My new favorite way to teach Skew The Script

By Dashiell Young-Saver (AP Stats teacher, founder of Skew The Script)

I used to teach AP Statistics primarily through direct instruction. I’d deliver the lesson. Then, students would discuss and do some collaborative practice in class. Finally, they’d finish the practice problems at home. Even though I worked hard to support my students, this model suffered from several problems:

• As I taught, some students wanted me to go slower, while others were ready to move on

• Students who were absent and missed the lesson content had a difficult time catching up

• I couldn’t provide enough support for students who got stuck on homework problems at home

Eventually, I switched to a flipped classroom. I created lesson videos that students watched at home. Then, all of class time could be used for activities, discussion, and collaborative practice. This was transformative in many ways. Unlike an in-person lecture, students could pause and rewind my videos – or speed them up. For absent students, catching up wasn’t difficult, as they always had access to the lesson videos. In addition, in class, students now had plenty of time to engage in activities and get support from peers, rather than struggling with homework in isolation at home.

But there was always one problem with my flipped classroom: For students who didn’t have time or connectivity to watch videos at home, how could they stay caught up? Over the years, I developed various solutions and supports (e.g. opening up my classroom for lesson video time during lunch). But no solution was fully effective or sustainable.

That changed last school year. I decided to pilot a new teaching model – the Modern Classrooms model – with my AP Statistics students. It’s now become my favorite way to teach with Skew The Script lessons.

In the Modern Classrooms approach, students proceed at their own pace, watching lesson videos, working on practice problems, and then completing mastery check assignments in class. Once they’ve mastered a topic, they move on. The self-pacing allows students to get ahead or to spend more time internalizing the material. All the while, the teacher is completely freed up to monitor their work, check in, provide feedback, and pull small groups that may need additional support. Plus, absent students can simply pick up where they last left off.

Using this model for AP Stats, I found that students were motivated to use every minute of class time to make progress – to learn, work, solve, and think together. This meant they took very little work home. And it meant that class was full of student voices and work time, rather than teacher talk time. On my end, I was better able to provide targeted feedback to students, as I sat with them to discuss their performance on mastery checks and places where they could earn more points from AP rubrics. Best of all, with students able to watch videos in class, finding time and connectivity to watch videos at home became a non-issue.

The model also works incredibly well with Skew The Script’s AP Statistics curriculum. Our lessons use data to explore genuinely relevant contexts, such as gerrymandering, food deserts, online dating, and sports. Each lesson builds up to a highly-relevant Discussion Question about the lesson’s key context. Although the course is self-paced, I set a minimum pacing for students, so that everyone is ready to engage in the next lesson’s Discussion Question by a certain date. This way, students excitedly anticipate the next full class discussion, where we pause the work time to discuss as a full group. Using this structure, I’m also able to set the minimum pacing such that everyone is ready in time for unit assessments and, ultimately, the AP Exam.

Seeing this success, we reached out to the folks at Modern Classrooms, and we have some exciting news to share. We’re joining forces to offer a fully-paid Fellowship for AP Statistics and High School Statistics teachers who want to learn more about the Modern Classrooms teaching model. Open to current and new users of Skew The Script’s materials, the Fellowship begins this summer and includes year-long support from mentor teachers using the Modern Classrooms approach. 

Teachers who are accepted will get free and early access to Skew The Script’s revised AP Statistics lessons and new High School Statistics lessons. Plus, fellows will get special access to tailored materials that adapt Skew The Script’s curriculum for the Modern Classrooms approach. Find more info and apply here:

Teaching our curriculum with Modern Classrooms has been a game-changer in my class. Take it from me: you’ll be glad you tried it. We hope to see you in the Fellowship this summer. 

Let’s skew it!