Teachers’ turn to study
Rice’s Advanced Placement Institute draws teachers from around the world

BY CAROL HOPKINS
Special to the Rice News

For Jason Gigliotti, a history teacher at Stephen F. Austin High School in the Fort Bend Independent School District, spending a week of his summer vacation as a student in a classroom at Rice University is his idea of fun.

“I look forward every year to coming for a week as a way to rejuvenate — to really expand your knowledge and find ways to incorporate that in the following year and years to come,” he said.

	A pre-AP science class in the 2008 institute benefits from personal attention from an instructor.

Gigliotti is one of more than 2,250 teachers from around the U.S. and the world who will come to Houston this month and next to attend the 15th annual Advanced Placement (AP) Summer Institute at Rice, where they will hone their teaching skills and content knowledge. Though 91 percent of the participants are from Texas, 8 percent hail from other states and the rest are traveling from countries such as Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Honduras, Dubai, Nepal and Nicaragua.

Rice’s institute, which runs June 22-July 24, has become one of the largest in the country, offering more than 100 five-day courses. It is endorsed by the College Board and administered by Rice’s Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, which has been training AP and pre-AP teachers since 1995.

AP courses are college-level courses taught in high school that prepare students for post-course exams. A passing grade on the exam earns the student college credit. Pre-AP courses are taught in middle and high schools to prepare students for AP courses. More than 120,000 teachers in more than 14,300 schools worldwide teach AP courses.

“Our AP Summer Institute is critical to the professional growth of teachers and to the level of college readiness among high school students,” said Jennifer Labay, director of teacher professional development at the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. “Over the years we’ve seen the direct impact our training has on these teachers. They tell us they become more confident and more effective in the classroom. It’s an incredible motivator for us to keep doing what we’re doing and to do it better every year.”

Participants in the 2008 Rice Advanced Placement Summer Institute AP biology class show off the projects they worked on.

The U.S. Department of Education has recently highlighted the role of AP in driving reform in teaching, learning and assessment. In providing funding guidance to school districts receiving stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the department has encouraged stimulus funds be used for AP and pre-AP program expansion and for professional development of AP and pre-AP teachers.

Rice’s AP Summer Institute offers that type of professional development, providing courses for both new and experienced teachers of AP and pre-AP classes.

Gigliotti will return to the institute for his sixth year of training June 22. He will attend one of the institute’s Academies for High School Teachers of Advanced Courses, which focus strictly on subject content and include several in-depth lectures by faculty from Rice and other institutions of higher learning.

“I don’t know if there is a better way for an AP teacher to continue building upon his or her knowledge than attending an academy,” Gigliotti said. “For me, it is an intense week of intellectual stimulation that provides information far beyond the ordinary content in an AP U.S. history course. I attribute much of the success my students have had on the AP exam to my ability to share the content I have learned at Rice each summer.”

Gigliotti’s sentiments are widely shared. So much so that the demand for the program continues to increase and teachers have asked for similar high-quality professional development programs throughout the year, according to Paul Sanders, executive director of teacher professional development at the Glasscock School.
 
“In addition to the AP Summer Institute and the academies, we’re looking to develop other innovative training models designed to meet the needs of all members of the AP community,” Sanders said.

The Glasscock School of Continuing Studies also offers professional development programs for high school-level International Baccalaureate (IB) teachers. IB, like AP, is a rigorous program designed to prepare students for college. Rice is the only university to offer teacher training in both AP and IB.

For more information on teacher professional development through the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice, visit www.teachers.rice.edu or call 713-348-6031.

— Carol Hopkins is the temporary marketing director for the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies.