I have a number of students who are not planning on submitting the Create Task to the College Board. Any ideas on how I should grade their tasks? And how do I collect their work? I am not planning on having the task count toward the grade so it would have to count toward their participation grade. I also want to make sure they stay motivated through the 12 hours of class time. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!
Hi @agrant,
I assume those students are not signed up for the AP exam then, right? If they are, I’m pretty sure not submitting either PT counts as not taking the exam (so regardless of how well they do on the multiple choice, it counts as they didn’t take the exam at all).
I personally would grade their tasks according to the rubric included with the Create PT. You can collect their work using the College Board Digital Portfolio, just like how all other students will be submitting them. The students don’t need to be taking the AP exam to create an account and upload their work.
Frank
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Thanks Frank - great idea to have them setup the digital portfolio, I hadn’t thought of that.
I plan on grading both as their semester final. It was pointed out during training not to score them before they submit for the college board whether they were taking the test or not. Either way, I still have everyone work and do a point check in for a grade. They may be working or not, but either way they will eventually need to give me the material.
Also, depending on how many are not taking the test, consider an alternative assignment for them to do and submit during that time. All of my students did the Explore task, but I only have about 20 out of 80 kids not taking the test that I may have them turn in another assignment during that time. Something not related to the create task. Just a thought.
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Interesting that you are also grading the task as a final. Is this something that was recommended during the training? It definitely seems like a way to keep all students motivated. I have been telling the students the whole time that they will only get one AP score for the task and it will not count in any way toward their class grade. I like your idea of having an alternate assignment, but that also might not work if the students who are doing the task aren’t being graded (it wouldn’t be fair to them). I might need to rethink the grading for next year. Thanks for the feedback!
Hi all, I told my students up front that I would be using both of their PT’s as Mid-terms and Finals. I am glad that I did because only half of the class decided to take the exam. I required them all to submit their PT’s to the college boards. Once they’ve been submitted, I used the AP rubric to score them. I had them do and submit the Explore Task before Christmas and used it as their Mid-term Grade. The Create PT will be done and submitted in three weeks and be used as their Final Grade.
I also have a few seniors. This will keep them on task through the end of April.
Thanks for the reply. Too late for me this year but I should have done what you are doing, since the kids who aren’t taking it are much less focused then those who are. You said you are using them as midterms and finals, are you also giving them an end of semester final or does the PT take the place of it? In my syllabus I have semester finals counting for 15% and practice pt’s counting for 30% - what I might do next year is lump real PT’s and practice PT’s into the one grade.
This is my first year teaching this class. I like your idea of doing a mid-term and final exam. Next year, I’ll probably do that to practice for the actual AP exam. I’d still use the PT’s as well. I think… Certainly something to ponder over the summer.
I have had success by having all my students complete the Explore and Create Tasks whether they are taking the multiple choice exam. As @frank_w_lee mentioned, they all upload their assignments to the AP digital portfolio. After they have submitted their final draft, I grade them. This keeps them engaged throughout the process. This year with the implementation of the PT Survival Guide I have created an hourly exit slip form. My students will complete what they have accomplished on the form each hour before leaving class.
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Great idea using the exit tickets - what types of questions do you ask them? How do you grade the PT after they turn in, is it based on the rubric?
I grade both PT’s using the rubric. I also inform my students that my evaluation will most likely be different from the official AP score they receive this summer. Send me an email and I’ll share the form I created with you: terence.stone25@gmail.com
I will email you in a moment for the form you use. Where did you find the PT Survivial Guide?
I had my students complete the Explore PT before the Winter Break in December. I counted the Explore PT as their 1st semester final. In my district, students who take the AP written exam on May 11 are exempt from taking a 2nd semester exam in the class. That works for us because our school year ends in May. If you are in a school that extends into June, I’m not sure what you will do in class after the exam. That’s a looooong time. Make some super cool apps!!
