The University of Texas of the Permian Basin
 

Consultants

 

Norma Arroyo: AP Spanish Language

 

Norma E. Arroyo teaches at Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is an endorsed AP Consultant, an AP Spanish reader, and has taught AP Spanish classes for 18 years. Norma E. Arroyo has been a high school Spanish teacher for twenty two years, a Methods instructor and currently holds a professional teaching certificate and an Educational Leadership M.A. degree. Ms. Arroyo began teaching in Connecticut. She has taught in Vermont and New Hampshire before moving to Colorado. In 1999, she became an AP Spanish Language reader and has presented as a consultant in the Northeast, Middle States and Western Regions for the College Board. The College Board awarded Ms. Arroyo a scholarship to attend the College Board Equity Colloquium in Houston, TX and the AP National Conference in Los Angeles.  Among her presentations are: "Teaching without a Budget" at the SWCOLT Conference in Denver "Music in the Classroom," AATSP Conference in Chicago in 2003, “Pre-AP Strategies” AATSP Conference in San Diego, and “Teaching the 5 C’s” at the RMLA in Calgary, Canada. Ms. Arroyo has been the recipient of the AATSP Excellence in Teaching Award of the Colorado Chapter in 2007, Excellence in Teaching Award of the University of Northern Colorado in 2006 and was named 2006 and 2009 Fort Collins, Rotary Teacher of the Month. Ms. Arroyo has published in the AATSP publication Hispania, and CCFLT PEALS on effective techniques for teaching students in AP. She has served on the board of the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers for 2 years and on the executive board for 3 years. In 2010, Ms. Arroyo was a candidate for CCFLT’s Teacher of the Year award and a nominee for the Central States Region Founders Award. Ms. Arroyo has recently been named 2013 CCFLT Teacher of the Year and will be competing for SWCOLT Teacher of the Year in April 2013.
 
Course description coming soon.
 

Paul Filio: AP World History

 

I have served as a consultant for World History for almost 5 years and have given numerous workshops including one day, two day and Summer Institutes. I have read AP Exams both in World History and European History plus have been a classroom teacher for over 25 years. I currently teach at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, a nationally rated school by Newsweek and other organizations. In addition, I teach online classes through the Gifted Learning Links Program at Northwestern University. I  have taught the AP World History class for ten years.

Course Description

 

This workshop will give beginning and experienced world history teachers the tools and techniques to design and revise their courses and put them in alignment with the changes have been implemented by the College Board for the AP World History curriculum. These changes were started for the 2011-12 school year. The AP World History Summer Institute outlined below will addressed these challenges by providing a clear framework of the course itself (six chronological periods viewed through the lens of related key concepts and course themes) and will be accompanied by a set of skills that clearly define what it means to think historically- see below for some of the key concepts and course themes.
 
 
Course Objectives:
The participants will achieve the following outcomes:
1.         provided with a basic overview of a typical AP World History course as described in the College Board Course Description (Course Descriptio Book), with an emphasis on developing a scope and sequence for the participant's individual school, creating lesson plans and reviewing resources such as textbooks, etc.
2.         sharing a large number of tools, techniques, tips and other resources to address the "how-to" aspect of teaching AP World History.
3.         discussing various aspects of the AP World History exam and how to prepare students to be as successful as they can be.
4.         prepared as teachers for the new course curriculum and being able to prepare and implement the new course themes and objectives.
5.         given details and reviewing the many additional resources (websites, blogs, discussing groups, etc.) available to world history teachers.
 
Course Goal:
The institute's participants will leave excited about the prospect of teaching World History, fairly knowledgeable about the discipline and its subfields, and armed with some specific ideas and practical information for lectures, discussions, and other activities including use of web resources.

 

Susan Hollier: AP World Geography

 

Susan Hollier teaches Advanced Placement Human Geography at The Woodlands High School in The Woodlands, Texas. She consults for The College Board in Advanced Placement Human Geography and Pre-Advanced Placement World Geography and is a National Training Leader for SoapsTone, as well as having served as a Reader for the Advanced Placement Human Geography Qualifying Test.
 
She served on the TEA Lighthouse AP/TEKS Document Writing Team for Social Studies. Susan is a 2002 recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award from the National Council of Geographic Education and is listed in Who’s Who in American Teachers.
 
