During the summer of 2003, Melissa DeLeon, Nancy Rizzo and Dale Weaver, three Roxbury High School teachers, had the honor of being readers of the AP Exams administered during the 2003 school year.
These three teachers requested applications through the College Board in the winter / spring of 2002. Along with the applications, the teachers included a variety of requested paperwork – course outlines, syllabi, examples of lessons, and resumes. In February of 2003, each of the teachers received an invitation to read. According to Dale Weaver, “I was excited and honored to be chosen.”
Melissa DeLeon’s AP reading experience took place at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Ms. DeLeon commented, “This was my second year serving as an AP reader in the subject of Statistics. I originally applied in September 2001 and was invited to read for the June 2002 reading, and again for the 2003 reading. Usually, three years of experience is necessary to become an AP reader; however, I was honored to be invited after only one year of teaching experience.”
Ms. DeLeon’s AP Statistics reading took place from June 12-June 19, 2003. The reading itself took place over a six-day period in which each reader graded three of the six questions on the approx. 60,000 AP exams that were taken in the U.S. and overseas.
“The insight into they way students think statistically is invaluable, and I have brought that insight back to Roxbury. The reading also provided valuable time to collaborate with many members of the field including the author of our current text.”
Nancy Rizzo’s AP reading experience occurred in Daytona. She was selected to be a reader for the AP Psychology Exam. Ms. Rizzo was one of 93 readers for this particular exam.
Ms. Rizzo stated, “I enjoyed learning how the rubrics for each question were designed, and how to read the responses. I also enjoyed sharing ideas with a roomful of Psychology teachers.”
From this experience, Ms. Rizzo has brought back a tremendous amount of information, which she is able to use with her students. “I am grading my students' essays using the AP technique. I also brought back invaluable information about the test to share with my students.” Since the experience, “I have also met with the authors of a new Psychology textbook, which we are considering using in the future.”
Dale Weaver’s AP reading experience occurred at Clemson. She was selected to be a reader for the AP Environmental Exam. Ms. Weaver was one of well over 100 teachers and college professors from all over the United States, Canada and abroad to be selected.
Ms. Weaver described the experience, “We spent the first 2 days developing a rubric for the free-response question we were assigned. There were 4 questions, so they broke us into 4 groups. We agreed on a rubric that we could all live with, then spent a considerable amount of time scoring sample tests.”
When reflecting upon the grading system, Ms. Weaver stated,” I was impressed at how efficiently the system worked. After 2 days, all of the scorers were in agreement with every sample paper given. This experience gave me a much clearer idea of how scoring is truly fair and consistent.” It also helped me to hone my own skills in developing a clear rubric.”
When reflecting on the number of papers they each had to grade, each Psychology Reader was expected to read approximately 650 papers, each Environmental Reader was expected to read approximately 1200 papers and each Statistics Reader was expected to read approximately 2,200 student responses.
For each of the teachers, the AP reading experience was extremely valuable. They had the opportunity to interact with people they would have never met before; they had the chance to share lots of ideas and make new professional acquaintances. Additionally, they engaged in an experience, which will help them to better prepare their AP students for their future exams. In essence, “It has been the most rewarding professional development experience of my career,” stated Ms. DeLeon.