With the disastrous conditions of 2020’s pandemic, we as a society had to adapt to accomplish still what we need to. This meant we had to move to virtual offices to work from home and adopt social distancing strategies in public. One of these strategies for many schools was moving to online virtual classrooms to teach remotely.

Many schools have opted to remain remote, thanks to the many different benefits that the unique experience provides. In today’s article, we’ll be discussing specifically what remote teaching is like for AP students.

The YouTube Generation

Collegeboard, the organization  most responsible for the AP program, are making various pushes for changes to adapt to the COVID 19 climate of 2020. One of their most extensive endeavors is the encouragement to use platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and the AP Classroom to engage students from a distance better.

They also provisioned new remote learning resources for free as of March 30th, 2020, such as AP Online Classes and Review Classes on their YouTube channel. The current content features 32 different classes for access via these various digital platforms.

In particular, the YouTube channel has daily posted videos on clusters of subjects such as Art, English, History, Social Sciences, Mathematics, and so forth. These videos are available for students to watch, allowing them to review the first 75% of their course alongside additional supplementary materials for the last 25%. 

There are also live-streamed learning programs, which begin at 9 am and end at 6:45 pm, with each lesson lasting 45 minutes. Any AP student is welcome to join these live streams to gain further knowledge.

Twitter provides further support by employing the #APForStudents hashtag, with hourly tweets being shared throughout the day to better allow high school students to visualize the new, remote AP program.

Remote Learning AP Assessments

AP students were surveyed, and 91% declared that they would want the opportunity to take their examinations. On March 20th, when the College Board released its free provisional material, they also announced the new relationship between the AP Assessment and Remote Instruction.

As of 2020, AP students will take a 45-minute version of their examination at home, which will be administered online and consist of free-response questions. The examination was developed by the then committee of educational stakeholders to cover curriculum content from September the previous year to the beginning of March 2020.

AP courses consist of several units ranging from 6 to 10, so to ensure fidelity, examinations consisted of the first 4 to 7 units in their courses. Also, portfolio-based AP courses such as Art and Design were extended to the end of May.

This shift to digital assessment is one taken to ensure that high school students will still have access to college credit in today’s climate.

AP Technology Integration

With the shift to digital assessment, additional technology is needed to be implemented to ensure transparency. One of the first technologies to be integrated was plagiarism detection software for examinations. Further changes have been made to change from multiple choice to free questions.

AlbertiO also opened their AP preparation site for free for those high schools impacted by the pandemic. They are also working on using Google Classroom to support remote learning further. This will ultimately allow teachers to better adjust to the online assessment changes.

Finally, students will also be allowed to take these exams on their computer, smartphone, or tablets and submit screenshots of handwritten responses as a method of taking the exam.

Concluding Thoughts

Ultimately, the shift to remote learning is a way to cater to the new technologically inclined students this year. The new relationship with remote learning has proven to be a success in maintaining the AP students’ quality of life and work during the pandemic.