Reflections From a First-Year AP Teacher With Guest Laura Tice [Episode 142]

Rebecca 0:00
Happy August teacher friends, I am so excited to kick off this back to school season with you by sharing an absolutely epic guest interview I did just a few weeks ago with First Year AP teacher, Laura Tice. Laura is originally from Georgia. And she taught her first two years there doing ninth grade biology. She then moved to Texas last summer. And that’s where she did her third year teaching where she took on ninth grade biology again, but also AP biology for the first time. Laura is a longtime listener of the podcast, which was so fun to hear. And we got connected back in the spring when I was searching for AP teachers to interview for my APR series with AP teachers on the podcast. And Laura was the only rookie AP teacher, if you will to apply. And I was so impressed when I was going through all the applications hers really stood out to me because of her energy and just all of her ideas that I immediately reached out and I asked if she would be willing to wait and do an interview this summer with me once her scores came out. Not that I didn’t believe that she had a great year. But I just thought, hey, this is a cool opportunity to talk to someone like freshly after finishing their first year teaching AP after they get this their scores, and just kind of see how they feel like the first year would go. And she so graciously obliged. And today’s episode is our conversation from truly just two weeks ago, where we reflected on her first year teaching AP Bio and how her students did on the exam. So we cover so much. She covers the highs and the lows of her first year, what went better than expected and where there are definitely areas for improvement as she is about to enter into year two teaching AP Bio. She shares how she balanced the requirements she has for PBL because she’s teaching at a PBL school project based learning school. While also still managing y’all hear this to get through the entire CD and have two weeks left for review before the exam, which that is just an accomplishment in and of itself her first year I tell I’m like so proud of her for doing that. She also shares her plans for this upcoming school year for how she’s going to change things up, both in her AP classes, but also in her ninth grade biology classes to better prepare those students who will hopefully come back and take AP as upperclassmen, y’all I was just so impressed by her wisdom and her enthusiasm. And honestly, her humility. She has like the energy of a first year teacher, but the subtleness and the confidence of like a 20 plus year teacher that I mean, it was honestly just a delight to talk to her. And I was so inspired. And so I hope you feel the same when you listen. So I’m going to Stop gabbing and shut my trap now so you can hear from Laura herself. So here’s my conversation with Laura Tice. This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca joiner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all and only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time spent in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode.

Hi, Laura, how are you?

Laura Tice 3:38
Hi, doing well.

Rebecca 3:39
I’m so happy that we made this work to talk. I’ve been excited to talk to you for months. So for my listeners who have context you originally applied when I reached out wanting to talk to AP teachers. And your application immediately stood out to me because you were the only new AP teacher that actually applied like everyone else who applied have been teaching for a while and I was so excited about your enthusiasm. And I just thought it would be cool. So I wanted to save you closer to back to school season our conversation just for the new AP teachers listening and people maybe their first or second year just to hear from you. So I’m so excited to talk today.

Laura Tice 4:17
Well, thank you for this opportunity. I was so excited when I saw your email that you actually responded back and were interested. So I’ve been really looking forward to this. Well,

Rebecca 4:26
I’m pumped. And so and you were really great T patient because I was like hey, would you be willing to wait until you get your scores back to talk because I was like I really want to know, and you still feel as enthusiastic after all that. So let’s go back a little bit in time for everyone listening. I know that this past year was your third year teaching but first year teaching AP, I believe you previously taught honors and on grade level biology.

Laura Tice 4:48
Yes. Okay.

Rebecca 4:49
So let’s think back to your first year. How did it go like now that you’re kind of in the summer you’ve had a little bit of a breather, what would you say are the highs and the lows?

Laura Tice 4:58
Okay, so Uh, yeah, it was such a doozy because it was my third year teaching overall. But first year being an AP teacher, I felt like a brand new teacher all over again, that extra prep was just so much work. But definitely worth it. So some of my highs, I would definitely say we’re just meeting AP level students, they are so different from from ninth graders for anybody with ninth grade experience. And so it’s really exciting to work with a little bit older, more mature students, and they were the ones that gave me my confidence. They just gave me so much positive feedback, because at the beginning of the year, I was like, Y’all, I’m brand new with y’all. Like, I’m gonna be studying alongside you guys. And they were just so encouraging and helpful. So shout out to my wonderful AP Bio students. That’s

Rebecca 5:52
awesome. I think that humility is so important when you’re new to AP. Like I did this same thing. I was like, mine was a little bit unique, because they were upperclassmen. But I had had them for biology. Did you have any of your students for biology as freshmen or not? Yeah, it

Laura Tice 6:07
did. Not not.

Rebecca 6:08
Quite long enough.

Laura Tice 6:09
It has not.

Rebecca 6:10
That was like interesting, cuz they all knew me really well. And they were used to me being like, knowing everything being on top of it. And I was like, guys, I know nothing. Like I’m gonna be literally figuring this out alongside you. So I’m proud of you for having that humility. Sorry. Well, this upcoming school year, will you have some of your students for the first time that you’d previously taught?