Her classes have received national recognition for winning the National NewsBowl Current Events Competition and placing in the National Geography Olympiad. She is the World Affairs Council Houston’s 2004 International Educator of the Year, a recipient of The Coca-Cola Scholars’ Joseph B. Whitehead 2006 Educator of Distinction Award and the 2007 Nobel National Society of High School Scholars’ Educator of Distinction Award. She is currently serving as the K-12 Curriculum and Instruction Committee Member of the NCGE Executive Planning Board and was selected to present at the inaugural International Symposium on Territorial Geography in Seoul, Korea. The Marshall Legacy Institute selected her as the 2010 Joan Wismer CHAMPS Award recipient. In 2011, Ms. Hollier received the Texas A&M University Inspiration Award for Exceptional Secondary Education. Ms. Hollier holds a BS degree from Louisiana State University.
 
Course Description
 
This course will focus on helping teachers prepare to successfully teach a high school class in Pre-AP World Geography. Employing a blend of content presentation, effective teaching strategies, and technology, the Institute will provide an overview of the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped our understanding, use, and alteration of Earth’s surface. In addition, writing skills and habits of mind that students need to be successful in an AP class will be addressed.  Teachers are asked to bring an atlas.
 

Becky Cox: AP English Language and Composition

 

Rebecca Cox graduated with a BSE in English and Speech from Ouachita Baptist University and continued her education with graduate hours from Kansas State University, University of Central Arkansas, and the University of Arkansas.
 
She has been teaching AP English Language and Composition at Fayetteville High School for twenty years. In 1990, she was appointed a reader for the AP Exam and has been serving as a Table Leader since 1998. For the past twelve years, she has served as a consultant for the College Board, conducting one and two day conferences in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Texas. She has been presenting materials to teachers in summer institutes for the past twelve years. During the school year, she scores essays that students have written for the SAT online. Ms. Cox is also the sponsor of her high school’s literary magazine, Connotations. Since she evaluates literary magazines and yearbooks from across the country, she serves on the Board of Judges for Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the National Scholastic Press Association and Southern Interscholastic Press Association. In her state of Arkansas, Ms. Cox served on the Arkansas Rangefinder Committee for the End of Course Literary Exam, which she helped develop.
 
Course Description
 
I have organized my materials by types of essays on the AP Exam, and participants can expect to spend about a day per question. We will begin looking at how to begin the year and how to give students a solid foundation by looking at the value of summer assignments: the one that I will include will be Into the Wild by Jon Krakaur. I will also include my materials that I use to teach In Cold Blood since many teachers are using the book in this course. It might be helpful for participants if they bring a copy with them. We will begin by exposing students to the essay as a genre, reading some of the first essays by Plutarch, Seneca, Montaigne, and Bacon, and writing a summary paper. We will spend the rest of the day analyzing the multiple-choice section of the exam. Participants will take an exam, score their responses, and discuss the reasons for answers. I will explain strategies that I use in class to help students who are weak in this area.
The second day, we will tackle the rhetorical analysis question by  discussing devices that students must be familiar with. Participants can read and bring copies of the following essays (some of these will be in the texts provided by companies): Virginia Woolf’s “Death of a Moth”; E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake”; Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham Jail; George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”; and Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” We will spend the afternoon reading and scoring rangefinders and anchor papers from the 2013 Rhetorical Analysis Question. 
The third day will be devoted to the synthesis question. We will look at strategies that will help students prepare for this: writing a research essay.   Again, in the afternoon, we will be reading and scoring the 2013 rangefinders and anchor papers for the synthesis question. 
On the fourth day, we will look at argumentation: strategies, terms, activities, etc and then in the afternoon, we will look at the argumentative question on the 2013 exam. I would like participants to bring either a passage, essay, or article that they would like to teach next year. We will have two hours of lab time to prepare this assignment, allowing participants to earn technology credit. It will be a challenging and productive week for all of us, and I am looking forward to working with all of these devoted teachers.

 Peggy Leeman: AP English Literature and Composition 

 

I have been a National College Board Consultant for twenty years having presented at Odessa Permian Basin, The College of William and Mary, Auburn, University of Tulsa, UT Arlington, SMU, Baylor University and Texas Women’s University. I have opened the National College Board Conference by presenting a two-day pre-conference AP Literature and Composition to teachers from around the world. I have been awarded the Southwest Regional Outstanding Recognition Award for English and I hold the Perot, Collins, Cabell Teacher of Excellence Awards, and the O’Donnell Award for Outstanding Literature Teacher in Dallas. Two years ago in the spring, a former student endowed a scholarship in my name at Bryan Adams High School where I aught Advanced Placement courses until May 31, 2012. The former student stated that his overriding goal was “to recognize one of the finest educators that I have been blessed to have.” Mrs. Leeman teaches Advanced Placement English and chairs the English Department at Yavneh Academy in Dallas. She hold Bachelor and Master Degrees and has completed post graduate work at SMU, University of Texas, San Diego University, and Texas Women’s University.

