LIHUE — The College Board released Advance Placement scores for Hawaii students revealing that, for the second year in a row, Kauai High School students rank nationally on the Advanced Placement Art History exam.
The College Board, which also governs the SAT, administers the Advanced Placement (AP) exams in May each school year with score results released in July. Students earning a passing score of 3, 4, or 5 on the AP Art History exam may receive college credit. Hawaii is ranked 35th in the nation for the percentage of students scoring 3 or higher on at least on AP exam during high school.
“I’m thrilled for these students,” said Michelle Dressler who teaches the AP Art History course at Kauai High School.
Dressler, a National Board Certified Teacher, is also involved in the College Board AP Art History Teacher Community where she connects with other AP educators, college professors, and art historians.
Nationally, students earning scores of 3 or higher on the AP Art History exam this year is 64.7 percent. Kauai High School’s students earning scores of 3 or higher on the AP Art History exam this year is 94.7 percent, an impressive increase of 3.8 percent from last year’s Kauai High School’s AP Art History students’ scores.
Students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade may enroll in AP Art History. Students studying AP Art History explore topics including the nature of art, its uses, meanings, art making, and human responses to art.
The course promotes in-depth student investigation of diverse artistic traditions of cultures from prehistory to the present from a global perspective. Students learn and apply skills of visual, contextual, and comparative analysis of 250 works of art architectural structures.
The College Board develops the AP Art History exam derived from standard settings and college comparability studies. This ensures that the AP exam outcomes align with college faculty expectations. The rigorous exam is three hours consisting of 50 multiple-choice questions that students complete in one hour and six essay questions that students complete in two hours.
Students anxiously await the release of their scores. One student sent Dressler a text message at 2:17 in the morning writing, “Hey Mrs. Dressler! I know it’s late but I just checked my AP scores and I got a 4! Just wanted to let you know, because I tried really hard and I miss your class!”
In class, Dressler focuses on students’ pursuit of high level learning.
“I push students to set their goals and then reach beyond what they believe they can achieve,” she said. “When students focus on learning rather than earning points or specific grades, they make the necessary connections enabling them to apply the essential critical thinking skills to form in depth analyses to support their ideas. The course is very demanding and most students enter the class with limited to no background knowledge on the content. These students deserve recognition for their efforts. I’m extremely proud of them.”
