George Henry
George Henry has taught AP United States History in the public and private schools in Salt Lake City Utah since 1985. He is currently on the faculty at East High School, and an Instructor in the Department of History, at the University of Utah. George has been a consultant for the College Board in AP U.S. History and served on numerous College Board Committees. He has been reading AP U.S. history exams since 1991. He was a member of the Social Studies Vertical Teams Development committee, and has been a contributing writer of the Special Topics for Social Studies Vertical Teams. George recently completed the 2010 edition of the AP Achiever Guide for Glencoe McGraw Hill and was a co author of the Teacher’s Edition of America’s History published by Bedford-St. Martin’s Press in 2014 Currently, George is serving as a College Board National Trainer. His most recent project is a joint partnership between the Salt Lake City Public Schools and the University of Utah, to teach AP U.S. History strategies to at risk students. George is currently working in the Granite School District in Salt Lake City as a teacher Intervention Specialist working as a teacher mentor for new and experienced Social Studies and AP teachers to improve their instructional practices. He recently celebrated his 43 year in the classroom.
Course Description
The Institute will include specific teaching strategies to improve the quality of our AP courses, and boost students’ test results. We will examine teaching methods to help students acquire critical reading and analytic writing proficiency.We will look for ways to eliminate busy work from our daily assignments. In our time together we will focus on course organization beyond the typical chronological, review new course materials and explore ways to successfully utilize AP Central. We will look at effective alternatives to lecture and discussion. Additionally, part of our time together will find ways to make our AP U.S. History courses accessible to diverse students, models of equity and excellence, and ways to be inclusive of students who typically have not taken AP courses. We will focus on best practices to help students prepare for and successfully complete all parts of the AP U.S. history exam—multiple choice, short answer, long essay question and Document Based Question.
Agenda
Day One- Understanding the Course and Exam
(Lessons 1,2,3,4,5*)
-Welcome and Introductions
-AP Historical Thinking Skills and Reasoning Processes and the AP U.S. History Course
-Developing Student Understandings
-Understanding the Unit Guides
-Integrating the themes and chronology for AP Courses
Day Two- AP Historical Thinking Skills and Reasoning Processes
(Lessons 6,7,8,9,10*)
-Exploring the Unit Guides
-Developing an AP Pedagogy
-Analyzing Primary Sources
-Analyzing Secondary Sources
-Contextualization
Day Three-Teaching the AP U.S. History Course
(Lessons 11,12,13.14, 15*)
-Making Connections: Comparison
-Making Connections: Chronological Reasoning
-Argument Development
-Sequencing the AP U.S. History Course
-Selecting Resources to Support Teaching AP U.S. History
Day Four- Planning Your Course
(Lessons 16, 17, 18*)
-Strategies for Teaching AP U. S. History
-Assessing Student Understanding
-Collaboration Time: Sharing Best Practices
-Curricular Requirements to complete the Audit Process
*Lessons are from the AP U.S. History Course and Exam Description