Laura Tice 6:29
I’m hoping so I think I’m supposed to so my first two years teaching, we’re actually in Georgia, and I recently moved to Texas. So this was my first year in Texas, totally new school, got it, the brand new school, but some of my ninth graders from this year, or I guess this previous year, they showed interest in AP Bio, I usually try to encourage students to wait until your junior or senior year slowly. Yeah, I think it’s such a hard course for sophomores, especially if they haven’t had chemistry yet. So we’ll see how this year goes. Yeah. And

Rebecca 7:03
who’s on your roster? That’s interesting. Okay, so what do you think we’re, well, did you go to any sort of a psi before they had you teach that or any sort of training or they just like threw you in and we’re like, good luck.

Laura Tice 7:13
They definitely threw me in. I was hoping for an A psi. And when I found out I was not going to do one before the school year started, I went into full like, read the whole CD went a little bit crazy, just so I could be prepared. But I was able to do in a psi this summer. Okay, good. And wow. If that’s like one piece of advice I could give to anybody. It’s do that before your first year because I learned so much, even though I’ve already taught the course. So it was great. I

Rebecca 7:45
wish I could have gone after my first year per second round. I felt like the firt when I did it right before I taught it. I cried every single day when I got overwhelmed. And but I almost like didn’t even know what to ask. Because I was just so clueless. I feel like at least you had some context going into it of like, here’s how to help. But yeah, they didn’t buy the game changer.

Laura Tice 8:06
It really was I definitely came into the API with like a list of questions, a list of things I struggled with, so that way I could tackle it. And it was super helpful. So I recommend that for no matter how long you’ve been teaching a lie, I thought it was a great resource. Absolutely.

Rebecca 8:20
Okay, so what went better this year than you maybe thought it would?

Laura Tice 8:25
Okay, so teaching all of the content, I did not think I was gonna be able to get through all eight units. And I was and we still had two weeks to review before

Unknown Speaker 8:37
the exam. So do you think what is that?

Laura Tice 8:40
Magic? I don’t know. I wish I had a better answer. I was pretty strict with my unit plans. So if I planned for a unit exam to be a particular day, I’ve really, really stuck to that I only changed my unit exam one time the school year, and it was during the solar eclipse situation. And that was just chaotic, and nobody could handle anything. So I think those

Rebecca 9:05
are the days that like your first year. I feel like teaching you just try to fight them. And then the more experience you get, you’re like, I’m literally not fighting this, like senior skip day or the night before prom, or solar eclipse like yours, like whatever. I don’t even

Laura Tice 9:17
guess I was like everybody skipped solar eclipse day anyways, yeah, it was like the day before the exam. And I was like, I can’t No, I can’t I’m not dealing with this. So I think sticking really true to those unit exam days really helped me stay on track. And it also helps me be able to kind of edit my unit plans and say, do I actually need to do this activity? Like I know I already planned it. Yes, I might have made the copies already. But could I cut that activity and my students still learn everything they needed to and most of the times I could find at least one or two things to cut so

Rebecca 9:53
So did you do a lot of like how much of your curriculum did you have planned? Do you feel like before the school year started or How much were you doing as you went? Like, did you know all those dates before? At the beginning of the year? Because you kind of already mapped things out?

Laura Tice 10:06
Absolutely not. I wish that I didn’t

Rebecca 10:11
know, I was gonna be very impressed. Yeah. So

Laura Tice 10:13
my school, we have to turn in unit plans. So I did have to have the full unit planned and turned in before, you know, before I started it. So once I made that unit plan, I stuck true to that. So before the school year actually started, I had my first unit planned. And then we just went month by month and tried our best

Rebecca 10:36
that that was me like, I mean, truly my thought and they would ask me like a question about something like when I thought the next test of yours and they like, let’s just get through this unit, and then I’ll circle back.

Laura Tice 10:47
Like you don’t even know when this unit test is don’t ask me when next units test is, let’s be honest, really?

Rebecca 10:53
Okay. So where were you pulling these activities and resources from since you didn’t go to an AP psi? Like, did they have stuff left for you? Or are you just using stuff that College Board provided?

Laura Tice 11:02
So I used a lot of college board questions, and I definitely recommend all quizzes, tests, warm up questions, like I was pulling stuff from college board. But when it came to like actual activities, honestly, I use a lot of teacher pay teachers to just get me through. And then since I taught the previous two years, I taught ninth grade bio. So I already had some fun kind of lab type activities. And I just made them a little bit more challenging. Or I would not really walk my students, my AP students through it. And I just kind of gave it to him and said, Roll with it. Because they did have that kind of autonomy and ability to do a lab without me saying step by step

Rebecca 11:47
totally, though, well, and that’s nice, too, because you didn’t have to worry about the mean, like we’ve done this before, since it was like a fresh crew. So that’s nice. Like, I could not reinvent anything because I had had every single one before Bucha had its sweet spots to you know, how many students were in your class? And did you have one section or a couple? I

Laura Tice 12:07
had two sections of AP this year. So I had 48 students total. But it was not split evenly. I 20 in one section and 28 in the other. So wow, that was challenging. Just to have such a, not even MIT. Yeah. So

Rebecca 12:24
yeah, that’s a lot of students for your first year.

