Thread about AEPA Social Studies Middle Grades

This thread on teachers.net may be of interest to those required to take the AEPA Social Studies Middle Grades exam.

The thread starts here.

Yuma Sun Article Regarding AEPA

Here’s an article in the Yuma Sun that may be of interest to those required to take the AEPA.

“Northern Arizona University-Yuma is providing emergency certified teachers a way to become highly qualified and remain in the profession beyond the end of the academic year, said a university official.”

The article is by William Roller.

Article by Malcolm Gladwell worth a look

Here’s an interesting article written by Malcolm Gladwell of the New Yorker. The article is about spotting talent. What interested me most about the article is the discussion about finding good teachers. He argues that good teachers are like good NFL quarterbacks – it isn’t clear how what is done in college will translate into the classroom or field, and he states rather flatly at one point that “no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like.” Yet research has shown there is an enormous difference in learning among students who have good teachers and those who have bad ones.

Originally Posted by Malcolm Gladwell
the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects.

Helpful Hints to Help Pass the AEPA Basic Skills Assessment

If you’re planning on becoming a teacher in the state of Arizona, the AEPA exam is something you’ll need to face head on. It’s a series of tests designed to test your fluency on subjects like math and reading, and it gives a clear indication of how well you’ll do in communicating the ideas involved with these disciplines to students at the public education level. These are extremely important as they represent a major cross roads on the path to becoming a teacher in the Arizona educational system. The AEPA exam became a mandatory part of the entrance process for teachers after it was discovered some needed help in several key areas.

However, while many people may possess the knowledge and have the ability to communicate well in the classroom setting, taking a test might not be their strong suit. There are several hints the experts suggest for people who might not be the best at taking these tests. These are little tricks to memorizing the important information you’ll need to have to pass the critical set of tests.

One of the first ideas that a prospect for the AEPA exam should look into is prioritizing themselves. There is only so much time allocated for those taking the AEPA tests, and not everyone is strong in every subject. It’s very important therefore that you spend more time brushing up on your weaker AEPA areas than your stronger ones and that you can quickly identify which of these areas needs the most work.

Of course memory is another very important factor that will come into play during your AEPA preparation. Experts in the field have developed a number of ways to ensure that the things you learn stick in your head. First off, the experts suggest that you break up what you need to learn into small chunks that will be more easily stored. Most people’s short term memory can handle little chunks much better than bigger pieces. The larger amounts of information don’t process as well.

They suggest that if you turn the things you need to learn into a little tune, those musical notes will help you to keep the important information stored in your head a little longer. There appears to be something about music that helps us remember things we need to. Of course you won’t be able to sing that tune back during the AEPA exam, but humming it beforehand or singing in the shower will certainly help the memory process.

As well, turning the things you need to remember into nonsensical sentences that contain the patterns you need to memorize. You can create these types of sentences for any set of facts that you’ll need to memorize. Experts suggest that it’s best to make these little sentenced rhyme like poems or little ditties that will stay with you. Little memory tricks make all the difference in passing the AEPA Basic Skills Assessment and starting a career as a teacher in Arizona.