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BILL POLASKY NBCT, Illinois Teacher of the Year Finalist Greetings! I am looking forward to joining you virtually for a worthwhile week together, sharing with you my experiences as both an AP teacher and College Board Consultant, Exam Reader, and AP Exam Table Leader. Above everything else, it is my earnest hope that by Friday, you consider the week you spend “at” Marin to be time well spent. What follows below are some items which need to be addressed so that each of you can get the most out of the workshop, and I can do the very best job that I can of “meeting you where you’re at.” |
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WILLIAM POLASKY
Bill has taught history for 31 years at Stillman Valley High School in Stillman Valley, Illinois, where he is Division Chair for Social Sciences. A 2019-2020 Teach Plus Illinois Teaching Policy Fellow, Bill worked in the policy field of teacher mentorship and retention, and as a Teach Plus Alumni, participated in the development of Teach to Change Now, an Anti-Bias-Anti-Racist teaching toolkit for Illinois educators, and also sits with the Illinois P-20 Council and is Co-Chair Advance Illinois Educator Advisory Council. A co-author of the 2020 Emergency Pandemic Teaching and Learning Standards for Social Sciences for the State of Illinois, he is a Class of 2019 Illinois Teacher of the Year Finalist, the current President of the Illinois State Teachers of the Year, and was also a finalist for the 2019 and 2021 Gilder-Lehrman Illinois History Teacher of the Year. Additionally, he served for over a decade as an Adjunct Faculty member at Rock Valley Community College in Rockford, Illinois, where he taught United States History survey. Bill holds two B.A. degrees and two M.A. degrees from Northern Illinois University, in Political Science and History, and History and Educational Administration, respectively. Having established the AP History program at Stillman Valley, he is a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Certified Master Teacher, and well over 1000 of his students have taken the national exam. Bill is active within the College Board community; besides serving as an Educational Testing Service Exam Item Writer of DBQ, Short Answer, and Multiple-Choice Questions for the National Exam, Bill has attended the National AP U.S. History Exam Reading since 2000, serving as a Reader, Table Leader, or Early Arriving Table Leader (formerly called Exam Leader), during that time, and is currently Chair of the AP US History Reading Best Practices Committee. As a National Consultant to the College Board, he has served or currently serves as the faculty consultant / presenter for numerous one-day training sessions and week-long AP US History Summer Institutes throughout the country, providing training for hundreds of teachers across the country over the past 24 years. He is an Online Presenting Faculty Instructor of AP US History for both the College Board’s AP Daily and AP Review platforms for 2020-2021, as well as The Princeton Review's GETAFIVE Online AP Learning Platform (2013-2019) Additionally, he is a co-author of the Bedford AP US History Survival Guide (2014), the author of the Teacher's Manual for Documenting United States History: Themes, Concepts, and Skills for the AP Course (2015), a co-author of the Teacher’s Edition for Fabric of A Nation (2020 & 2023) and America’s History (2024 & 2025), a faculty contributor to the Iscore5 AP US History Review Application (2018-present), and has served as a contributing author on numerous AP US History textbook ancillary and support materials. This is his first year teaching a summer session for Marin By The Bay, and he looks forward to making your acquaintance.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The central focus of our week together will be to familiarize participants with the “New World Order” that is the realm of Advanced Placement United States History as a result of the course redesign, which commenced with the 2014-2015 exam cycle, and then the “redesign of the redesign,” or “redesign Version 2.0,” which has involved the 2015-2016 exam cycle and the continuous tweaks to the program into the present day. The primary intent of the workshop is to provide participants with an overview of the AP program, irrespective of your degree of experience in Advanced Placement teaching. We will explore the new AP Curriculum Framework in great detail, and familiarize you with the Historical Thinking Skills and Key Concepts at the heart of this new course framework. We will delve into the challenges of student writing and discuss strategies for teaching the Document Based Question the Long-Form Essay (formerly known as Free-Response) Questions, as well as the Short Answer component of the exam. Furthermore, we will also study the construction of the stimulus-based Multiple Choice questions used in the AP exam, and discuss student strategies for success on this portion of the test. I do, however, also wish to look at an Advanced Placement United States History course as more than merely a means to an end for the national exam. This will include insights into the creation and expansion of an AP U.S. History program, the selection of texts and course materials, the development of syllabi, daily lessons, and assessments, both objective and written. As educators, we make a living by borrowing and sharing, and this institute provides an excellent venue to do both. As such, I request that you be prepared to discuss some of your favorite lessons or activities. Throughout the week you will be actively engaged in compiling an assortment of passages, test questions, class and homework activities, and teaching strategies. In addition, each participant will be required, over the course of the week, to create a “Unit of Study,” including an assessment piece, which will be the basis for a 7 to 10-minute curriculum presentation to be given by each participant on our final day of the workshop.