Laura Tice 12:27
It was this year, or this upcoming year, it’s going to be even more I think they said I had 60 students, but they’re only giving me two sections. So a little nervous for that class size.

Rebecca 12:39
I’m telling you what they’re ever I so I talked, I think I have a really cool position that I get to talk to teachers and all these different states all the time. And Texas has really good standards, like I really liked them. They’re very clear. Whereas a lot of states are like, so crazy and all like work with a teacher trying to figure out what their state’s trying to make them teach. Texas has great standards that I hear from Texas teachers more than anyone else that they have, like 34 students in a classroom. And I’m like, I guess everything’s bigger in Texas, even I guess.

Laura Tice 13:08
I don’t really weren’t that big this year, like my ninth grade classes were small, but they were telling us for next year, like Prepare yourselves, it’s going to be pretty crowded. We’ll see how that goes. Yeah,

Rebecca 13:21
we’ll see. Okay, so what do you feel like you said, you’re staying on pace went better, which is amazing. I’m so impressed. did disclose more give you a pacing guide in terms of how long everything should take, they tell you weeks? Right? They tell you we stick with that? Or did you kind of go rogue a little bit, I

Laura Tice 13:38
definitely went rogue a little bit, especially for unit one. I needed to teach them some basics before actually teaching content. So that took a lot longer. And then unit three, which is cell energy is just so hard for students that I spent a lot of time on that. And then unit eight for ecology. I schwag that so easy. Yeah,

Rebecca 14:00
that is why I’m like a huge fan of going micro to macro for that exact reason. Yes. Because ecology is so fun, and you can do so much but you can also cut it down to like two weeks if you had to, you know, it’s like an easy buffer. Okay, so what went worse than you thought it was going to like what did you have high hopes for? And it was like that was a flop?

Laura Tice 14:19
Yes. Oh, this is unfortunately such an easy question to answer. Definitely teaching statistics, math, graphing some of those basic science skills. I had such high expectations for these, especially my juniors and seniors. Wow, did these students not know how to graph I was so surprised. And it just kind of came back to bite me in the butt every single unit that I did not teach it more strategically at the beginning. Yeah, statistics and a statistical analysis, standard deviation, standard error of the mean What error bars are, all of that was just really difficult for students all year long. And it showed up on the test as well. Damn, you know, scores back, I could see they were struggling in that area. Okay, so

Rebecca 15:14
are you how are you revamping for this upcoming year? Are you going to do like a unit zero or something that’s like just stats? Or what are you partnering with AP Stats teacher like, that’s the second I got there and saw how much stats I was able to do. I basically went from a PSI to our AP Stats teacher, and I was like, I need you to make me a mini unit on stats, because I did all that in high school. And I took AP SATs on everyone had taken in college, other than like, in science classes, but I was like, I am rusty personally on this. This is hard. Yeah.

Laura Tice 15:45
And everybody says, oh, math and science go together. If you’re good at science, you’re good at math. And that is just such a big lie. Because I struggled. My kids would just laugh at me in a good way. We had that good relationship, but they would just laugh when I was trying to do math on the board. I’m like, somebody else pull out your calculator. What am I doing wrong here and they would constantly have to fix my math and help me out which I think it was good for them to see me on the struggle bus. But and

Rebecca 16:12
especially with biology is like not necessarily a quantitative science applied for science. You can put quantitative stuff in it, but it’s not like you’re teaching chemistry or physics where it’s like, yeah, back to math, you know? Yeah, I

Laura Tice 16:24
don’t have to do too much math ever, which is a good thing. But I’m not really doing a unit zero per se. Because I just don’t feel like we have enough time, especially this year, they just released the AP exam date.

Rebecca 16:39
BIOS first isn’t its first Yeah, I

Laura Tice 16:42
am on May 5, so we have almost two weeks less time. So I am kind of revitalizing my first couple of days as a GET TO KNOW YOU icebreaker while also teaching stats and graphing. So technically, the first couple of days of school, we’re not really supposed to teach content. It’s all you know, SEL building relationships, which I love. But I also need to teach them some stuff. I cannot give up. I teach 90 minute blocks every other day, so I cannot give up through days that so much. Yeah. So we are going to be doing a lot of icebreakers get to know you while doing some statistics. Yeah, do some polls.

Rebecca 17:27
And then yeah, like get some Yeah, standard deviations of you know, that’s great.

Laura Tice 17:32
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m really excited to see how that goes. And I hope that those skills will just continue to grow throughout the school year rather than me struggling every unit trying to teach it again. Yeah,

Rebecca 17:44
I always told my students like, I was I was like, I assume the worst in y’all. So then I’m only ever you know, surprised, pleasantly surprised. So like, but so now you’re going into it, like not trying to be pessimistic, but just like I’m gonna assume you don’t know. So that then I’m not just disappointed every unit that you’re struggling with this thing, you know, absolutely,

Laura Tice 18:04
definitely had to adjust my expectations on the just basic science skills, stats, graphing ability.

