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For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals (including differences in motivation, ability, plans, and outcomes); ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.

EDIT: to allow responses from people who do not teach/research standardized curriculums, the alternate question is "How to teach high-level problem solving skills when the coverage and depth of content is specified or known? How big of a role should problem solving exercises play in such instruction?"

For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals (including differences in motivation, ability, plans, and outcomes); ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.

EDIT: to allow responses from people who do not teach/research standardized curriculums, the alternate question is "In an environment where the teacher can predict but not change the scope of a math course, how to teach high-level problem solving skills? How big of a role should problem solving exercises play, comparison to theory or other exercises?" The context is important since I am not interested in the teacher changing the course coverage to allow more time spent on harder problems.

For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals (including differences in motivation, ability, plans, and outcomes); ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.

For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals (including differences in motivation, ability, plans, and outcomes); ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.

EDIT: to allow responses from people who do not teach/research standardized curriculums, the alternate question is "How to teach high-level problem solving skills when the coverage and depth of content is specified or known? How big of a role should problem solving exercises play in such instruction?"

For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals; ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.

For people teaching high school standardized curriculums such as AP, IB, or A-Levels, how do you find the balance between preparing students for the standardized test compared to ensuring they understand the material?

In an ideal world, the two are the same. And whether standardized testing is good or not is another question. I would like to highlight that in these three programs, the goal of the course is typically to prepare the students for the respective examinations. This is contrasted with ACT/SAT preparation taking only a small part of class time.

I want to know more about i) structuring the class to target a relatively wide range in students background and goals (including differences in motivation, ability, plans, and outcomes); ii) selecting questions that are good for learning vs that are common on the exam; iii) the role that past exam questions play in instruction and assessment.