AP biology teachers change curriculum for 2016-17 school year

By Kyra Williams

Staff Writer

Teachers of the Advanced Placement Biology class for the 2016-17 school year collaborated in order to change the class curriculum.

Jessica Bledsoe and Yoon Hearn, the AP Biology teachers, decided this summer to make the class curriculum more focused on labs and inquiry activities. Also, they are implementing projects that will help students improve their writing skills.

“We felt that we wanted the program to be a lot more interesting and fun,” Hearn said. “So hence more labs, hands on activities, and collaborative projects.”

The teachers decided what changes need to be made in order to prepare students for the AP exam in May and send them to the College Board for approval. This year AP biology will not be completing homework packets that deal with questions and memorization. Instead, students will be completing homework that will require more in-depth thinking.

“The class will focus less in terms of quantity and more in terms of content,” Hearn said. Students will focus on critically thinking about the questions, as opposed to memorizing a lot of facts.”

The AP Biology test at the end of the year will remain the same. However, the way the class is taught will change in order to make the learning process more engaging to students. The class is now being designed to cover all the chapters so students are well prepared for the AP test. According to Hearn, this new implemented way of teaching will give the students more experience for the future.

“I know that in the past AP bio struggled to get all the chapters in,” Dr. Ben Dale said. “This new curriculum we feel is going to allows us to cover all the material prior to the AP test, which is awesome.”