Tag: tips

My Top AP Physics 1 Resources

December 29, 2021 / dina

Teaching AP Physics can be a challenge, especially if you are just starting out. Fortunately, there are a TON of AP Physics 1 resources, free and paid, to help you and your students have the best AP Physics experience. Here are ten of my tried and true top AP Physics 1 resources.

1. Covering the Basics: AP Central

Though you’ve probably already been to AP Central if you teach AP Physics 1, it’s a resource worth mentioning as it is the official source of information about AP Physics. Here you can find the Course and Exam Description, along with the most recently released free-response questions.

I highly recommend combing through the Course and Exam Description and setting up your AP Physics 1 curriculum before doing anything else when starting to design your course. Read more about setting up your AP Physics 1 curriculum here with my updated for 2021 curriculum guide.

The CED also breaks down the course by unit, the percentage each is covered on the exam, and topics within each unit you need to cover.

2. AP Classroom – another official source of information

Another obvious choice, but AP Classroom has been a true goldmine addition to College Board’s resources. AP Classroom is only available to registered teachers and students, so if you aren’t officially teaching the course yet you will not have access to this.

On AP Classroom, you can find previous exam questions, practice questions sorted by topic, and you can create assessments for students. I am honestly not fond of the assessment feature, so I typically take the questions and create my own paper or online assessments. However, their question bank is populated from real previous exam questions, so these are how I generally make my tests and quizzes.

3. Flipping Physics – top tier videos

I wrote a whole post about my fondness for Flipping Physics, but Mr. P keeps making it better and better. This is a top-tier review source for teachers and students. While the videos may be corny at times, they are MUCH more engaging than other review videos.

Image showing an example of the types of videos Flipping Physics has on their website. — These 5-15 minute review videos on each topic are amazing – great quick overviews for students before the AP national exam!

I use Flipping Physics’ content videos throughout the year as supplemental resources. During our AP exam review time, I typically begin each class period with one of the topic review videos.

4. Albert.io – the best AP Physics 1 problems

Another resource I have mentioned previously, Albert is the best resource I have found for practice questions. Albert requires a paid license and it looks some convincing to get my school to buy in, but it is the BEST out there. Their practice questions are plentiful and have a wide range of difficulties. Outside of the AP Classroom questions, they are the most aligned to the actual national exam questions I have found.

Sample Albert question from their dynamic systems section. These questions are one of the best AP Physics 1 resources out there. — Albert has a plethora of questions on each AP Physics 1 topic, ranging in difficulty from easy to difficult. It is extremely well organized and the questions are a good representation of the AP Physics 1 exam.

I like to use Albert as supplemental practice questions, as well as assign a set of questions each week for practice. Remember that these are AP-style questions, so I highly recommend grading students for completion or on an AP-style scale.

5. Labs and Simulations – favorite three

I’m cheating by combining a few resources in this category, but labs and simulations are invaluable to your course. The AP Physics 1 course relies heavily on students having hands-on experience with Physics. Since many students and courses are still at least partially online or budgets might constrict your lab offerings, simulations are a great way to incorporate more labs.

My personal favorite simulations come from PhET, oPhysics, and SimBucket. You are probably already familiar with PhET – their simulations really set the standard for virtual labs. I love that they are transitioning most of their simulations to HTML5 so they work on any device.

Image depicting a simulation from oPhysics on moment of inertia. Several objects of different shapes are rolling down an incline. — A simple oPhysics simulation on moment of inertia. I love using this one as a POE (Predict-Observe-Explain). Students often go into rotation with the misconception that all objects will reach the bottom at the same time.

oPhysics was a blessing during spring 2020 when I had to transition all of my labs to virtual. They aren’t as flashy as PhET, but they have so many great options and they are simple and easy to use.

SimBucket is another excellent collection of simulations. Many of theirs are hosted on Physics Classroom, which I will talk more about later! I find their simulations simple and easy to use, with graphics in between PhET and oPhysics level.

6. APlusPhysics – abundance of all types of AP Physics 1 resources

I purchased a copy of APlusPhysics’s AP Physics 1 Essentials during my first year teaching AP Physics 1. It was a great resource for me, and I recommended it to students as well.

Sample practice problems from APlusPhysics. Practice problems are just one of the great AP Physics 1 resources this site offers! — APlusPhysics has a wide selection of worksheets and sample AP Physics 1 problems. Here is an example of their Impulse and Momentum problems offered on their website.

Since then, they have vastly expanded their offerings and website. It is an excellent source of videos, worksheets, review guides, practice questions, and pretty much any other AP Physics 1 resource you could want.

7. Bozeman Science – videos and concept maps

Bozeman Science is another resource that has done an excellent job of expanding their offerings in the last year. They have videos on pretty much every topic in AP Physics 1. I’m also a big fan of the organization of their website – topics are sorted by Big Idea and include concepts maps and slides to help you and students organize information.