Our week should look familiar, particularly for experienced teachers, in terms of structure in a world that now does many things virtually. As you will see from the syllabus, I intend to break the day up between synchronous and asynchronous instruction. To reach our required 30 hours of instruction time, we will begin each day together with intervals and breaks, dismiss midday for lunch and an abbreviated amount of asynchronous learning, and then reconvene for a late afternoon session, with further asynchronous time into the evening on your own schedule. We will use Zoom for our meetings, and Google Drive as a repository for our materials and work. I will have files on Google Drive that I will also provide you all with access to. Your access to my Google Shared drive will be perpetual. Invites for this portal will be forthcoming, from Marin or myself, as the APSI draws near.
A note on norms: During this Institute per College Board directives, you are expected to
- be present at one session during each time slot
- have your video enabled and your microphone muted, except when speaking
- complete about 60-90 minutes of asynchronous work a day
Finally, brace yourself for a great adventure! I am confident that we can really have you leaving the week knowing more than you knew coming in, and feeling like our time together was well-spent. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] whenever you like, in order to let me know of things that you definitely want covered or addressed by our APSI, as my whole mission here is to meet your needs to the very best of my ability. Nothing would please me more than hearing from you about what you want to get out of our time together, so that I can build or steer the week to meet your needs, in these interesting times we live in. Until then, take care, and again, Welcome!
Bill has taught history for 31 years at Stillman Valley High School in Stillman Valley, Illinois, where he is Division Chair for Social Sciences. A 2019-2020 Teach Plus Illinois Teaching Policy Fellow, Bill worked in the policy field of teacher mentorship and retention, and as a Teach Plus Alumni, participated in the development of Teach to Change Now, an Anti-Bias-Anti-Racist teaching toolkit for Illinois educators, and also sits with the Illinois P-20 Council and is Co-Chair Advance Illinois Educator Advisory Council. A co-author of the 2020 Emergency Pandemic Teaching and Learning Standards for Social Sciences for the State of Illinois, he is a Class of 2019 Illinois Teacher of the Year Finalist, the current President of the Illinois State Teachers of the Year, and was also a finalist for the 2019 and 2021 Gilder-Lehrman Illinois History Teacher of the Year. Additionally, he served for over a decade as an Adjunct Faculty member at Rock Valley Community College in Rockford, Illinois, where he taught United States History survey. Bill holds two B.A. degrees and two M.A. degrees from Northern Illinois University, in Political Science and History, and History and Educational Administration, respectively. Having established the AP History program at Stillman Valley, he is a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Certified Master Teacher, and well over 1000 of his students have taken the national exam. Bill is active within the College Board community; besides serving as an Educational Testing Service Exam Item Writer of DBQ, Short Answer, and Multiple-Choice Questions for the National Exam, Bill has attended the National AP U.S. History Exam Reading since 2000, serving as a Reader, Table Leader, or Early Arriving Table Leader (formerly called Exam Leader), during that time, and is currently Chair of the AP US History Reading Best Practices Committee. As a National Consultant to the College Board, he has served or currently serves as the faculty consultant / presenter for numerous one-day training sessions and week-long AP US History Summer Institutes throughout the country, providing training for hundreds of teachers across the country over the past 24 years. He is an Online Presenting Faculty Instructor of AP US History for both the College Board’s AP Daily and AP Review platforms for 2020-2021, as well as The Princeton Review's GETAFIVE Online AP Learning Platform (2013-2019) Additionally, he is a co-author of the Bedford AP US History Survival Guide (2014), the author of the Teacher's Manual for Documenting United States History: Themes, Concepts, and Skills for the AP Course (2015), a co-author of the Teacher’s Edition for Fabric of A Nation (2020 & 2023) and America’s History (2024 & 2025), a faculty contributor to the Iscore5 AP US History Review Application (2018-present), and has served as a contributing author on numerous AP US History textbook ancillary and support materials. This is his first year teaching a summer session for Marin By The Bay, and he looks forward to making your acquaintance.