization OF SPATIAL DATA
  • Synthesis OF SPATIAL DATA
  • Causation OF SPATIAL DATA
  • Patterns of Continuity and Change over time WITH SPATIAL DATA
  • Periodization OF SPATIAL DATA

Directing ourselves to the National Council of Geographic Education, it’s 5 skills to practice include:

  1. Asking Geographic Questions
  2. Acquiring Geographic Information
  3. Organizing Geographic Information
  4. Analyzing Geographic Information
  5. Answering Geographic Questions

This is what our focus is, these are our thinking skills.

Calm down history, you are still very dear to my heart and yes, the DBQ is important to learn, but I stand firm in my belief that it is A skill, not THEE skill.

For the Intro. to the AP Social Sciences class that I teach, I introduce students to the SAT style format for the social studies. Below are the sources if you are interested. It requires a good afternoon or Saturday while the kid is asleep, but it helped me when thinking about the types of questions I ask my students on other summative exams. All of the sources below are found online.

Thankfully, it looks like College Board is going to be helpful in providing a question bank for teachers, a MASSIVE improvement.

In the meantime, let’s get through the rest of the school year and keep our eyes on the prize. I honestly feel that change is good and keeps me on my professional toes. It’s less likely that I’ll go stale. I’m excited to embrace the challenge and the great discussions that will ensue in the AP HuGe Teacher’s Group and in my department about the changes.

If you haven’t pre-ordered your new course and exam description binder from College Board, get on it! Catch up on the new changes at the official website, watch the cute sales video, and contemplate one of those APSIs if your school will foot the bill. Finally, grab a coffee-you deserve it. I’m on number 10 since beginning this post.

One thing I do know, if you are in the question writing business, y’all better start rewritin’. 😉

PEACE. LOVE. HuGe.

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