Except that AP scores don't come back until July, so this really wouldn't work for seniors. Though I do agree that the test score is probably a better indicator of mastery of material than the course grade.
And I disagree, having taught in higher ed-- but only because I know full well that different students have very different profiles in assessment-- even those with equal (and thorough) mastery.
Not everyone "tests" well using the same metric-- but that isn't to say that students who have difficulty with the AP test don't know the material well. Some of them, no doubt, could ROCK a term paper on the subject, or, for that matter, an ORAL examination.
That's why college classes are generally reliant upon more than one mode of assessment.
But otherwise, yeah-- I agree with those who find the outlining thing in APUSH to be ridiculous to the point of absurdity. VERY glad that my DD's class doesn't require such nonsense of her. She really is just responsible for knowing the material well-- okay, she does have to do a bunch of more or less meaningless assignments as "filler" in between more meaty demonstrations of mastery... but it's light years better than what her peers in B&M coursework report about the class.
I talked over brilliantcp's report with my DH, and he also just shook his head and asked "what on earth is the point of THAT??"
DD hopes, more than anything else, that college will be vastly different in one respect-- that being the lack of assignments that make her frown, wrinkle her nose, and note with disdain; "Well, this is an enormous waste of time all around."
Yeah, producing a powerpoint, multi-media slide show, or a formulaic essay on some kind of faux synthesis of low-level material from the textbook (as opposed to genuine primary sources) doesn't "teach" much of anything, particularly when it happens in a vacuum. Oh, look at my fancy echo chamber...
Unless college has changed tremendously in the past ten years, I predict that she will at least get that particular wish granted. No more "create a chart that analyzes each character in ________, and select quotes from each scene to illustrate your character's motivations." Yuck-yuck-yuck. I will say, DD has reached the point where she can crank through that kind of thing at a TERRIFIC rate, but I suspect that it's because she has finally concluded that this isn't really a "learning" activity, and that she should treat it as a simple pass-through. She sees herself as some sort of academic medium, I think. Enter the trance, complete the assignment, and snap out of it back to herself. Well, she uses far more colorful language to describe this particular process. LOL.
Pretty sure that would be cheeky if she pointed it out to her teachers, though.