Rebecca 18:12
Okay, so I was gonna ask you this later, but I’m already excited to ask you now because I also was like a freshman biology here too. So already knowing this, how is teaching AP Bio, changing how you’re going to teach your ninth grade bio students

Laura Tice 18:26
I just met with well, just a couple of weeks ago met with the other biology teacher I work with for ninth grade bio, and we’re doing kind of the same thing, our first couple of days are going to be those icebreakers, building relationships with graphing stations. With scientific method, we’re not actually going to teach it we’re going to get the students to do a lab and build it themselves and work through that scientific method. Love that through the lens of building relationships still, and I’m really excited to strengthen the ninth grader skills that way, when in a couple of years. Hopefully, they are taking my AP Bio course they will be ready to go. And I don’t know if it’s because it’s after the pandemic and a lot of students missed that like middle school kind of crucial time to learn graphing and basic science skills, but I just see the ninth graders and the AP Bio students just do not have those skills that I expected them to.

Rebecca 19:24
Yeah, and I don’t know if it’s like just doing too much in like Google Sheets and having to do it for them because I have heard these things as well. So is there any other content you felt like ooh, I want to make sure like I started teaching like Hardy Weinberg and genic equilibrium calculations and honors as soon as I start GMP cuz I was like, they cannot be saying this the first time it when they get to AP but is there anything you’ve changed? Other than that? You haven’t

Laura Tice 19:52
decided content wise quite yet. I don’t even think it’s content really, but so much like science skills. So something I Want to work with more is? Okay? So we’ve learned the content content content, you’ve memorized all of these vocab words for my ninth graders. But now I’m going to mess up one part of this process, or I’m going to take this organelle out of the cell, what is going to happen in response to that? And I think that skill is kind of the missing piece of my ninth grade course right now. And my AP Bio course that students really struggle with, you know, that application or oh, if I miss, if I mess something up, how is it going to affect the whole biological system? Or, you know, because I feel like that’s what questions on standardized tests nowadays. That’s what the questions are worded as, right? Can you memorize the photosynthesis equation? But if you take a piece out, how does it actually affect a system? So that’s something I’m going to focus more on in my ninth grader?

Rebecca 20:51
That’s great and such. And like, you can easily rewrite questions and stuff to do that. And yeah, without a ton of extra, that’s a great idea. Just getting to that next level. The higher order thinking for sure, yes. Okay. So you mentioned to me that you’re at a PBL School, which is so interesting. So I’m, I’m like so intrigued, you know, especially since you said one of your strengths was actually getting through all the content. How did you get through all this EDI? And balance? Whatever? And what are your expectations as a PBL? School?

Laura Tice 21:18
Oh, my goodness. So talk about a rough, not rough. I’m gonna say challenging first year in Texas not only having different standards for my ninth graders teaching AP Bio for the first time, but now also being at a PBL. School. Well, and

Rebecca 21:32
you teach general bio, which don’t you have a star exam for that? Is that what you do? Star? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that’s like double whammy? Yes.

Laura Tice 21:41
Both of my preps, unfortunately have us.

Rebecca 21:46
Perfect. Yeah, great.

Laura Tice 21:47
I don’t like to make things easy on myself. It was really hard at the beginning of the year to balance PBL with the CD. But the biggest way that I was able to kind of balance that I would say, is only doing true PBL for four of the eight units. And my admin was there, just fantastic. So the school I teach at, it’s actually a newer school, this was only the second year that it’s been been. So they are very flexible with their PBL standards, because they know that all of the teachers are learning this together. So my admin really wanted, hopefully, two PBL units per semester. So that’s kind of what I stuck to. I’m hoping this year to add one more unit as true PBL. Next year, one more that way I can build on it. But I just prepared myself for those four units where I was truly doing PBL. Those were the units, I chose to add a couple extra days that is different from what the CD advised, because projects just take so long if you do them correctly.

Rebecca 22:56
Right. Okay, so I don’t want to put you on the spot. But I would love to know what’s like what, which of those units that you did? What was your favorite and kind of what’s like an overview for some of us haven’t been in a law school. How did you do that?

Laura Tice 23:06
Oh, oh, my gosh, okay, I love this question. I did a project for Unit Two on cell transport. And it was absolutely my favorite. I think it was most of my students favorite. But just to run you through real quick, a basic PBL unit, you start off almost day one, you’re starting the project of that unit. So you have some type of entry event, it might be short video, a little letter, put them in a scenario, some type of entry event to get them curious. Then you pose a problem. And you tell the students like what are they going to be creating with their project groups. So we call that the culminating product for this particular unit to I did a design a drug product. So the students had to research a lot of pharmacy type things, how do drugs get into our systems? How do they transport throughout the body, and then I gave them in unit two, it’s cell transport and cell organelles. So I gave them a disease that is affecting one of the organelles to kind of tie it in, and they had to design a drug, explain how it transported in to kind of help those symptoms of that disease. And so we spent lots of weeks, I had a real pharmacist come in, she was fantastic. And she helped the students kind of understand the basics of drug transport. And then she also came when we did our presentation, so she got to listen to all of the students. They kind of did like a little kind of commercial type selling their, you know, their drug that they created. So

Rebecca 24:44
So did they all get a different disease or did you all you just they all have the same one.

