UNIVERSITY HOSTS FIRST ADVANCED PLACEMENT INSTITUTE

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Teachers from across the nation will descend on the University of Arkansas next week to enhance their learning and better help students at the first Advanced Placement Summer Institute held on the Fayetteville campus July 5-9.

The teachers will take an intensive week-long course in the fields they teach and attend lectures on how Advanced Placement (AP) students do in college and how to write letters of recommendation.

"It’s a real charge for the teachers," said Suzanne McCray, associate director of the U of A honors program and organizer of the AP Summer Institute. The University accepts more AP credit from incoming freshmen than any other institution in Arkansas, McCray said. These students take high school courses specifically designed to help them accelerate their academic careers.

The Advanced Placement program offers students and universities a national standard by which they can judge academic achievement, said Bernard Madison, UA professor of mathematical sciences. Madison is a member of the AP Calculus Development Committee, a chief reader for AP Calculus and a member of the Commission for the Future of the Advanced Placement Program.

"This program takes teachers at small schools and gives them a community of like-minded professionals," Madison said.

More than 120 teachers have signed up for calculus, chemistry, biology, English language and composition, English language and literature, physics, psychology and U.S.

history and government. Each subject has two consultants who work with the teachers; a high school AP teacher and a University of Arkansas professor.

"These people are good at teaching teachers as well as students," McCray said. The master teachers have outstanding AP classrooms. Jim Townley of Southside High School in Fort Smith, for instance, taught eight of the 15 highest scorers on last year’s AP chemistry examination.

The subjects have their own itineraries, with hands-on laboratory projects in biology and chemistry and guest lecturers in history and English. The teachers will get to grade copies of old AP tests to get a sense of what the Advanced Placement test requires of the students.

In addition to learning innovative tips for the classroom, the teachers will have plenty of time to exchange their own ideas, said McCray.

"We want teachers to know that we respect the work they do and that we support every aspect of their efforts with the Advanced Placement program" said McCray.

The consultants include:

Gary Earleywine, Wilbur D. Mills High School, Little Rock, and Linda Tichenor, U of A, biology;

Nancy Stephenson, Cypress High School, Houston, and Bernard Madison, U of A, calculus AB;

Jim Townley, Southside High School, Fort Smith, and Neil Allison, U of A, chemistry;

Becky Cox, Fayetteville High School and Patrick Slattery, University of Arkansas, English language and composition;

Lillian Kropp, Southside High School, Fort Smith, and Lyna Lee Montgomery, University of Arkansas, English language and literature;

Rudolph Gaedke, Department of Physics, Trinity University, and Gay Stewart, U of A, physics B & C;

Nancy Grayson, McLennan Community College, Waco, Texas, and David Schroeder, U of A, psychology;

Nancy Schick, Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos, N.M., and Patrick Williams, U of A, history;

Tina Paige, Edmond Memorial High School, Edmond, Okla., and Todd Shields, U of A, U.S. government.

The week begins with a cookout on the evening of July 4 - a much needed restful beginning for a week that will include that 35 hours of instruction for each of the teachers.

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