How I’m Teaching AP Macro Despite Having No Content Knowledge

My August, first month of school, report

For the first time in my over thirty-three-year teaching career, I’m teaching Advanced Placement Macroeconomics (AP Macro.)

I’ve been assigned three sections, though I have never taught an economics course and only taken one economics course in college, a course at Cal that I nearly failed. To complicate matters, the high-expectations school I teach at only offers the Macro course the first semester.

Despite the above, I’m confident that I can properly prepare my students for the May exam.

AP teachers today don’t necessarily need vast amounts of content knowledge to teach an AP course. Nor do they necessarily need to attend an APSI training, serve as a reader, or purchase any costly materials. We live in a day where for free AP teachers can get what they need to teach.

Below, a monthly description of my journey.

My August Report

School started on August 11 utilizing a traditional, Monday through Friday, fifty-four-minute bell schedule. Masks mandatory. All students in class.

On Day One, I told my 71 students that I will be:

• Aligning the course 100% with the AP Macroeconomic Course and Exam Description.
• Making ample use of the AP Classroom Resources (AP Daily Videos, Topic Questions, Progress Checks, Question Bank, My Reports, etc.)
• Expecting the students to learn the content essentially on their own from the AP Daily videos.
• Providing the students with a semester-long project-based learning opportunity. PBL is now finally in the best interest of all AP students.
• Administering the Unit I Test on August 21, a day that matches up with the pacing recommendation appearing on page 36 of the CED.

After returning home from school that first day, I searched for a mentor, someone with experience and content knowledge willing to provide me with their email address and phone number.

To find a mentor, I posted the below to the AP Macro Facebook and AP Macro Community pages.

Hey all: I’m teaching AP Macro this year. Started last week and looking for a mentor. Any of you willing? Only asking for someone who I can email/call on occasion with questions. DM or email me if willing?

Within hours, several very talented teachers had emailed me, three of whom I selected as mentors.

• Drew Hettinger (teaching the semester-long course at West High, California)
• Tony Peterson (teaching the year-long course at Hoover High, California)
• Kurt Gutschick (teaching a first semester-long course at Valor Christian High, Colorado)

For the next eight days, I provided the students with time in-class to view and take notes on the AP Daily Unit I Macroeconomics Videos. There are sixteen videos in all, with each video taking approximately eight minutes to view, resulting in a student needing over two hours to view all sixteen videos. In other words, my students would need no more than four, fifty-five minute class periods to view, take notes on, and fully understand the videos, I calculated.

During those first eight days, I also introduced to the students their semester-long project-based learning opportunity.

This semester, I’m going to give you an opportunity to either (1) produce a business plan for a business that seeks to sell a product, offer a service, or oversees an event (2) produce a 3–5 minute video that seeks to educate AP Macro students world-wide in re some important AP Macro topic, or (3) produce a 750–1500 word blog post that describes the history and address a major question related to some business of your choosing.

For homework that first week, I assigned three readings from the Page One Economics Newsletter (with the Newsletter mentioned on College Board’s AP MacroEconomics website under the heading Online Resources Recommended By AP Teachers.

• Does International Trade Create Winners and Losers?
• Would Increasing the Minimum Wage Reduce Poverty?
• The Global Economy: It’s a Small World After All

We then discussed these articles in class. To get things started, I showed the following:

• What Will Happen If We Raise the Minimum Wage? (KQED; Above the Noise; 9:34)
• The Debate on Trump’s Tariffs (Washington Post; 3:06)
• How Trump’s Tariffs Could Backfire on the US Economy (PBS News Hour; 4:25)

I had also intended but completely forgot to show:

• Biden on Minimum Wage (Joe Biden for President; 0:15)
• NAFTA Explained by Avacados (Quartz; 5:54)
• What is NAFTA? (AP Explained; 1:56)
• NAFTA vs. USMCA Explained by a Toy Car (Vox; 6:36)

What great discussion followed. Students appeared to enjoy genuinely.

I then invited my friend, fellow AP teacher and Youtube celebrity, Tom Richey, to share with my students, via Zoom at some point down the road, his thoughts in re the following:

• Biden’s call for a raising of the federal minimum wage and whether doing so will help to reduce poverty?
• Trump’s China tariffs. A good thing or a bad thing?
• NAFTA: On the whole negative or positive for the United States?

On Day Eight, I provided my students with the AP Classroom Unit I MCQ and FRQ Progress Checks. I allowed the students to use their notes and imposed no time limit.

Just before leaving class, I said the following:

If you received an MCQ score that falls under the dark green bar, you should consider yourself on track to earn either a four or a five.

If you received an MCQ score that falls under the light green bar, you should consider yourself on track to earn either a three.