Laura Tice 24:48
I saw typically I do eight groups. So there were eight different diseases so each group had something else they’re working on. And I tried to do different organelles just to mix it up. But that’s If there’s only so many diseases and

Rebecca 25:02
well, and that everything is more complicated than you want it to be, so it’s like, it’s hard to be like, let’s narrow down. There’s one thing that’s affected by one thing, like, it’s never that way. So it’s hard to get the entire list. Even just doing I feel like jank disorders in biology. You know, even albinism, there’s like one version of Alba the album isn’t that’s really clear, like autosomal recessive, and then there’s all these other versions that you can hear it all these different ways. And it’s like, why are there so many exceptions? But

Laura Tice 25:25
yes, and I am not an expert in pharmacy or that’s the problem with ppl is I am not the expert. So it’s really scary to put the students in that situation. And I’m like, fingers crossed, they find some good research, like, you know, I try to pick things I think they could find good resources on, but it is, it’s definitely a challenge.

Rebecca 25:45
So how much of that are they doing in your class period versus you’re expecting them to do at home?

Laura Tice 25:50
I live by the philosophy of absolutely no homework, even in my AP climb in? Yeah, you’re you’re like that? Well, because

Rebecca 25:59
it’s like, they just don’t do it. And I feel like when they do, they don’t do it authentically, or they’re just rushing through it. And then it’s like, why are we even doing this? You know,

Laura Tice 26:07
and the amount of AI that is out right now I am saying, so just do the work in class. Now, students always end up doing work outside of class for the project, but I never assign it, I don’t expect it, I give them plenty of class time, if they actually use that class time wisely. And don’t goof off, go to the bathroom for 10 minutes, you know, don’t get distracted, they have plenty of time to do this project. It just takes a lot of self motivation. But I think that most of my students, especially by the end of the year, they were like, Oh, we actually do have enough class time to complete this project, if we actually use it. Well,

Rebecca 26:46
that’s awesome. Okay, so I would love to know, especially since you, like have such a unique situation with your PBL and all that. Now that you’ve gotten your test scores, you know, you don’t have to share them, of course, but where do you see maybe room for improvement? Looking at how your students did? Were there any students that surprised you either direction? Kind of just first of all, what are your general thoughts? Once you got the scores?

Laura Tice 27:08
Okay, so I just did not know what to expect with their scores. You know, it’s your first year, I was like, what if they all failed? Yeah, which did not happen. They did so phenomenally well, I was so not surprised. But just so excited and happy for my students, because I know how hard they worked. Yeah, room for improvements. Once again, I’ve already hit on this, but stats, graphing those basic science skills, as well as if you know anything about AP Bio Unit Four is just also one of those really tricky units. It’s about cell communication and cell cycle. And so that was definitely a unit that I’m interested in reworking, because Unit Four was not the hottest. But I was not surprised by any of the actual, like individual student scores. All of my students that got fives, I could have told you they were going to they were going to be the ones that fives kind of same thing with my fours. I was like, I could have told you they were going to have their fours, I think because all of my unit exams were from the College Board, their exam grades, were right on par with the end of the year, big AP exam. And so nothing really, truly surprised me about an individual student.

Rebecca 28:24
Did you do? Did you curve your exams throughout the year? Because that’s the one. Yes. Because like, that’s what I was telling you. I’m like, you have to use the questions. But then you also kind of have to have some sort of buffer because it’s gonna be so much harder than if you wrote the questions. Exactly,

Laura Tice 28:38
I think, yeah. Especially after looking at the mock AP exam and their scoring guidelines. It made me feel a lot better about how I do that.

Rebecca 28:47
And they say they curve it to, yes, that’s like, huge

Laura Tice 28:51
curve, like, yeah, you basically not write any of the FR Q’s, get all the multiple choice questions correct. And you’re like, gonna almost get a full like it. That’s crazy. But I did the square root curve on our unit exams. So if you somebody out there doesn’t know if a student got a 49, take the square root seven, multiply it by 10. Why did I do that? Right? See, I’m telling you that they get a 70 on exam. And so I just kind of stuck with that square root curve throughout the whole school year, and shout out to my AP Bio school teacher when I was in high school. He did that for our tests. So that’s why I do it.

Rebecca 29:32
That’s great. Okay, so what else do you feel like when you look at those students scores? Who made the threes? Fours fives, what do you feel like most led to that success?

Laura Tice 29:41
These were the students that use class time wisely. And I know that sounds just very kind of, I don’t know, cliche or obvious, but the students with the threes, fours and fives. They wanted to do test corrections. They were the ones wanting to know why. They missed something they did not just except if they failed a test. They didn’t just, you know, slide it, you know, under their binder and just forget about it. They wanted to know why they missed questions four, five, and six. And these are the students who actually wanted to learn the science behind these questions. For my students who did not get a three, four or five, those were the students who might have not scored well throughout the whole entire school year, but they didn’t come to tutoring. They didn’t ask why they were just okay with failing a test and not learning why that was the biggest differentiator.

