ANOTHER REDESIGN?! If you’ve been in education for a hot minute, you know how often standards change. I was truly amazed during my first few years of teaching (when I started serving on the curriculum development team) just how often curriculum gets turned over. We are talking once every 5 years AT LEAST.
So when the new 2026/27 AP® Statistics Course and Exam Description (CED) was released, my first thought was “here we go again”. I loved my curriculum the way it was, and it was working so well in my classes (and others’ too!). But I knew that I still wanted to be there for teachers and create resources that properly aligned with the new standards.
I made it my mission to completely rebuild my curriculum to align with the new structure while still keeping the things that have worked really well in my classroom over the years. We just went through this change in AP Computer Science A, so I was definitely ready for this challenge in AP Statistics.
This blog post is a behind-the-scenes look at how I organized the curriculum, how I mapped old content to the new CED, why I structured lessons and assessments the way I did, and some notes about the biggest changes in the new Unit 1 and Unit 2.
Starting with the CED
The very first thing I did was create a single Word document where I laid out every topic exactly as the College Board organized them in the new 2026/27 CED.
From there, I started mapping the new topics to my current curriculum. Some things lined up almost perfectly, while others changed quite a bit.
For example, Topics 1.1 through 1.9 were already very close to what I had been teaching. One of the biggest changes, though, was linear regression. Previously, I taught linear regression right after one-variable data. In the new CED, linear regression is moved all the way to Unit 5, the final unit of the course.
Overall, there really were not many completely “new” topics added to the course. Most of the changes involved rearranging the content, moving topics to different units, and removing a few concepts entirely (more on that later!)
Once I mapped the old curriculum to the new topics, I went section by section through my existing notes and distributed the content into the new structure.
Creating the Lessons
One of my biggest goals with this curriculum was staying as true to the CED as possible.
I know many teachers rely heavily on AP Classroom while teaching, and I wanted this curriculum to work smoothly alongside those resources. Because of that, I tried very hard to make one lesson line up directly with one AP topic. The CED does a good job of keeping the content organized in a way that makes sense to teach it linearly. The order of the topics was pretty intuitive for the most part, so it made one 40-minute lesson = one topic an easy formula for me to follow. There were three exceptions to this:
- Unit 1 – the first lesson, I combine Topics 1.1 and 1.2
- Unit 2 – the third lesson, I combine Topics 2.3 and 2.4
- Unit 2 – the tenth lesson, Topic 2.11 (the Normal distribution) will end up taking two days to cover.
For the most part, I stayed in the exact order provided by the CED. Surprisingly, I actually did not have many problems with the sequence overall. There were two main areas where I made more intentional adjustments:
Unit 2: Probability Flow
The biggest pacing area I struggled with was Topics 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 in probability. I ended up overlapping some of those concepts slightly because the overall flow of probability made more sense instructionally that way. There are still notes for each of the topics, but some of the ideas do overlap (you can see this in the learning objective breakdown in the pacing).
Unit 5: Regression & Residuals
Another place I adjusted the order was in Unit 5. Topics 5.3 and 5.5 both involve lines of best fit and linear regression, while Topic 5.4 focuses on residuals. I chose to teach 5.3 and 5.5 together first and then cover residuals afterward. To me, students really need a strong understanding of a line of best and linear regression fit before residuals fully make sense.
Besides those areas, and maybe one or two smaller spots, I was able to follow the CED sequence pretty closely.
My Teaching Style & Philosophy
One thing that is important to understand about this curriculum, is that it reflects the way I personally teach AP Statistics.
I am a big fan of direct instruction when introducing new material. I really enjoy walking students through concepts for the first time, modeling problems, discussing reasoning, and helping students build confidence step-by-step. I’ve always felt that my performance in front of the class really connected with students in this way, and I like this method because I think it prevents students from forming misconceptions about the content before they interact with it. My guided instruction includes giving information (and discussing in class), followed by an “I do” and usually a “you do” section of practice. (Watching my instruction videos are a really great way to see where I do this!)
In my classroom, that usually looks like:
- Two or three days of notes and guided instruction, with a homework assignment after each lesson
- One or two days of activities or practice in class, with some teacher guidance but more where the students work together on concepts
- Followed by some sort of assessment, either a formative quiz or a summative assessment
That structure has worked extremely well for my students, and I know they really appreciate the structure this brings to the classroom.
Now, I fully recognize that this is not the only effective way to teach statistics. Every classroom is different, and every teacher has their own style. That is one of the reasons making this curriculum editable was so important to me – you have to make it work for your own students!
