AP Course:

AP Statistics (New & Experienced)

Daren Starnes

CONSULTANT: Daren Starnes

Daren Starnes has taught AP Statistics for 25 years and has served for over 20 years as an AP Exam reader and leadership team member. Since becoming a College Board consultant in 1998, he has led over 100 summer institutes and numerous one- and two-day workshops for statistics teachers. As Lead Consultant for AP Statistics, Daren is responsible for training and mentoring new consultants. He gives frequent presentations about teaching statistics at conferences throughout the United States and online. Daren served as lead instructor for the AP Daily video project for AP Statistics, and contributed to other resources on AP Classroom and in the Course and Exam Description (CED) as a member of the AP Statistics Instructional Design Team. He is co-author of two popular high school statistics textbooks—The Practice of Statistics (TPS, now in its 7th edition) and Statistics and Probability with Applications (SPA, now in its 4th edition)—and a recently published college text, Introductory Statistics: A Student-Centered Approach. Daren and his wife Judy enjoy traveling and spending time with their three sons’ families (especially their seven grandkids).

Course Description:

E-mail: StarnesStats@gmail.com

This 4-day institute will help deepen your understanding of the AP Statistics course and exam. During the session, you will work collaboratively to tackle a variety of AP-style multiple-choice and free-response questions from all 9 units of the course. We will focus on effective strategies for helping a diverse group of students master the essential concepts and skills in the AP Statistics Course and Exam Description (CED). We’ll examine high-impact resources and pedagogical tools for classroom instruction, assessment, and AP exam preparation—including those available on AP Classroom. And we will discuss issues related to planning and organizing the course, such as the AP Course Audit, textbooks, student background, sequencing and pacing, technology, and projects. You will be provided with course planning resources, including several options for daily lesson planning and guided notes for AP Daily videos; classroom-ready instructional activities; sample assessments for each CED Unit (with answer keys!); and specific strategies and tips to help your students maximize their performance on the AP Statistics exam.

Course Objectives:

  1. Deepen understanding of statistical concepts and methods, as well as the 4 course skill categories, described in the AP Statistics Course and Exam Description (CED).

  2. Refine course planning to meet students’ needs given available constraints and resources.

  3. Examine effective instructional and assessment practices for AP Statistics that consider diversity, inclusion, equity, and access.

  4. Explore how AP Classroom and AP Daily can be used to promote and assess student learning.

  5. Expand your professional development and support network as part of the larger AP Community.

Preparing for the Course:

To get the most out of our time together, please:

  1. Bring a laptop/tablet, a graphing calculator/emulator (I’ll use a TI-83/84 during the session), and a 2024-25 school calendar (if available).

  2. Find out as much as you can about:

    • The students who will be taking your course

    • Materials that have been selected for your course: student and teacher resources, calculators, software.
      *Please contact me via email (StarnesStats@gmail.com) for information on choosing a textbook, software, and other resources for teaching AP Statistics any time prior to the institute!

  3.  If you have taught the course before, please consider something that you can share with your colleagues: a piece of advice, a favorite instructional activity or resource, a teaching strategy.

  4. Complete the Google Form I will send out the week before the institute.

Daily Agenda: 

Day 1

Focus on Unit 1: Exploring One-Variable Data and Unit 2: Exploring Two-Variable Data

  • Overview of the AP Statistics Course and Exam Description (CED): Course Framework and Skills

  • Course planning: AP Course Audit; Textbook resources; online resources

  • Building an inclusive, supportive, productive learning environment

Day 2 

Focus on Unit 3: Collecting Data and Unit 4: Probability, Random Variables, and Probability Distributions

  • Course planning: Sequencing and pacing

  • AP Classroom and AP Daily

  • CED AP Exam Information

Day 3

Focus on Unit 5: Sampling Distributions and Unit 6: Inference about Categorical Data: Proportions

  • CED Instructional Resources and lesson planning; Course skills development

  • Course planning: assessment and grading

  • AP Classroom deep dive

  • The AP Statistics Teacher Community and professional development

Day 4

Focus on Unit 7: Inference about Quantitative Data: Means, Unit 8: Inference about Categorical Data: Chi-Square, and Unit 9: Inference about Quantitative Data: Slope

  • Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Access in AP Statistics

  • Course planning: AP exam preparation and after the AP exam

  • Share resources