2026 AP Statistics Summer Institute
Instructor: Marty Sternstein
This AP Statistics workshop will provide an overview of statistical ideas and concepts and give valuable resources and instructional strategies for teaching AP Statistics. We will cover the four principal areas of the AP Curriculum: Exploratory Analysis, Data Collection, Probability, and Statistical Inference. Participants will be given instruction on content, classroom activities, teaching strategies, time management, uses of technology, review for the exam, cumulative projects, and exposure to previous AP questions. There will be a discussion of AP goals, resources, the CED, the College Board AP Classroom, equity issues, the course audit, and recommended textbooks. This workshop will be valuable not only to teachers planning to teach or already teaching AP Statistics, but also to Pre-AP teachers who through vertical teaming can help prepare and encourage students to take AP Statistics.
More specifically, the following topics will be covered in some detail:
1) Exploratory Analysis: graphical displays including dotplots, bar charts, histograms, mosaic plots, stemplots, and boxplots; numerical summaries including median and mean, range, interquartile range, variance, and standard deviation; bivariate data including scatterplots, correlation, the least squares regression line, the coefficient of determination, and residuals; and categorical data including frequency tables and Simpson’s paradox.
2) Planning a Study: simple random sampling, sampling error, sources of bias in surveys, and stratification to reduce variation; observational studies vs experiments; blinding, double-blinding, blocking; random sampling vs random assignment.
3) Probability: multistage probability calculations, discrete random variables and their probability distributions, simulation of probability distributions, and means and standard deviations for sums and differences of random variables; normal, and binomial distributions; sampling distributions of sample means and sample proportions.
4) Statistical Inference: confidence intervals for means and proportions, and difference of two means or proportions; hypothesis tests including null and alternative hypotheses, p-values, one and two sided tests, Type I and Type II errors; tests for a proportion, for a mean, and for a difference; chi-square tests for independence and for homogeneity; the t-distribution and associated single sample and two sample t-procedures.
Much of the above will be presented and illustrated in the context of activity-based examples.
Detailed agenda
- Introductions
- AP Central is invaluable – apcentral.collegeboard.com
- Achieving Equity – Not an achievement gap, but rather an opportunity gap
- AP Course Audit
- College Board AP Statistics CED and the AP Classroom
- Brief History, Growth, Curriculum, and the Exam
- Opening Activities
-
- Summer assignment
- Day 1 homework survey
- Two waters
- Distracted driving
- Westvaco
- Part I (Exploring One-Variable Data)
-
- Bordering state activity
- SOCS and CUSS
- Old Faithful
- Liberia – Canada histogram exercise
- Penny activity on mean and standard deviation
- 2016 AP Exam Question #1, 2015 AP Exam Question #1,
2025 AP Exam Question #1
- Part II (Collecting Data)
- Randomization: Lanarkshire milk experiment
- Wording: Largest redwood
- Beyonce: Crazy in Love
- Poor vs good sampling techniques
- Jelly Blubber activity
- Bruno Mars concert exercise
- Observational studies vs experiments
- 2011 AP Question #3, 2024 AP Question #3, 2025 AP Exam Question #2
- Part III (Probability)
- The Cuteness Factor and Mosaic Plots
- 2024 AP Exam Question #2
- Conditional probability and independence
- The Normal Distribution
-
- Tennis Tournament probabilities
- Shooting free throws
- 2019 AP Question #3
- Random variables
- 2025 AP Question #3
- Steroid testing
- 2023 AP Question #3, 2013 AP Question #3
- Sampling Distributions
- Phone Numbers
- A Tacky activity
- Pi activity
- The German Tank Problem
- Sampling distributions of the sample proportion, mean, and slope
- 2009 AP Question #2
- Part IV (Statistical Inference)
- Logic of Confidence Intervals
-
- 2022 AP Question #4, 2013 AP Question #1
- Random Rectangles
- Morbid Math
- 2016 AP Question #5
- Evidence to Reject?
- Logic of Significance Testing
- 2025 AP Question #4, 2021 AP Question #4, 2009B AP Question #5
- Various Activities
- Chi-square tests of independence and homogeneity
- 2024 AP Exam Question #5
- Part V (Linear Regression)
- Midges!
- Barbie bungee drop activity
- Monopoly
- Valentine Day activity
- 2017 AP Question #1, 2018 AP Question #1, 2022 AP Question #1
- Outliers, influential points, and leverage
- Review
-
- The Question Bank
- Which Procedure?
- Frog/Bunny flipping activity
- Statistics Olympics
- The Ultimate List of AP Statistics Tips
- The 2026 Exam
- Wrap-up Final questions???
