Robert Coad:   College Board Consultant for AP Art History

This session is offered with Dr. Robert Coad during Event 1 June 20-23, 2023

If these dates are not convenient for you, AP Art History is also offered with Yu Bong Ko during Event 2 June 26-29, 2023.

Robert Coad has taught AP* Art History at Hamilton High School’s Humanities Magnet since 1994 and since retiring from full time teaching in 2017, has taught one class of APAH at independent and charter schools in Los Angeles.  

Since 1996, Robert has led one-day and 5-day APSI workshops throughout the United States, Canada, and John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. Robert has served as a College Board National Leader Consultant, a Reader for AP Art History Exam and was honored as a Distinguished Teacher (AP Art History) at the College Board Western Region Conference.  

Robert holds National Board Certification in Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood Art (2002/2012). He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and a Humanities Teacher Leadership program award. Robert was a mentor teacher and BTSA Support Provider for LAUSD for many years.   

Robert has traveled extensively in the United States and Europe, with extended stays in London, Paris, Florence, Venice, and Rome. Before moving to Los Angeles, Robert lived in New York for 13 years, earning his Master’s and Doctoral degrees at NYU. He has also travelled to Japan and Mexico to study firsthand works in the redesigned AP Art History course. 

One of the primary challenges of teaching an AP course revolves around the central question; “How do I get everything done in the time available”? The AP Art History curriculum, with 250 works (and over 400 images) and eight specific Art Historical Thinking Skills presents the instructor with special challenges of how to manage instructional time, school calendars, homework assignments and assessments for students who are taking other demanding academic courses. This workshop attempts to unpack these issues by presenting specific instructional strategies, suggestions on pacing and organization, and collaborative student assignments that will be useful for study and review. This workshop will encourage teachers to make this course their own by developing a curriculum that is organic to their teaching style and ever-expanding knowledge base. The AP® Art History Course and Exam Description, an invaluable document outlining content, Art Historical Thinking Skills, “Big Ideas”, Topic Questions and Enduring Understandings will be the starting point for investigating how we can translate this for ourselves and our students in an accessible and meaningful way. We will do a deep dive into the AP® Art History exam, specifically the free response questions. The incredible resources available on AP Classroom, including Unit outlines, Practice Questions, Class Progress Checks and Feedback, daily videos, and the AP® Question Bank will be presented. Because of the plethora of online support for both teachers and students, a considerable time each day will be devoted to exploring specific content areas of special interest identified by workshop participants. Our mission as teachers is to inspire and engage students in the incredible – and incredibly diverse – course content of not just works of art, but the ideas, cultural and artistic traditions, economic and social structures, and individuals that created them.  

AP Art History Online Institute      Robert Coad (robertjcoad@gmail.com) 

 Participants in the AP Art History Summer Institute will increase their knowledge of the AP Art History Course and Exam Description.  We will take a “deep dive” into each of the 10 units and 8  art historical thinking skills.   

  • Strategies and pedagogical techniques for increasing student proficiency in the learning objectives will be shared with specific focus on how to introduce core concepts of content, form, context, function to arrive at an understanding of “meaning”.   
  • A critical piece of this workshop will focus on how to organize the course content and pacing, using instructor’s daily calendar as a firsthand example to examine, reject and/or modify.  
  • We will also learn how to use the AP Classroom including its many resources for each Unit and Practice Questions, Class Progress Checks and Feedback, the daily videos, and the AP® Question Bank to scaffold each of the 8 art historical thinking skills and develop lesson plans that reinforce student learning.  
  • Participants will spend time becoming familiar with the format, sample questions and grading of the exam and look at specific free response questions from the 2023 exam.  
  • Participants will be introduced to how to use the Instructional Planning Report to continually refine classroom instruction.  
  • Time will also be provided for reflection and to work on your course syllabus, pacing plans and lesson planning. 

Agenda (Synchronous sessions in bold)               Please note – the order of these Agenda items may change after participant feedback 

DAY 1:

Welcome! How to Navigate our online APSI materials.

Introductions, expectations of the week, online protocols, the agenda

Equity and Access

Introducing AP® Art History CED’s (Course and Exam Description)

Looking at the Course at a Glance

Big Ideas and clearly articulated 8 Art Historical Thinking Skills

Specific content areas to focus on during this workshop (participant driven)

Asynchronous Activity:  Closer look at Course at a Glance and Art Historical Thinking Skills

  • How can we use these documents to guide planning and instruction?
  • How can we build Art Historical Thinking Skills into your classrooms?
  • How could you assess student learning?

Organizing course content and pacing – how do we “get it all done”? 

  • Can we re-order the 10 Units to better serve our student’s interests and needs (and our individual strengths as teachers)? 
  • How can we further organize course content into manageable classroom experiences?
  • How can we organize works within each Unit to build connections between works within a unit and between works in other Units?