There is an additional unit in the curriculum called CSP Post-AP- Databases and Using Data in Your Apps. App Lab has a number of tools that allow you to collect and use data in your apps. The following material provides an overview of how these tools work, a sampling of example projects that can be built using these tools, and a space in which to build and submit a final project. This has solid activities your students can complete after the AP exam. The Explore PT survival guide can be found: here. The Create PT survival guide can be found: here.
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Hi Terence - thanks again for the exit form. I plan on using it for the remaining hours of the task (we are on hour 7). Another question - how are you grading the exit slips? Is it a point value? Does it count toward their participation grade? Thanks again.
I am using a points system to grade the exit slips. The slip can be used as a participation/formative grade. The summarize/product grade willl be the Create PT. I’m happy the form can be a resource for you. Please let me know if you have anymore questions.
We grade both the CT and ET basically per the AP rubric (a little more lenient) and we do them in March and April in the Spring Semester. CT is 17% of the total grade and ET is 12% – both based on the approximate number of days we need to allow in order to get the required hours in. This worked fine last year and is working fine this year. We don’t give them any expectation that this is going to be the same as the grade they get on the AP grading in the Summer. CT and ET are just too big of a chunk of the class to let them go ungraded.
Everything is submitted to the Digital Portfolio and graded from there. I had them preliminarily submit to Schoology last year, but it was just too much submitting to handle without me going crazy tracking all 5 pieces for 100+ students.
We have almost 100% of the students take the Exam. (Missed two of 103 students last year. Will miss about 3 of 176 this year.) We give them about 5% points for various practice and mock exam efforts in the 9 days prior to the Exam. We also give them 5% points for taking the Exam (not based on their score because we don’t know what it will be).
We have Seniors whine about having to take the AP Exam since they “don’t really need the class for college”, but we just put up with them and shame them into being good examples. We also point out that, assuming the glass is half full perspective, we are giving them 5% points for 2 measly hours of work. Seniors with great grades can opt out of the Final (see below) – so they get enough of a break as far as I’m concerned – and I point this out to them if they still complain about taking the AP Exam too much.
We have a Unit on Python as the Final using CodeAvengers (easy to grade on the last days vs. grading a project) after the Exam to productively use the last two weeks. This is 15% of the Spring Semester grade.
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Now I really like that idea. I also had all of my students complete both PTs, and I graded them on daily class participation. I will use the PT Survival Guide next year as daily reviews/exit tickets! Awesome ideas everyone!
A student told me it was “illegal” to grade the PT tasks and that they should only count for the AP score (not a class grade). Any truth to this? I am not grading them this year anyway but just curious…I don’t see anything about that on the College Board site.
Hi @agrant,
Yes and no. In the simplest sense, the teacher is allowed to grade the tasks. However, the teacher may not provide feedback to the student before the student makes their final submission. In other words, the teacher may not grade the student’s work before final submission because that’s giving feedback. The practice of grading PTs is even implied in CB’s (College Board) email dated 4/17/2018:
My guess is the student believes it’s “illegal” because he/she thinks the tasks should be only treated as part of the AP exam, and that the teacher cannot add additional influence by assigning a separate grade, possibly with additional/different criteria. I don’t believe CB explicitly prohibits this, but the teacher must make sure the grading criteria they use do not implicitly violate other rules, such as “minus points if you choose autonomous car as your computing innovation” - since that would be similar to assigning or determining their topic, IMO.
I have to admit it’s still a gray area for me. I interpret the rules to be we’re not allowed to impose a specific timeline, but I know many teachers will dock grades if students don’t have it submitted by a certain date. I feel this potentially goes against the rule, but it’s a pretty open practice that I’m sure CB knows about and hasn’t pushed back on, and realistically, many students will procrastinate and miss the deadline if these artificial deadlines were not imposed on students with the threat of their grades.
I’m partially responding to your question and partially voicing my own frustrations and concerns. 
Only slightly more than half of my students completely submitted both PTs. I went through this same disappointment last year and thought some changes I made this year would help, but I’m just as disappointed again. This year I imposed heavy grade penalties (among other changes) and it just resulted in tanking students’ grades.
Frank