Mass Insight Education and Research

Explore Student Experiences Throughout the School Year

Click on each critical period to explore student experiences.

Strong Start

August/September

Keeping Up

November/December

Midterm Reset

January/February

Exam Prep

March/April

Due to varying school schedules and contexts, the exact timing of the critical periods will differ by school and even by class. The months provided are a guide for where teachers should be looking for experiences based on time of year. Experiences marked with “ Students Shared” were generated directly from conversations with students about what supports their success in AP.

Strong Start

It is essential to onboard and orient students to AP® classes in a way that they feel connected, informed, and empowered to tackle the challenge– academically, socially, and emotionally. Building a strong foundation, allowing students to have quick gains to build confidence, and nurturing a sense of belonging on which students can fall back when things get difficult is essential to ensuring students are able to persist in the AP class and be successful.

Explore each experience by clicking on it.

Mindsets

Teach students about growth mindset

Engage students in conversations around rigorous learning

Cultivate students’ belonging mindsets: “I belong in an AP class” / “I can succeed in an AP class”

Help students practice stress and frustration management skills

Allow students to ease into the content in order to build confidence

Students Shared

Student Voice & Agency

Provide structures for students to participate in establishing classroom norms and revisit/revise regularly

Explicitly teach and model for students how to ask for and access help

After a few weeks of class, open dialogue with students about additional supports they need

Assign students to set goals for AP class participation and learning

Classroom Community & Culture

Help students develop a collective sense of belonging and supportive peer culture in AP: “We are all in this together.”

Establish peer support systems for students to encourage each other and help each others’ progress and success

Build in structures to learn about the culture, language, and values of students

Communicate with all families at least once to establish relationships

Establish a culture of vulnerability, productive struggle, and active learning

Provide ways for students to get to know the teacher and feel comfortable asking for help or approaching

Students Shared

Ease student anxiety about the difficulty of an AP course

Students Shared

Build in group discussions and informal conversations for students to hear differing views and get comfortable with each other, including working in varied groups of peers

Students Shared

AP Skill Building

Provide clarity about structure of class, exam breakdown, and learning modalities

Provide as much previewing of content, skills, and challenges as possible

Introduce skills needed to succeed in assessments in AP

Allow students to learn from teacher thinking by modeling

Provide opportunities for checking for understanding

Help students practice planning skills

Hold session with parents/students to familiarize with AP expectations and structures
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Feedback & Grading

Provide flexible grading with ample and rigorous feedback to build up encouragement

Ensure quick gains to build up confidence

Be available outside of class at predictable times to provide feedback and support

Help students make connections between activities and goals

Communicate that feedback is guidance for improvement and not a judgment on ability

Provide opportunities to check for understanding, reinforcing that the main goal of the class is learning

Students Shared

Build confidence before providing increasingly in-depth feedback

Students Shared

Download a printable On-Track Framework.

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Looking for concrete ways to bring the On-Track experiences to students?

Each experience links to multiple classroom strategies contained within the “Classroom Strategies for AP Success” bank. This menu of strategies is meant to help teachers, counselors, coaches and administrators support the learning experience of historically underserved students in Advanced Placement® classes equitably. It includes strategies that address the academic and non-academic skills of students as well as strategies to modify instruction.

View Classroom Strategies for AP Success