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The central focus of our week together will be to familiarize participants with the “New World Order” that is the realm of Advanced Placement United States History as a result of the course redesign, which commenced with the 2014-2015 exam cycle, and then the “redesign of the redesign,” or “redesign Version 2.0,” which has involved the 2015-2016 exam cycle and the continuous tweaks to the program into the present day. The primary intent of the workshop is to provide participants with an overview of the AP program, irrespective of your degree of experience in Advanced Placement teaching. We will explore the new AP Curriculum Framework in great detail, and familiarize you with the Historical Thinking Skills and Key Concepts at the heart of this new course framework. We will delve into the challenges of student writing and discuss strategies for teaching the Document Based Question the Long-Form Essay (formerly known as Free-Response) Questions, as well as the Short Answer component of the exam. Furthermore, we will also study the construction of the stimulus-based Multiple Choice questions used in the AP exam, and discuss student strategies for success on this portion of the test. I do, however, also wish to look at an Advanced Placement United States History course as more than merely a means to an end for the national exam. This will include insights into the creation and expansion of an AP U.S. History program, the selection of texts and course materials, the development of syllabi, daily lessons, and assessments, both objective and written. As educators, we make a living by borrowing and sharing, and this institute provides an excellent venue to do both. As such, I request that you be prepared to discuss some of your favorite lessons or activities. Throughout the week you will be actively engaged in compiling an assortment of passages, test questions, class and homework activities, and teaching strategies. In addition, each participant will be required, over the course of the week, to create a “Unit of Study,” including an assessment piece, which will be the basis for a 7 to 10-minute curriculum presentation to be given by each participant on our final day of the workshop.
Our week should look familiar, particularly for experienced teachers, in terms of structure in a world that now does many things virtually. As you will see from the syllabus, I intend to break the day up between synchronous and asynchronous instruction. To reach our required 30 hours of instruction time, we will begin each day together with intervals and breaks, dismiss midday for lunch and an abbreviated amount of asynchronous learning, and then reconvene for a late afternoon session, with further asynchronous time into the evening on your own schedule. We will use Zoom for our meetings, and Google Drive as a repository for our materials and work. I will have files on Google Drive that I will also provide you all with access to. Your access to my Google Shared drive will be perpetual. Invites for this portal will be forthcoming, from Marin or myself, as the APSI draws near.
A note on norms: During this Institute per College Board directives, you are expected to
- be present at one session during each time slot
- have your video enabled and your microphone muted, except when speaking
- complete about 60-90 minutes of asynchronous work a day
Finally, brace yourself for a great adventure! I am confident that we can really have you leaving the week knowing more than you knew coming in, and feeling like our time together was well-spent. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] whenever you like, in order to let me know of things that you definitely want covered or addressed by our APSI, as my whole mission here is to meet your needs to the very best of my ability. Nothing would please me more than hearing from you about what you want to get out of our time together, so that I can build or steer the week to meet your needs, in these interesting times we live in. Until then, take care, and again, Welcome!