I wish I could score the FRQs for you, but I can‘t right now. On the other hand, you can find a Scoring Rubric on AP Classroom. Use it to score your FRQ; then also feel free to ask other students in the class to score your FRQ.

If you give your FRQ a score of 8–10, you should consider yourself on track to earn either a four or a five.

If you give your FRQ a score of 5–7, you should consider yourself on track to earn either a three.

Anyone having an actual doubt about what score to place on your paper, send me an email containing word-for-word what you have written.

This weekend, I will be watching and taking notes on all of the 16 Unit I AP Daily videos. I may even also watch and take notes on all the Unit I Khan Academy videos.

If, after watching these videos, I find myself unable to figure out how to score your FRQs, I will ask one of my mentors for help.

Generally speaking, the students did very well, though better with the MCQs than with the FRQs. They also appeared to enjoy trying to score each other’s FRQs.

Over the weekend leading to Day Nine, I watched and took notes on the Unit I AP Daily 1.1–1.6 videos.

I spent approximately five hours completing the work, watching portions of several videos over and over.

AP Daily Videos 1.1–1.3 were produced by Macro Economics teacher Matt Romano and Videos 1.4–1.6 were produced by Macro Economics teacher Rebecca Sealock. Overall, I was very impressed with the quality of these videos, with the work of these two teachers leaving me feeling as if “I got this” . . . with one exception, the content presented in Video 1.3.3. Sorry, Matt, but I couldn't make sense of it no matter how many times I viewed that video. Perhaps viewing the relevant Khan Academy video might help, I’m thinking at the time of this writing. Then again, maybe I need to call one of my mentors.

After watching the videos, I tried to answer the 18 MCQ AP Classroom Progress Check Questions. I answered 12 of the questions correctly, with this score resulting in my having received a light green bar, thus indicating that I was on track to earn a score of 3 were I to take the May exam.

On Day Nine of the class (August 24), I gave my students the Unit 1 test.

• The test consisted of 25 MCQs and 2 FRQs.
• The students were provided thirty minutes to answer the MCQs and 24 minutes to answer the FRQs.
• I did not require the students to enable the lockdown browser.
• I selected the questions that appeared on this test from the Unit I Question Bank; then shared my test with my mentors. One said this of my test: “It’s a good test, though you may have a few too many 1.1, 1.2, and 1.4 questions.” The mentor's point is that the test I created probably wouldn’t prove as challenging as the 30 MCQ test created by the folks at AP Classroom . . . and hence “just might develop from the outset a false sense of how challenging AP Macro actually is.”
• I had the students answer the two FRQs on a separate sheet of paper, with that paper handed in at the end of the period, though I had wanted to go 100% digital—just too many students struggling to figure out how to upload their graphs to AP Classroom.
• See below to view my students’ Period 1, Period 3, and Period 4 Unit I MCQ scores.

• The above suggests that 95% of my students are on track to earn a score of 3 or better.

On Day Ten (August 25), I provided the students with the rubric to the Unit I FRQs. Then I directed the students to do two things: (1) score their own FRQs and (2) enter their scores into AP Classroom.

I then either “double-checked” the students’ scores or invited some other student in the class (given the appropriate permission) to double-check the scores.

My students scoring each others’ FRQ in the hallway outside of class.

My students’ Unit I FRQ #1 scores, with the FRQ #2 scores looking similar

With the Unit I test in the books, I moved on to Unit II and the PBL. In this regard, I spent the last five days of August (1) helping the students get started on their semester-long Project Based Learning Opportunity (more on this in my September Report) and (2) providing the students with time in class to view the 2.1–2.3 AP Daily Videos. I also provided the students with an invitation to retake the Unit I test, this time utilizing the 30 MCQ test found on AP Classroom.

The Five Most Important Things I’ve Learned During my First Month of Teaching Macro

1. The Unit I Pacing Guide provided my students with more than enough time to learn the needed content/skills.
2. The Unit I AP Daily videos did a very job of preparing my students for the MCQs.
3. The Unit I Videos and the Unit I FRQ Rubric did an excellent job preparing my students for the FRQs.
4. The Unit I Page One Economics Newsletter articles generated much thought and discussion.
5. The newly revised AP Classroom is an infinitely more powerful teaching, testing, and learning tool than the one created for the 2020–21 school year.

Three Things I’m Wondering About as August Comes to a Close

1. Is there some way for my students to complete their FRQs without having to use paper?
2. As we move further into the semester, will my students continue to respond well to the learning system I have utilized during the first few weeks of school, or will I need to “mix things up?”
3. To what extent, if any, will the students’ average MCQ and FRQ scores decline as we move into Units II-VI? I have been told that the content presented there is infinitely more challenging for the students to learn.

This ends my August report. To read my next report, please check back here end of September. Promise. My September Report won’t take nearly as long to read.)