Asynchronous Activity:

Investigating the course content (250 works) and your classroom schedules:

  • What are the advantages to following the 10 Units in order?
  • Are there alternative orderings of course content that might better “fit” strengths in our knowledge on content and our student populations?
  • Close look at your school calendar and available classroom instructional time. Can you identify potential challenges?

Debrief, Question and Answers:  

  • What is happening in tomorrow’s session? 

 

DAY 2:

Time for reflection and questions from yesterday’s activities

Beginning the course – The first week: introducing foundational ideas –   What is Art History?  What do Art Historians Do?  (Power Points shared)

Learning Objectives and global content – organizing the course content into specific units that scaffold Art Historical Thinking Skills.

  • How to present Skill 1 (Visual Analysis) and Skill 2 (Contextual Analysis) using a work of art.
  • Clearly differentiating Formal and Contextual Analysis for students
  • Connecting Content and Form to Context, Function and Meaning.

Asynchronous Activity:  Close look at Unit 1 (Global Prehistory), Unit 9 (The Pacific), Unit 6 (Africa) and Unit 5 (Indigenous America).  Number of works: 52

OR Unit 1 (Prehistory) Unit 2 (Ancient Mediterranean).      Number of works: 47

  • How can we develop Art Historical Thinking Skills 1 and 2 and Skill 3 (Comparison of works of art) when teaching the content in these units?
  • Is there a way of organizing works in these units into smaller groups that facilitate comparisons between works of art from these different units?

Sharing best practices: A deep dive into Units 1, 9, 6 and 5 or, if you chose to follow CED order, Units 1 and 2

Asynchronous Activity:  Organization of content and pacing

  • After considering both possibilities above – and other orderings – work with your school calendars organizing course content day to day with these considerations:
  • What works require more class time to unpack
  • Building connections between works and within artistic traditions
  • Scaffolding Art Historical Thinking Skills
  • Exam Weighting

Synchronous:  Debrief, Question and Answer

What is happening in tomorrow’s session?

 

DAY 3:

Time for reflection and questions from yesterday’s activities

Building Art Historical Thinking Skills – a close look at Skill 4 (Artistic Traditions), Skill 5 (Visual Analysis of Unknown Works) and Skill 6 (Attribution of Unknown Works); where they are assessed on the AP Exam

  • How (and when) to present the above skills using works of art from Units 2, 3, and 4 (also Units 5 and 6) 
  • AP Exam Free Response Questions – standardization of questions

Asynchronous Activity:  Close look at Unit 3 (Early Europe and Colonial America) and Unit 4 (Later Europe and the Americas)

  • How can we develop Art Historical Thinking Skills 1 through 6 when teaching the content in the above units (and earlier units)?
  • Is there a way of reorganizing the work in these units into smaller groups that facilitate an understanding of continuity and change?
  • Where are these skills related to specific Units assessed on the AP Exam?

Sharing best practices: Sharing activities you chose for Units 2 through 4 and how you would assess student learning after those activities

Introduction to the AP Classroom

  • How to enroll your students in AP Classroom
  • Using Personal Progress Checks to inform instruction
  • The Progress Dashboard, monitoring student learning
  • How to use the question bank to design assessments
  • Using the Instructional Planning Report to continually refine classroom instruction. 

Asynchronous Activity:  Organization of content, pacing, assessments, and skills

  • Work with your school calendars organizing course content day to day with these considerations:
  • What works require more class time to unpack
  • Building connections between works and within artistic traditions
  • Scaffolding Art Historical Thinking Skills
  • When will assessments occur and in what format?
  • How could you assess student learning?

Synchronous:  Debrief, Question and Answer

What is happening in tomorrow’s session?

 

DAY 4:

Time for reflection and questions from yesterday’s activities

The AP Art History Exam and 2023 AP Exam Free Response questions– a close look at the exam format and this year’s free response prompts, scoring guides and student samples

  • How can this examination inform our classroom instruction and assessment strategies throughout the year?
  • When should we introduce the 6 types of free response questions to our students, curriculums, and our own assessments?

Asynchronous Activity:  Reading scoring guides and rubrics then grading student samples from the 2023 Exam.

  •  What happens at the AP Art History Reading
  • A “blind” reading of free response student samples and grading according to the rubrics and scoring guidelines.

Strategies and Activities for Unit 7, Unit 8 and Unit 10 and Skill 7 and Skill 8

  • How (and when) to present the above skills using works of art from Units 7, 8, and 10 (also Units 5 and 6)
  • Organizing the works in Unit 7 and Unit 8 for clarity and coherence
  • Homework assignments, class projects, class presentations

Asynchronous Activity:  Organization of content, pacing, assessments, and skills

  • Work with your school calendars organizing course content day to day with these considerations:
    • What works require more class time to unpack
    • Building connections between works and within artistic traditions
    • Scaffolding Art Historical Thinking Skills
    • How could you assess student learning?

Synchronous:  Debrief, Question and Answer

College Board Workshop Evaluations (Email)