If your classroom runs similarly to mine, you can probably use much of this curriculum almost “out of the box”, but if you teach differently, you can easily rearrange lessons, rename activities, move topics around, or restructure assessments to fit your classroom needs. I truly believe teachers are the experts when it comes to delivering content to their own students, and I hope this is conveyed through the resources I provide. Even I modify my own curriculum throughout the year, depending on the needs of my students, which is another reason editable resources matter so much to me. This might be inserting a new activity to help them, more practice, or a review/catch-up day. You will see this in the pacing guide as “flex days” where I intentionally build in those extra days throughout so that if a lesson takes longer, or I need to add more time in, I can still follow my pacing well.
Another reason I like my structure is that it works really well with occasional flipped classroom instruction. There are times during the year where I assign the lesson video and guided notes as homework the night before. Then, instead of doing the notes during class, we spend class time working through homework problems together, discussing misconceptions, and answering questions.
One thing I intentionally kept the same in this curriculum is guided student notes paired with direct instruction because, when done well, this approach is extremely effective. Direct instruction has one of the strongest research bases in education, with decades of studies showing positive effects on student achievement.
For me, guided notes help transform instruction from passive listening into active engagement. Students stay organized, focused, and involved throughout the lesson while still having a strong reference point to come back to later. I believe guided notes help build student confidence and empowerment in learning content.
That said, every classroom is different, and this is simply the structure that has worked best in my classroom over the years. I should also mention that while direct instruction is the foundation of my classroom, I do include “experience first, formulate later” activities, especially with simulation topics. I think those activities are incredibly valuable for helping students see the big picture before formalizing the mathematics and statistics behind it.
Building the Curriculum Materials
Guided Notes
Once the curriculum map was finalized, I started creating the actual materials. The first thing I always create is the answer key version of the notes.
As I work through the notes, I continuously check:
- That the objectives align with the CED
- That the language matches AP terminology
- That the progression of ideas flows naturally
One thing I focused on heavily was making sure all five units flowed together cohesively before moving into assessments.
Assessments
Which, speaking of those assessments, I would say the biggest challenge I faced was deciding how to handle assessment structure. I was always a fan of one quiz and one test in each unit with the previous CED, but realistically, five unit tests across an entire AP Statistics course simply was not enough for my teaching situation or district grading expectations.
Because of that, I split Units 1, 2, and 3 into two separate parts (appropriately labeled Part 1 and Part 2). This allows me to have:
- Two quizzes (counted as formatives)
- Two summative assessments
- Two projects (counted as summatives)
within each of those larger units. Units 4 and 5 remained small enough that I have a single quiz, test (two versions), and one project in each of those units.
This setup gives students more opportunities for feedback and gives me more meaningful checkpoints throughout the semester. I also create multiple versions of major assessments. I personally like having additional versions available for reassessment, practice exams, and future AP prep.
Homework and Reviews
After assessments, I moved into homework assignments and test reviews. My goal with homework was to scaffold students gradually, like:
- Begin with guided individual practice
- Build confidence
- Eventually reach AP-level rigor
The review materials are designed to closely match the level of rigor students should expect before assessments.
Projects & Activities
One of my favorite parts of rebuilding this curriculum was bringing back some familiar activities while also creating new ones. I have a mix of:
- Discovery-style activities
- Reinforcement activities
- Simulation activities
- Review games
- Projects for summative assessment
Some activities are designed to introduce ideas before formal instruction, while others reinforce concepts after students have already learned them.
My M&M activities are all back (with improvements!), and I also expanded some of my review games. We LOVE Jeopardy in our school, and the trivia night format has always been a huge hit with students. I used to love going to trivia nights before I had kids of my own, so bringing that energy into AP Statistics has been really fun.
These activities give students another way to review content while making the classroom environment more engaging and collaborative.
PowerPoint Slides
After all of those were put into place, it was time to put the finishing touches on my resources, which included giving each set of notes two versions of the lesson slides to fit different teaching styles.
The “No Transitions” slides display all notes and content at once and work well for printing, posting online (in a password managed LMS), and as student reference materials. My “With Transitions” slides are designed for live instruction, where information appears step-by-step as you advance through the lesson.
Both versions are intentionally designed without built-in animations so they remain compatible with platforms like Google Slides. Although, one thing to note, some mathematical formatting may not transition perfectly in Google Slides, so I always recommend previewing the slides before teaching. I’m curious if more teachers use Google Slides now over PowerPoint, and if, moving forward, having the Google Slides version ready for you would be helpful (be sure to let me know if this applies to you!).
