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MATT TASSINARI Matt Tassinari currently teaches AP US History at Palmdale High School (over 27 years) where he serves as the Social Science Department Chair and an Academic Instructional Coach. Matt has been an exam reader since 2001 (11 years as a table leader and 6 years as a sample selector) for the AP US History exam and has been a College Board consultant for over 19 years. He has presented all over the United States from Advanced Placement US History to Career Technical Education strategies. Furthermore, Matt was honored with the 2009 High School Teacher of the Year Award from the California Council for Social Studies. |
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Matt can be contacted at: mtassinari@avhsd.org
AP US HISTORY Course Description
Attending this AP summer institute will be a great chance to find out more about the latest updates to the AP US History course and exam and to examine new materials for the course. This institute will provide many practical resources and ideas for organizing the recently updated AP US History course and will help both experienced and new teachers prepare to confidently teach the curricular, thematic, and skill components. Time will be spent making sure that all teachers are ready to prepare their students for success in the course and on the exam, with the latest released College Board materials and test samples being explored.
The following are some of the goals for the week:
1. To understand some of the basic elements involved with teaching the AP United States History course:
2. To understand the content and structure of the AP* United States History exam, and to develop appropriate strategies for maximizing student scores and to examine ways to provide students with the analytical skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the content, skills, and materials in AP United States History.
3. To achieve an understanding of necessary course content for the course curriculum and exam by looking at sample questions provided by the College Board, examining the latest AP reading samples released by the College Board, and analyzing the rubrics for all parts of the exam.
4. To examine a variety of ways to structure the course so that students will be prepared to score well on the AP exam.
5. To acquire many resources from the instructor and from other participants to help make the teaching of the course more manageable. These will include:
What to Have Available for the workshop:
Please have available any materials you will be using to plan and teach your course (textbook, supplemental materials, etc.) and your school year calendar for next year, since you will have some time throughout the week to work on planning and organizing your course pacing and units.
Agenda Items to look forward to:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Attending this AP summer institute will be a great chance to find out more about the latest updates to the AP US History course and exam and to examine new materials for the course. This institute will provide many practical resources and ideas for organizing the recently updated AP US History course and will help both experienced and new teachers prepare to confidently teach the curricular, thematic, and skill components. Time will be spent making sure that all teachers are ready to prepare their students for success in the course and on the exam, with the latest released College Board materials and test samples being explored.
The following are some of the goals for the week:
1. To understand some of the basic elements involved with teaching the AP United States History course:
- AP United States History Curriculum, Themes, and Skills (CED)
- Understanding the Course Requirements
- Mapping out the Year—Pacing the AP United States History Course and Outlining the instructional
- plan by Unit and Topic in your academic calendar
- AP Classroom Instructional Resources
- Using Instructional Planning Reports
- Instructional Strategies and Tools to teach the Content and Skills in the CED
- College Board Processes
- The AP Audit
- Test Taking Strategies
- Long Essay Writing
- Stimulus Based Multiple Choice Questions
- Short Answer Questions
- Student Enrollment
- Textbook
- Resources
- Test Development
- Equity and Access
2. To understand the content and structure of the AP* United States History exam, and to develop appropriate strategies for maximizing student scores and to examine ways to provide students with the analytical skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the content, skills, and materials in AP United States History.
3. To achieve an understanding of necessary course content for the course curriculum and exam by looking at sample questions provided by the College Board, examining the latest AP reading samples released by the College Board, and analyzing the rubrics for all parts of the exam.
4. To examine a variety of ways to structure the course so that students will be prepared to score well on the AP exam.
5. To acquire many resources from the instructor and from other participants to help make the teaching of the course more manageable. These will include:
- Sample test questions for the exam provided by the College Board
- Available samples from the most recent AP Reading
- College Board information concerning the themes and skills in AP United States History
- Long Essay Rubrics
- Document Based Question Rubrics
- Instructional Handouts
- Instructor-prepared Classroom Resources in an instructor-created google drive
- Online access to materials provided by publishers
- Materials provided by College Board
What to Have Available for the workshop:
Please have available any materials you will be using to plan and teach your course (textbook, supplemental materials, etc.) and your school year calendar for next year, since you will have some time throughout the week to work on planning and organizing your course pacing and units.
Agenda Items to look forward to:
Day 1
- Understanding the Course and Exam Description (CED)
- Planning your course using the CED
- Equity and Access in the AP Classroom
- Historical Thinking Skills
Day 2
- Analyzing primary and secondary sources
- More Historical Thinking Skills
- How to prepare students for the Short Answer Questions
- Practice scoring Short Answer Questions
- Argument Development
Day 3
- How to maximize scores on the Long Essay Questions (LEQs)
- Teaching the LEQ
- Practice scoring LEQs
- Relieving student and teacher stress LEQs
- Resources available to teachers online
- Multimedia strategies
Day 4
- Sharing of participant strategies
- Teaching the DBQ
- Practice scoring of DBQs
- Final planning of your course