I spent months trying to answer that question.
In June 2017 I was asked to teach AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics for the next school year. I had been teaching math for thirteen years at that point and I was very excited about a change of subjects! When I asked for the teacher resources I was handed a textbook. That’s it. A textbook that was 10 years old at that time. And not even a teacher’s edition. What??
I spent the next few years refreshing my economics brain and trying to piece things together. But nothing was cohesive. Worksheets covered things that I hadn’t taught yet. PowerPoint presentations weren’t in an order that made sense to me. My students needed more graphing and calculating practice but I didn’t have anything handy.
Let’s talk about relearning economics for a minute. I spent many, many evenings trying to teach myself the graphs, the calculations, and the concepts. I had to do a lot of research to make sure I knew what I was talking about! Then I had to decide how much the kids really needed to know – it is so easy to go into TOO MUCH detail.
Because the economics that happen in real life are so much messier than the theory that we teach in AP Economics.
Thank goodness College Board published the Course and Exam Description in 2019. This clarified the scope of material that could be included in the AP Exams for both courses.
But they didn’t provide detailed lesson plans. Or worksheets.
What I have found is that there are SO MANY of us in the exact same predicament: high expectations, no resources.
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