Rebecca 30:36
Well, and that’s good to for you starting this new school year to say the students like, hey, there’s a clear line in the sand versus who tried and who did it. I can’t be as right. I cannot take the test for you. So,

Laura Tice 30:48
exactly. Okay, so

Rebecca 30:50
you kind of mentioned this at the beginning, but you may have some sophomores in there next year. And I don’t know if you did last year, did you have any sophomores? Or were they all upperclassmen?

Laura Tice 30:58
I did have a couple of sophomores at the beginning, most of them dropped. We have like a six week period where they can drop an AP course and most of them dropped within the first six weeks. Okay,

Rebecca 31:08
so once you saw the scores within the year, how did those younger students do versus their oldest? Did you see a differential? Or is there no real difference? Was it truly just based on effort? Not really age?

Laura Tice 31:17
Um, this is such a hard question, because by the end, I only had like three soft, yes, I

Rebecca 31:22
mean, a sample size is so small, so it is so small.

Laura Tice 31:24
So I would say, maybe not so much in test score, but in overall school year, my sophomores definitely struggled a lot more than my upperclassmen did. Just, I think part of it was a little bit maturity, because students are like, Oh, ninth grade bio is so easy. AP Bio is going to be a great class to take next and it is such No, yeah. Like, it is not an easy AP science course, and they always think it’s going to be so I think maturity has a little bit to do with it. I think sophomores sometimes don’t really have the time management skills quite yet needed for an intense AP course. Yeah. As well as not having chemistry before AP Bio, I think is a major nono. Yeah. At my school, they are allowed to take AP Bio, if they’re also in chemistry, like concurrently. Yeah. But that doesn’t make sense to me, because Unit One is chemistry of life.

Rebecca 32:22
So So yeah, yeah,

Laura Tice 32:25
I tell my students on day one, I will list out like all of these chemistry words, that sounds scary if you’ve never taken chemistry. And I’ll say afterwards, I expect you to know all of this. Yeah, right. Now, day one, if you do not, you need to learn all of chemistry before next week, because I fly through unit one. Because it’s so easy if you’ve taken chemistry, so I fly through unit one. And that’s

Rebecca 32:48
smart, though, because that is an easy way to like naturally weed out students. Because other than that, all you can really do is talk to the school counselor and be like Lise discourage these students?

Laura Tice 32:58
Yes. And I told my ninth graders that I recently had, I told them no, like, I would not let them sign up for my class. Yeah, I was like, wait until your junior senior year, and then I would love to welcome you

Rebecca 33:10
again. Yeah, seriously, it would be so much more fun. Exactly. Oh, man. Okay, so I feel like every guest I have on here, I just have to ask you about apathy. Because I just think that is what is most taking over my inbox is teachers venting about apathy. So I thought it was interesting. In your application, you talked about how most of your students at AP Bio was their favorite class, which I love. So how do you feel like you were able to combat that apathy, because it sounds like that wasn’t necessarily a problem in your course.

Laura Tice 33:39
It was not really a problem for my AP students. And I don’t want to take that credit, like I did something because the students that I had their target groups, they were awesome. I wish I could copy paste them into next year. I love those students. They were great first year of AP students, but based on some of their positive feedback I got from the course that’s kind of what I’m going to say I did to help with that issue. They said that I was one of the only AP classes at the school that truly did projects. Some of their other AP classes went more traditional lecture style. So they said they were really happy to actually be doing challenging AP level projects. That’s awesome. I don’t lecture a whole lot unless we’ve done an inquiry activity that they all bombed and they asked for the lecture afterwards. I give super hard quizzes and tests. I mean, they’re all AP level from day one. And my quizzes are only fr Q’s like it’s just that Yeah, and I get multiple choice quizzes. And they actually said they were super grateful that I did that from day one because it helped them realize they had to be on top of it or they weren’t going to make it to the end of the semester with a passing grade. And this is so silly, but I call my quizzes they called quasi poos. They said that that was just the best thing ever because they were usually scared of quizzes but they’re like, WHEN’S OUR NEXT Chrissy poop is tight when our next quiz, you poo, and they just like, they weren’t scared of the quizzes as much as they usually would have been. A few little tidbits I got from my students that they said they enjoyed.

Rebecca 35:23
I love that you did like a survey you got Did you do a survey? Or was this just like thinking, Okay, I love that’s so wise just to learn, and just to be willing to open yourself up to critique is very mature. So I’m impressed that you did that so early and you weren’t like Don’t harm me. Okay, I’m super interested that you said how I feel like lecture is such a hard thing that AP teachers and I think especially people who have taught AP for a while, because that’s how it always was for so long with like, just let’s lecture. So how did you get away from doing that? And still giving them like, were you doing a lot of Google’s? I know, you said inquiry activities? Were you having them watch videos? Or read the textbook? I know, you mentioned no homework. So what was kind of what were you doing there to help decrease lecture?

Laura Tice 36:09
Um, so I did pocos occasionally, but you know, students see Pogo, and they’re instantly shut down after you do one or two of them. Like, what is the deal with that?

