AP Biology courses to be revised for upcoming school year

Starting next year, AP Biology classes nationwide will undergo changes to improve students’ ability to absorb the sometimes overwhelming amount of material in the subject.

Decisions to revise the course were made because of the increasing volume of material that students have been required to know for the AP exam, according to AP Biology teacher Bob Kucer.

“It was just getting to be too much and needed to be scaled back a little,” Kucer said.

With fewer labs, the College Board plans to place more emphasis on collaborative experiments rather than the customary lecture-and-demonstration model. Kucer said that with the current syllabus, “students were conducting experiments in which they were not asking a question or thinking about what could be tested in the experiment.”

The new syllabus leads to difficulties for the teachers themselves, however. Kucer said that the new lab style will require teachers extra time to “plan, conduct and redo after each lab.”

Workshops to aid teachers were not offered last summer, leaving instructors with only the options of either attending a workshop this summer or adapting during the school year without any training.

“I’m sure I will be more frustrated, and the curriculum will still seem overwhelming,” Kucer said.
“They should be offering complete workshops a full year ahead of when they expect us to incorporate them, thus giving us ample time to work on the labs.”

The College Board committee announced that by cutting down on the reading material, it hopes to place less stress on students and tailor to diverse learning interests. From the content Kucer has viewed, though, it does not appear to have been cut significantly. He believes that “students will still feel overwhelmed with the amount and depth of material.”

The College Board reports that it hopes that the implemented revisions to the course will lead to improved student learning and more active participation.

The AP Biology course will have clearer syllabus objectives, and more comprehensive information will be offered to instructors starting in early 2012.

“As of now, I haven’t seen enough published material to make a fair judgment,” Kucer said.