 

Course Description

 

Participants will be engaged throughout the week with hands on materials that will enlighten them to have a clear understanding as to how and why, as a beginning teacher, they should organize an AP Literature English and Composition course. High level reading skills, concrete to abstract analysis of literature, use of rhetorical devices, advanced strategies for objective test, and strategies for writing to the prompts for the composition part of the test will be stressed. Teachers will receive numerous activities and projects that will enhance the content of their courses. How to score the AP compositions will also be a major part of the training. Teachers will be engaged with major pieces of literature for discussion and analysis. Welcome to an enriched week of learning.

  

John Brunsting: Pre-AP Professional Development in Mathematics HS

 Biography and Course Description coming soon.

Victoria Jackson: Pre-AP Professional Development in Mathematics JH

 

 I graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello in 1970 with a B.S.E. in Elementary Education. I have a Masters in Gifted and Talented, which I received in 1989, and a Masters in Educational Administration, as well as Middle School Math Certification. As a College Board Pre-AP Middle School Math consultant for the past 8 years, I have presented at College Board Conferences, Summer Institutes, and several Vertical Team Strategies workshops. Although I retired this year, I have worked for the Pulaski County Special School District for the past 15 years and have taught Math in grades 3-8. My past positions include a Gifted and Talented teacher/facilitator at Maumelle Middle School, working with grades 6-8 in Pre-AP Math, Middle School Math teacher, elementary teacher, and K-12 principal. I live in Monticello and have been blessed with a wonderful husband of 44 years, 2 grown children-a boy and a girl- and 2 granddaughters, both 7 years of age.  I retired this year after 40 plus years in education.

Course Description

This course will focus on the importance and relevance of mathematics prior to Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry as well as emphasizing the language of Algebra, solving equations and inequalities, linear functions, non-linear functions, data interpretation and probability. Critical thinking skills will be explored and participants will use multi-representational approaches to look at problems analytically, graphically, numerically, and verbally. They will explore internet websites and various forms of technology to increase comprehension and be introduced to hands-on activities that will supplement and enhance their teaching techniques. There will be discussions about best practices and strategies to successfully implement inquiry-based learning activities. Participants will share ideas and best practices and be asked to present at least one of the best practices they use in their classrooms with the rest of the class.

Denise Green: AP Biology

 

Denise M. Green earned a BS from the University of Virginia and a MS in Biology from the University of Richmond. Her graduate thesis and research was on The Effect of 2,4-D on Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria.   She has worked at the University of Richmond as a lab aide for
Dr. Gary Radice, tagging muscle proteins in developing frog embryos and Dr. Rafael de Sa, preparing Rana ossification specimen and sequencing ribosomal RNA. She has been a biology instructor at Mills E. Godwin High School since joining the Henrico County instruction team in 1994. She has served on the SOL Review Board for Virginia and has worked as a curriculum developer for Project Crest at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2009, she headed a summer site-institute with the purpose of converting traditional labs to inquiry labs. She has taught AP Biology for the past 11 years and has been an AP reader for the last 7 years. Denise has worked as an Outside Item Writer for the new Curriculum design, writing test items since 2010. She has participated in several OIW training sessions. She has also written AP Exam items for McGraw-Hill. In addition to serving as an AP Biology Consultant, Denise is a NMSI Trainer in Virginia. She became a certified trainer in 2009.

 

Course Description 

This year’s summer institute will concentrate on the revised AP Biology Curriculum Framework. We will review the Enduring Understandings, Essential knowledge and Science Practices and learn how these components apply to the learning objectives. The use of Learning Objectives in guiding question development will be explained. How the new questions are written will be addressed. We will spend some time on developing questions to help our students develop analytical skills. Time will be spent in developing and sharing possible units of study that contain essential knowledge from multiple Big Ideas. This will inform of understanding of pacing for the new curriculum. We will use the AP Biology Lab Manual with its emphasis on moving toward inquiry-based labs.  Participants will enjoy the whole experience of lab prep and analysis of labs that fall under the Four Big Ideas.  Alternatives to labs in the AP Lab Manual will be discussed and made available for participants to try. We will also discuss ways to modify and adapt your existing labs to inquiry-based methods. Student sample presentations will be available for viewing. Participants should bring a laptop computer, a jump drive, and two activities to share. They should have downloaded the AP Course Curriculum and Exam Guide and the Teacher’s Edition of the AP Lab Manual.  We want to develop a sharing community.