Sample AP Physics 1 resources from Bozeman Science, depicting their videos for AP Physics 1 Big Ideas 1, 2, and 3. — AP Physics 1 video list from Bozeman Science. Love that the videos are sorted by Big Idea.

Bozeman Science also has videos on many other science subjects, so share this one with your other science friends!

8. Teachers Pay Teachers – created by your peers!

While Teachers Pay Teachers contains paid resources, it is a great place to find ideas and resources created by your peers. All stores contain at least one free resource as well, so even if you are on a tight budget you can still find some quality resources.

Teachers Pay Teachers also offers district licenses, so it is worth checking if this is something your district has or is interested in!

While yours truly is just getting started on Teachers Pay Teachers, there are teacher-authors out there with entire an entire course-worth of material. Some of my favorite stores for AP Physics 1 resources:

9. Khan Academy – old reliable

You’re probably familiar with Khan Academy. Your students are probably familiar with Khan Academy. Your grandma is probably familiar with Khan Academy. Heck, Sal’s first videos were on Physics, so it’s trusty old reliable in the Physics world.

However, their videos are still great and the additional features added more recently are pretty neat too. Khan Academy now has the ability to create a classroom, assign videos and problems, check-in on students’ progress, and earn Mastery Points. There are also articles, practice questions, and course challenge quizzes. It’s definitely a tool that keeps evolving and getting better.

Image showing an example of a Khan Academy Course Challenge, a skills based set of problems. — Course Challenges are just one of the newer, more engaging AP Physics 1 resources added to Khan Academy.

I would like to see Khan Academy move away from classic Physics problems and move in a more aligned-with-the-AP-exam direction, but it’s still a tried and true resource.

10. Physics Classroom – a true classic

I mentioned Physics Classroom earlier as they host many of SimBucket’s simulations. The content on Physics Classroom is generally geared more towards a standard or honors level Physics course, but it is still a great supplement to your course content.

When I have students struggling with concepts or more basic Physics content, I usually direct them to Physics Classroom. I have also assigned lessons in Physics Classroom as sub plans, as unit openers, and as concept reviews. They have simulations, worksheets, and videos in addition to their classic tutorials.

Image depicting a section of Physic Classroom's tutorial on projectile motion. — Sample tutorial from Physics Classroom on projectile motion. I find their simple graphics very helpful and easy to understand.

While the tutorials can be wordy and have big blocks of text, I love their images, embedded videos, and simulations. It’s a great “one-stop shop” for a TON of AP Physics 1 resources. If you also teach other levels of Physics, keep this one handy especially handy!

Wrapping up AP Physics 1 resources

Whew. That was a list! Those are my top ten, tried-and-true, I-actually-use resources to help enhance your AP Physics 1 course. Remember that no resource is perfect and should be used exclusively – I find the best results from using a wide variety of resources in my course. Variety is the spice of AP Physics!

If you’re new to teaching AP Physics 1, make sure to check out my 5 Tips for New AP Physics Teachers.

High School Astronomy Ideas – Less Lecture, More Engagement!

April 29, 2020 / dina

I’ve talked in previous posts about my hatred of lecturing. I end up doing all the work, while students sit passively. Sure, there are ways to make lectures more engaging. However, I discovered with a particularly challenging Astronomy class last year that lectures simply weren’t working. I stopped lecturing. I stopped pretty much all teacher-led instruction. What did I do instead? I created student-led, student-centered activities. I posted about student-centered instruction before, but now I want to share how I did it in my Astronomy class. Here are five high school Astronomy ideas, along with example lessons you can use in your Astronomy class.

Gallery Walks

Astronomy is definitely a very visually important subject. Looking at photographs is a major part of my class. However, instead of looking at pictures as a class and discussing them, break the discussions into smaller groups with a gallery walk. I call these Astronomy Art Galleries. They are one of my favorite and most engaging high school Astronomy ideas. I have done them virtually with Google Slides/PowerPoint and with physical pictures around the classroom.

Here is my Galaxy Gallery assignment I used this school year. Click here for my full lesson plan. This activity was done with laptops (one laptop per group of 3-4 students)

Here are some easy topics to create your own Astronomy Art Gallery:

Types of galaxies (shown above)
Types of eclipses (check out my free Teachers Pay Teachers lesson plan!)
Moons in the Solar System
Nebulae and supernovae
Planets
Constellations

Station Rotations

Station rotations are not only engaging but a great way to cover a lot of content in a short amount of time. I tend to do four stations in a 50 minute class period (~7-8 minutes per station). There are eight total groups in my classroom, so I do mirrored stations.