Unit 1 Updates & Notes
The new Unit 1 now combines content from the previous:
- Unit 1 – Exploring One-Variable Data (minus the Normal Distribution)
- Unit 3 – Collecting Data
Some notable updates include:
- Ogives and cumulative relative frequency tables are no longer covered
- Calculating percentiles for discrete distributions is no longer covered (except for the quartiles and median)
- The Normal Distribution moved to Topic 2.11, in Unit 2
- The term “lurking variable” was removed
- “Confounding variable” is now emphasized instead
- Students are no longer required to read random digit tables
- Technology-based random selection is included instead
- Multistage sampling is no longer included
I also updated:
- Notes now include a 1-inch left margin to make three-hole punch binder organization easier
- All multiple-choice questions are now 4 answer choices instead of 5, to match the new exam structure
- I removed as much of the TI-84 from the notes as I could, since teachers are using various forms of technology for graph generation and finding statistics. I do include an activity that teaches students how to use the calc for these in the course of Unit 1, with the option to also use Demos instead!
Right now, I have the following resource bundles available for Unit 1:
Unit 2 Updates & Notes
The new Unit 2 combines content from the previous:
- Unit 2 (two-variable categorical data only, the rest of linear regression is Unit 5)
- Unit 4 (minus geometric distributions)
- The Normal Distribution content from the previous Unit 1
- Introduction to Sampling Distributions from the previous Unit 5
Some major changes include:
- No geometric random variables
- No combining random variables
- No combining Normal random variables
The TI-84 calculator is discussed more heavily in Topics 2.10 and 2.11 because many of those concepts are difficult to work through efficiently without technology, otherwise I really tried to leave calculator specific instructions for a separate conversation.
I still cover Venn Diagrams (and am bringing back tree diagrams) in the curriculum. While these visual aids are not directly assessed on the AP exam, I think they provide a great visual for specific probability problems.
Another change I intentionally incorporated was the use of functions to model discrete random variables. The new CED specifically references this in Topic 2.8.A.4, so I made a point to include more function-based problems throughout the unit.
Sampling distributions (and the Central Limit Theorem) were placed at the end of Unit 2, as Topic 2.12. I really wrestled with this being here; I considered just saving the sampling distribution topic for our inference units, but in the end, I really wanted to try and be as true to the CED as possible. I introduce the CLT and sampling distributions with a simulation one day, and then formalize the concept in the guided notes. I stuck with the sampling distribution of the sample mean, because we are just going to be coming off of the normal distribution, and I think I created some good comparison problems between the two ideas. More formal problems will be done in Units 3 and 4 (the big inference units), but I really did like the way this section of Unit 2 turned out.
Right now, I have the following resource bundles available for Unit 2:
AP Exam Changes
In addition to content changes, the following changes were made to the 2026/27 AP Exam:
There are now 42 multiple choice questions, with 4 answer choices each, in 90 minutes
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- Previous: 40 MCQs, with 5 answer choices, in 90 minutes
There are now 4 free response questions, each being weighed the same and scored with points, in 90 minutes
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- Previous: 6 FRQS, #6 being weighed more, all scored on an E/P/I system, in 90 minutes
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, my goal with this curriculum was not just to “cover” the new CED; I wanted to create something that really helps teachers feel confident teaching AP Statistics in their classrooms. I know every teacher approaches AP Statistics differently, and I truly believe that is a good (and beautiful!) thing. My hope is that this curriculum gives teachers a strong foundation while still leaving room to make it their own.
As always, I am here to help YOU, so comment on this post, on my social media pages, or send me an email if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. I love being a positive resource for teachers around the world, and hope to continue to be!
FAQs!
If I have previously purchased the AP Statistics full curriculum, do I have to repurchase the new curriculum?
No repurchase needed! If you have already gotten my full curriculum for AP Statistics (either through TPT or my Emporium), you get all these new updates for free! All you have to do is redownload the product and you will see all the new resources there.
If I liked the old sequencing of the previous CED, can I keep it the same?
YES! Content has been shifted around and some taken out (a few pieces added), but not enough to throw away all your hard work. I have a document included in the new curriculum called the “Legacy Resource Alignment Guide” to help you figure out what to take out and put in, to align with the new CED but to keep the previous units in tack.
Are there going to be new videos for each of the guided notes?
YES! I will be starting to create the videos Summer 2026. All videos will be available on my YouTube page. The previous videos that align with my legacy resources will remain up and running too!
Are you going to be making final exams or AP exam reviews?
YES! These are going to be created and released in Fall 2026.
Are you going to be updating the multiple-choice question resources?
Maybe! I have created new multiple-choice questions in the new versions of the assessments, but the previous MCQs bundles will be retired over the summer. I’m hoping that if time allows, I can create new MCQ bundles for you this fall. I have had many of you tell me how much this resource has helped!
Where can we go for updates throughout the year?
I have this running Google Doc that keeps track of the changes (additions and updates) to the curriculum after the release! Of course you can message me at any time for questions on this too.
Will the previous version of the curriculum still be available?
For now! Previous versions will remain available throughout the summer, to make sure you always have a complete curriculum available at all times. Once the final unit is released, the previous version will officially be retired, and will no longer be available on TPT. I will keep all legacy resources up on my website for anyone that is still interested in those.
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