Ballard High School has seen it’s fair share of NTI this school year, and it’s safe to say it has affected many student’s learning and teacher’s instructional abilities, particularly the advanced placement classes! Teachers have been coping with this the best way they can, yet it is still quite challenging to assign what students need to learn away from school. According to Mr. Rich who only teaches AP classes, “…the greatest challenge is keeping up with all required curriculum before our exams in May. The College Board does not adjust our test date regardless of how many days we miss to weather or we are on NTI.”
That said, with the upcoming end-of-year exams for AP classes, teachers are still trying to instruct and benefit their students however possible through online learning. According to Mr. Tullbane who teaches AP Calculus, “To make up for this, [NTI] students will have more review assignments that will need to be completed outside of normal class time. Ultimately, i give the students every opportunity to be successful on the AP exam. However, the students MUST use those opportunities to achieve their goals and successes.”
Although teachers are doing their best to give the students the material they need, and students are trying their best to use these opportunities in their AP classes, NTI learning comes with it’s challenges. According to Mr. Owen, “Certainly pacing of material and not knowing until the last minute decision of NTI is challenging. It would be nice to know as soon as possible if the district is going to make that decision.” It seems that the curriculum is doing well in NTI, the students are learning what they need, and teachers are able to teach the information they need to, yet the greatest challenge for the JCPS district is the uncertainty of the NTI schedule. With the district making a last-minute decision, it makes it extremely difficult to lesson-plan or manipulate in-class assignments to at-home assignments in time for NTI learning to begin.
Overall, NTI has impacted student’s ability to learn and teachers to give proper instruction, but the administration has adapted well to this new style of learning, especially in AP classrooms and will continue to do the best they can for JCPS.
