Where can I find unit 6? I am switching to the Explore Task, and cannot find the unit when going to the teacher dashboard. If there is a flat .PDF of that unit, that would be great too! If I missed something, my apologies ahead of time. Thanks, Smadar
Hi @sbergman,
The lessons for Unit 6 have not been released. Most of the resources for the Explore tasks are documents from the College Board. Last year’s plans included some time to reflect on the practice PTs, read the guidelines and review the rubric. Since exemplars exist now, I would recommend adding time to study them. Additionally, students should know how to submit their artifacts to the College Board in the correct format. Otherwise, the bulk of the time is spent on students independently working on the task.
Andrea
Much thanks - it is what I have been doing, basically, but needed some formal information for unit plan writing (such as standards-based lesson objectives and the like, which I can write on my own). Thanks again, Smadar
Here are the objectives from last year’s lessons plans. There was 2 - 3 periods of prep followed by the required 8 clock hours of classroom time.
Prepare for the Explore Performance Task by asking any outstanding questions before starting the PT.
Create and submit the Explore Performance Task.
Andrea
An updated version for 2016-17 isn’t released yet, but you can get the gist of what we would have people to do to prep from last years’ version: https://studio.code.org/s/csp6
They just released a new rubric/scoring guidelines for the Explore PT with examples here:
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/exam/exam_information/231726.html
We’re going to modify our lessons to match the new guidelines probably in January.
–Baker
1 Like
Thank you! FYI when you click through the studio.code link above the “Explore” and “Create” links are flipped. So when I clicked on “Stage 3: Preparing for the Explore Task” lesson plan I got the Create. I had to click on “Stage 1: Preparing for the Create Task” to get the Explore lesson plan, lol.
Thanks for the heads up. We are still in the process of updating it and moving it to our curriculum management software. It should be updated sometime this month.
Best
Dani
2 Likes
Hi Baker - Thanks for your update. At this point, I assume teachers have been developing their own curriculum for at least the Explore PT, and it may be useful to get some of us chiming in about what worked in our classrooms. Just a suggestion,
Best,
Smadar
I created a rubric for the Explore task that “merged” the numbering of the questions (2a, 2b, etc) with the new 7 point criteria and the weighting of each of the 7 points. We used this to do a “Practice” Explore PT. The rubric seemed to help my students (and me) understand the impact of the new scoring. My students are starting the AP Explore task next week. Here’s the link to my rubric if anyone is interested:
Eileen - Thanks much for the “merged” rubric! I wonder if you’ve been in touch with someone at the College Board can approve it and voila! we’ll have an official rubric!
Baker,
Any update on when the Unit 6 unit will be released?
Nick
1 Like
Thank you! Is the curriculum page going to be updated to include the new info? It still states (Updated: January 2016). Not a big deal, but that’s why I was a bit confused originally. Thanks for the help!
Nick
Thanks for pointing that out. I thought those links were fixed. Maybe not pushed to live site. Fixing now. Thanks,
–Baker
Hi all, I have a wondering about the explore task for everyone… some students seem to be struggling to pick a technological innovation that directly collects data and uses it. For example, one student wants to write about a new piece of technology for a car and another wants to write about solar panels. Any suggestions on how to push students to realize that their piece of tech makes answering the questions very difficult? I switched the sequence of events to have students work on the explore task as part of their semester final hence doing this now.
Hi @carly_buch - I think this is a common issue!
I would have them START with that prompt (how the device uses/transforms data) and then constantly remind them that they can change innovations if they feel like it is difficult to answer the questions appropriately.
I am curious as to what others think about this issue!
@carly_buch have you tried out the resources in the new Explore PT Prep Unit? There’s an activity in the Explore PT Survival Guide found in Unit 2 that should help them with this precise question.