It was a marking marathon of epic proportions, and SAC’s Dr. David Joiner was one of just six Canadian high school teachers to receive an invitation.
Dr. Joiner served as one of 700 “readers” tasked with grading papers for Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG). The seven-day assignment took place earlier this month in the Cincinnati (Ohio) Conference Centre. Readers were a mix of secondary school geography teachers who teach APHG, university professors who teach first year undergraduate Human Geography, or graduate students.
Papers were submitted by more than 188,000 high school students from around the world, as part of the annual College Board’s AP® (Advanced Placement) academic program. Dr. Joiner joined educators from some of the leading academic institutions in the world to evaluate and score the free-response section of the exams.
It was Dr. Joiner’s sixth time at the marking table, having previously participated in 2007, 2008, and 2009 in Lincoln, Nebraska; and 2011, 2012, and again this year in Cincinnati). AP Human Geography, a subject taught at SAC by Dr. Joiner, is one of the fastest growing AP exams. This year the College Board celebrated the grading of over a million APHG exams since its inception in 2001.
“As you can imagine, being together with not only fellow geographers but also fellow geographers who teach the same course is an amazing PD experience,” says Dr. Joiner, expressing appreciation of the School's support of the AP program and his attendance there.
In addition to grading exams, Dr. Joiner gave a short presentation on the use of GIS Story Maps during an evening PD session.
This year at St. Andrew’s, 138 AP exams were written by 79 students in 17 subjects. For more information about SAC’s AP program, click here.
Story by Cindy Veitch