Rebecca 36:19
I don’t know. But I love them.

Laura Tice 36:20
I do too. So I ended up like, just typing them out myself. It

Rebecca 36:26
was like, Yeah, literally, totally. And so you call that a Puggly. Poo. And now

Laura Tice 36:35
I was like, Okay, fine. Or I’ll print it on, you know, colorful paper instead of black and white, like, I don’t know, anything to get them interested. But since being a PBL school that was able to take away a lot of lecture. So instead of physically standing in front of my students, and you know, reading the words off the screen to them, I would post in our learning management system, I would post PowerPoints with all the notes, all the things and say, Hey, here’s this resource for you, as you’re doing your project, or as you’re doing this POGIL style activity. That way, a lot of my students would tell me, they would actually go home and take notes on that in their own time. They said, sometimes it was helpful after they did an activity to go back through that slideshow, but I tried really hard not to stand up there and talk all the time. Or I would pick like the most important slides and say, Okay, I’m going to do 10 minutes of me just talking at you guys kind of explaining the most difficult things, and then they’re going to jump into some type of activity. I think I did a lot of labs, or maybe not labs, but like, you know, card sore, then we’re gonna, you know, switch around tables, and you’re gonna check somebody else’s. But I think this is just another little side piece of advice for new AP teachers. I thought I had to do the AP labs, like the official skier outlines. And I’ve learned after the first couple that you do not. So I started doing kind of my own ninth grade labs, but put a more challenge, expound on it. And I think they just learned so much more they’re doing and talking with each other that I really like the students actively doing something I just during my class period, I want to just be walking around troubleshooting answering questions. I don’t want to be working because it’s their time to work. So I love that

Rebecca 38:30
also. Yeah. Like, why who wrote those labs? And why are they so scary?

Laura Tice 38:35
Thank you, I have an idea of some events that I’m like, why is this eight pages long? It has five different parts. It’s gonna take me a month to do this one lab, and I don’t even get good data from it. Like,

Rebecca 38:48
I know, that’s how I feel about NGSS too. I’m like, I love it in theory, but like Pratt, like no one with practicality ever wrote this, you know,

Laura Tice 38:57
is it still understand were crazy.

Rebecca 39:00
I don’t I’m grateful. I had gone to a psi. And my teacher straight up said, you don’t have to do this. She was like, I think she even said pick one. she I think she said shoot for one per quarter, worst case, one per semester to try to do really well. But like, if you can’t do it, you can’t because I remember I had no supplies and no budget. I was like, how am I supposed to be able to buy all this stuff? Yeah, we have these little bugs and these days.

Laura Tice 39:24
Like, has anybody in their right mind? How are they able to do that with time constraint? Money constraint? Yeah. And just students are not that interested in them.

Rebecca 39:34
I know what I think. Yeah, I mean, I’m sure it’s accessible if you have all the stuff but like it’s, so that’s encouraging to hear you say that. Okay, so like, then how do you get your students? I’m going rogue here, but I’m just so encouraged by like, what you’re saying, How did you when your students are preparing for your test? How did you not have a lot of them saying like, you never taught me this? Because I think sometimes students are like, well, we didn’t take notes on it. then, like, were you giving them objectives and vocabulary? Like these? Are our end targets at the end of the unit? Or how do they how do they know how to prepare for your unit test?

Laura Tice 40:09
Honestly, I was such a hot mess this year, I did not ever give a list of vocab. And that’s something that I should probably be doing.

Rebecca 40:18
I did it like 48 hours before the test every time when I taught it, because I was not prepared, like, but I would like oh, you’re writing? Yeah, but I just was like, I’ve literally read the test five seconds ago. So I’m just now telling you, it was hard.

Laura Tice 40:30
It was yeah, that was something really difficult. And I think part of me, too, I just have my own personal beliefs, which is, this is an AP course, which means it’s simulating College, which means I’m not going to hold your hand and tell you what to study. Like. We had four weeks of labs, card sorts warmups quizzes, Pogo style activities, a project like if you don’t know what is going to be on this test, that’s a huge problem, not a missed ice problem. Which sounds a little harsh now that I’ve said out loud, but if a student would ask, I would write out on the board, like, these are the six topics that we have covered, you know, so if let’s jump to unit three for AP Bio cell energy, so topic one, we hit enzymes, topic two, we hit photosynthesis, topic three, we hit cell respiration, boom, that’s what you need to know, for this test. And my students would keep their inquiry activities, I don’t typically grade those, I would just like kind of stamp them for completion. Yeah. And I would tell them, like that’s, that’s for you. And they would look over those activities, or those slideshows that I do post on our learning management system. Some of them will just go through all of that before, but I think my students had a very clear expectation, or clear guidelines of what I expected them to know, every day in class that I didn’t really get asked that question very often.

Rebecca 41:57
That’s awesome. I mean, they sound like a unicorn group. But I also, I’m just impressed by you holding the line. And just saying like, this is the line, you can rise to it. I’m not just gonna lower to you. Period. Absolutely.