I usually have at least one station where students are using a laptop or phone. Some types of stations you can include are:

Watching a short video
Playing a Quizlet game
Coloring/labeling a diagram
Using question dice
Reviewing work with the teacher
Reading a news article
Completing practice questions/problems

One of my favorite high school Astronomy ideas is to incorporate station rotations - get those kids moving! — Here is a brief station overview of an activity I did on the terrestrial planets. Click here for the more in-depth station directions.

I like to have one station with new information, one with review information, one with a video, and one with a group discussion. That’s not a perfect, works-in-every-lesson formula, but it is my skeleton I start with!

Questioning and Research

Students tend to be interested in Astronomy, even if they aren’t always engaged with every lesson. I like to give them the opportunity to ask questions. Then, we structure a research activity based on their research.

For this lesson on black holes, I asked students to write something they want to know about black holes. I used the Nearpod Collaborate tool so I could see who wrote what, but it was anonymous to other students. The next day, I brought out every book I own that mentions black holes, along with laptops. Students were tasked with trying to answer some of the questions they asked. The culminating assignment was to write a news article about black holes.

Sample student work of a news article about black holes — One of the news articles my students produced. I encouraged them to think of a creative, “click bait” title and I love this one!

Simulations and Virtual Labs

Labs in Astronomy can be difficult, but there are many you can do. However, I often use simulations and virtual labs to do what we can’t in class. I’ve talked about PhET simulations many, many times, but a lot of teachers don’t know that they have a lot more than just Physics!

This PhET simulation on blackbody radiation is a great way to introduce stars! — I use this simulation from PhET to introduce the H-R Diagram and different types of stars. Here is a sample worksheet to go along with it.

Some of the more Astronomy appropriate simulations PhET has are:

In addition to PhET, I have also used simulations from UNL, eduMedia, Stellarium, and Celestia.

News Articles

I feel like every single day I find a news article about something we are learning about in Astronomy. There is always new information and celestial events going on! I use news articles all the time in my classroom. This is another one of the most engaging high school Astronomy ideas!

For example, I found a news article about Mars One, and another describing why it won’t work. Students read those two articles and debated whether we should go to Mars. Here is the lesson plan for that activity.

Some other topics you could use news articles with are:

Comparing types of supernovae
Exoplanets
Meteor showers and what causes them
Types of eclipses
Discoveries from probes such as Juno and New Horizons

I hope these ideas have inspired you to rethink your classroom!

Getting back to it – AP Physics 1 Learning Goals

December 19, 2018 / dina

I haven’t updated this site in a year and half. 18 months later, my AP Physics 1 pacing guide is still ranked 3rd on Google. This realization boggles my mind and gives me new motivation. I will admit – after working on this site for only a few months, I felt unmotivated to continue. Particularly, I spent so much time in the classroom, it felt like a chore to continue outside the classroom. However, your views and comments and emails show that teaching Physics is important and new teachers need help.

Am I famous yet? No, just proud to be helping so many teachers with their course pacing! I will have to update this guide to reflect changes I have made.

To get us started back up, here is a bonus topic – learning goals for AP Physics 1!

AP Physics 1 Learning Goals for each unit

My school district requires teachers to have a learning goal for each unit displayed and referenced throughout the unit. For more day to day plans, I use the College Board learning objectives for AP Physics 1, but I struggled with coming up with overarching unit goals. In addition, I felt the Big Ideas from College Board were too broad and not student friendly.

Here is the AP Physics 1 Course Description from College Board, just to illustrate how cumbersome this process can be.

Example from the AP Course Description – these objectives drive the instruction, but I need more overarching goals for my classroom.

However, during our teacher preplan this year, I sat down and created AP Physics 1 learning goals for each unit, mostly based off the learning objective I thought most encompassed the entire unit. These are the goals displayed on my board every single day, and together we dissect what they mean and how we can achieve them.

My classroom hub, with our unit learning goal. I need to figure out how to condense this to be even more student friendly.

Learning Goals by Topic

Physics Skills: The student is able to express the motion of an object using
narrative, mathematical, and graphical representations.

Kinematics: The student is able to analyze experimental data describing the
motion of an object and is able to express the results of the analysis using
narrative, mathematical, and graphical representations.

Forces: The student is able to represent forces in diagrams or mathematically
using appropriately labeled vectors with magnitude, direction, and units during
the analysis of a situation.

Dynamics: The student is able to analyze a scenario and make claims (develop
arguments, justify assertions) about the forces exerted on an object by other
objects for different types of forces or components of forces.

Momentum: The student is able to analyze data to characterize the change in
momentum of an object.

Energy: The student is able to apply the concepts of Conservation of Energy to
determine qualitatively and/or quantitatively that work done will change the
kinetic energy, the potential energy of the systems, and/or the internal energy of the system.

Rotation: The student is able to describe a representation and use it to analyze a
situation in which several forces exerted on a rotating system of rigidly
connected objects change the angular velocity and angular momentum of the
system.

