So you have been assigned to teach a high school AP Physics class, congratulations! Teaching this or any AP high school science can be a fun, rewarding experience. There are ways to make it easier for new AP teachers coming into our schools. But if we don’t take such steps then we may set teachers up for failure. So here’s specific advice for those who have been asked to teach AP Physics for the first time:
* Have your school sign you up for an AP physics summer institute. Every high school should pay for this – and they should pay not only for the class, but also travel expenses, and room & board. The amount of money is peanuts compared to the school annual budget, and they know it. It is a one-time expense to create excellence for a program that impact many students for many years.
* Spend a few weeks talking with teachers who’ve taught AP physics before. They will be happy to share their notes with you. With their help, create a month-by-month pacing guide. As the year progresses try to stick with it so you get through all of the material.
* At the beginning of each unit/month, break your pacing guide down into a day-by-day pacing guide.
* Before the first day of school – get into the physics stockroom. Get into the online file/document storage, the bookshelves, and any storage cabinets that they have in the physics classrooms.
* Work with the teachers and science department head to find all the AP physics labs that AP physics students in your school have previously have been doing.
In theory, all of that should already be there for you, plug and play. But in reality many science department heads are overwhelmed, and have not made sure that this was done. In some schools when I walked in there was almost nothing organized for me. Many files were on somebody else’s hard drive or cloud drive, and those that were available were not always well organized or explained. Lab supplies were not always well organized or labeled.
* Plan ahead: You should try to run a couple of AP labs each month.
* Spend time – ideally, before the school year begins – going through the physics lab supply room. Find all items necessary to do the labs. For those items that you cannot find, work with your department head to write a purchase order to get what you need.
This can be a very doable job if there was good organization in the year before. There’s no reason for any school to not already have, for every new teacher walking in the door:
* A month by month, week by week AP pacing guide
* A good textbook or set of online resources that each lesson connects to
* Appropriate, well-labeled, and well-documented, AP physics labs.
* Clear lab write-ups for the teacher and for the students.
The challenges that we face are:
* Some people were disorganized. Their files may be in disarray.
* Some people create a detailed curriculum but take it with them and leave nothing for the new teacher. That shouldn’t be happening, we’re supposed to be a community where we all support and value each other.
* Some people lose parts/ lab supplies, don’t tell anyone, and don’t order replacement parts. That sets the next teacher up for frustration.
How we grow: One of the things I worked on over the years is showing my materials to teachers and students, and improving my process from their reactions. Sometimes what I wrote seems clear to me, yet someone will point out something ambiguous. This gives me an opportunity to rewrite and make things clearer.
Most problems for the next incoming AP science teachers go away as long as, in the previous year, the department head sits down with the science teachers and works things out ahead of time. Good intentions and a recognition that we are all part of a community leads to good organization and improvement of pedagogy. This benefits the entire community.
KaiserScience 