Laura Tice 42:10
And they there was a lot of pushback from a lot of them. They’re like, Oh, this is so hard. And I’m like, I told you, it’s gonna be hard on the first day, you can do hard things. And that would kind of get them into the mindset that like, oh, yeah, it’s actually I can’t do this. It’s hard, but I can do it. And so that’s what I expect them to do.

Rebecca 42:31
That’s awesome. Okay, so you did say a couple things. But is there anything else you would say to that teacher who is listening to this podcast, and they’re starting school this week, or next week, or in the next few weeks, and they’re like, bout to teach AP Bio for the first time?

Laura Tice 42:45
Absolutely. Stick to this see, Ed. Once again, that’s such a cliche thing to say, but I found a lot of resources, or I’d look through, you know, that old teacher at my school who previously taught AP Bio, I’d look through their resources. And I’m like, This is so much detail. Like there is so much information, and it’s not on the CD, like you do not have to go that deep. I think less is more when it comes to notes and content. Because like I said at the beginning, the students are not going to be asked those content memorization questions, they’re going to be asked, hey, something messed up, what’s going to happen? Or here’s this, you know, scientific study, what is going on here? How are these two things related? So many people think AP Bio is just content content content, which it is a lot of content, but it’s really practicing those science skills. And I tell my students, when they’re like reading the FR Q’s, find the science, like find what you literally already know, forget all the scary words you don’t know. And just stick with what you know. And to those new teachers, like stick with just the CD. Don’t feel like you have to go super in detail.

Rebecca 44:00
It’s so true. When I took over for the previous teacher, he had never gone to an AE psi since they did the rewrite like back in 2012. Like a long time ago, rewrite Oh God, like the OG rewrite like not OG, but like one of the more recent ones. And so he was still teaching, like to the 2007 test. And it was everything he gave me was useless, because there’s so much detail. And then I found I love that national AP Bio teacher group. I don’t know if you’re in that on Facebook, but there’s people in there who go into way more detail. And so I would see stuff that they were doing and I was like, shoot, but then I would do what you said I would go back to the CD and be like, they don’t need to know all the enzymes in the Calvin cycle. So like, teach that please ever, literally. And I did the same thing with my students. I cuz I feel like one of the FR Q’s and one of the tests is like a picture of, of the Krebs cycle and all the different enzymes in it, and the students see it and freak out. And so their immediate response is we never learned these bits like you You actually don’t have to know them. You have to know how to look at a picture and answer questions about it. And so like you said, it’s like clear I feel like they like right the tech to like put all these distractors, like freak the kids out when it’s like the information you need is actually on the page already. You just have to like, figure it out.

Laura Tice 45:15
Yes. Find the science. I listened to your podcast episode about using refrain. Yes, that was your refrain? Yes. I love that. My new refrain is find the science like, just find what you know, because you know, as all you need to. I

Rebecca 45:30
also love that. This is not a miss Tice problem. This is a you problem. That’s a great refrain.

Laura Tice 45:35
Yep, that is.

Rebecca 45:37
I always be like, Ooh, sounds like a personal problem. Like this is for you, not for me. I love that. Okay, anything else? Before I ask you my final question that you just realized, I gotta say this.

Laura Tice 45:47
Oh, my gosh, yes. One last thing. I think I said earlier that I bought stuff on teacher pay teachers, please know that that is okay. If it’s your first year in AP, like, I feel like there’s so much negative stigma and some some admin I know are kind of weird about that. But it is so worth it. It is 100% worth it and don’t feel guilty about using something that you did not create. It’s gonna be okay. Seriously,

Rebecca 46:11
I feel like there’s, there’s somewhere along the line, teachers have been gaslighted into thinking that like, being a teacher is the same as being a curriculum writer. And it’s literally not those are separate jobs. And a lot of people do both, and they work 60 to 75 hours a week. So it’s like, it’s okay. I tell my husband all the time. Like if I got, you know, was teaching full time again, which I think I’ll probably hopefully do when my youngest is in school. I’m like, if they throw me like astronomy, I’m immediately going I know exactly who I’m going to. And I’m like, I’m not doing this because that is just not my wheelhouse at all. So, yeah, there’s no shame in that game for sure. Absolutely. Okay, so you have is Instagram the best way for listeners to connect with you? Yes, absolutely. Okay, so it’s at teaching with Tice. I’ll put the link in the show notes. So y’all can reach out to Laura. And if you have any questions you can ask her. And this is really fun. Maybe we can have you back next summer to hear how you’re to win. I would love to share. That’d be so fun. Well, seriously, thank you so much for your time and just sharing your wisdom.

Laura Tice 47:16
Thank you so much. Thank you for this opportunity.

Rebecca 47:19
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode and my interview with Laura, you can find links that are mentioned in the show notes, as well as her Instagram handle so you can connect with her at it’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode 142. And if you’re listening and you are teaching an AP course for the first time and you have yet to leave a rating and review for the podcast, it is your turn this week, head over to Apple podcast. Click five stars and leave me a review. I would love to read it and be encouraged by you as we keep putting out these episodes of the secondary science and provide podcast. All right, teacher friends. That wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you teacher friend.