Waves: The student is able to design an experiment to determine the relationship between periodic wave speed, wavelength, and frequency and relate these
concepts to everyday examples.

Electricity: The student is able to apply Kirchhoff’s rules to the comparison of
electric current in various segments of an electrical circuit with resistors in series and in parallel and predict how those values would change if configurations of the circuit are changed.

What do you think? Are these learning goals a good representation of each unit? How do you decide your overarching learning goals?

5 Tips for New AP Physics Teachers

June 2, 2017 / dinacav

So you just found out you are teaching AP Physics for the first time? Or maybe you are a veteran teacher that needs some new resources? We have all been there. Beginning to teach a new subject can be difficult, especially if it is an AP course. Here are my tips for new AP Physics teachers.

What to do before the school year begins

1. Attend an AP Summer Institute

I attended the APSI at the University of South Florida the summer before I began teaching AP, and it was the single most valuable thing I did to prepare. The presenter gave us a wealth of resources, performed sample labs, and really delved in-depth into the expectations for the course and national exam. Hopefully, your school will pay for your attendance, because it is expensive. However, even if you have to pay out of pocket I would still recommend attending. The resources and knowledge you gain are far worth it – this is the number one thing all AP Physics teachers should do!

2. Join Pretty Good Physics

The previous AP teacher at my school told be about this site, and then I learned about it again at the APSI. It is a great place to find resources, share resources, and get ideas for your course.

There is a general wiki that has labs, activities, and various problem sets. This site is publicly view-able. There is also a secure site in which you must prove you are a teacher – secure includes test questions, FRQs, practice national exams, and so much more. I recommend joining both wikis.

Resources for AP Physics teachers during the school year

3. TIPERs are your best friend

TIPERs, or Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research, are a life saver. I find that these exercises tend to be pretty close to what students encounter on the national exam, and they are also just great problems. My students get an FRQ every week, and many times that FRQ is actually a TIPER. There are so many to choose from.

TIPERs are a great resource for AP Physics teachers

One type of exercise is a ranking task, in which students analyze six or so different scenarios and have to organize them based on most velocity, most kinetic energy, etc. The national exam has included these types of questions, as evident by 2017 AP Physics 1 FRQ #1.

You can find the book on Amazon, but I recommend getting an electronic version.

Here is an article on College Board’s website on using TIPERs and similar ranking tasks in your classroom. They also included this sample ranking task on projectiles.

4. Use the released practice exams

The released exams are my exams. Make sure you get access to the AP Audit website and secure documents. These documents can be used for in-class use, but may not be posted online or provided for students to take home. This makes they excellent test questions – they are secure and have actually been on the national.

The first thing my students said to me after the national was that it was not any harder than what we did in class. Sure, it was hard, but they were adequately prepared. Released exams are your best resource for preparing your students.

5. Do all the labs

Seriously, all of them. Okay, maybe not all, but at least 1-2 a week. 25% of your class should be time spent in laboratory experiences. This may sound like a lot and you may say that you don’t have time, but it is absolutely necessary. I teach in a school with 50 minute class periods. It is possible.

It is important to vary between the types of labs students perform. You can do inquiry-based labs, traditional step-by-step labs, design challenges, virtual labs, create models, whatever – the point is that students need their hands on things for Physics to make sense. I posted about how I use labs in my AP Physics course to help with the experimental design FRQ – check it out here!

5 Tips for Blended Learning in a Science Class

May 13, 2017 / dinacav

Blended learning is one of the new trends in education, but this trend isn’t all talk. However, blended learning in science classrooms can be a little tricky. Here are five things I have learned in my blending learning endeavors that have greatly impacted student achievement.

1. Immediate feedback assessments

The biggest pitfall of assessments is the lack of feedback. Students take a test and wait days, weeks, or even months with state assessments for their results. This model does not support the learning process.

Enter online assessments. These can be done through your learning management system and provide instantaneous feedback. I have given pre-tests to my students through Canvas and used that data to drive how to break students into groups and where to go with instruction. It is amazing to have this data the moment they are finished with the assessment.

With most LMSes now, you can even secure your tests to make sure responses are genuine. Timed assessments, access codes, password protections – all of these things help remove the threat of cheating. I also like using online assessments for free response questions – even though I still have to grade them, virtual rubrics make scoring a breeze.

Remember that blended learning does not use technology to simply replace pencil-and-paper work. The advantage of using online assessments is the immediate feedback both the student and teacher receive.

2. Personalized learning menus

This is perhaps my favorite review method, and it makes blended learning in science classrooms so simple. I discussed how I use this for AP exam review earlier, and it can even work for introducing new content. Students are given a choice of several different assignments, with a goal of how many to complete or how many points to earn. I like weighting the assignments differently to give more complex assignments an incentive to complete. This strategy gives students choices in their learning and allows them to pick what helps them most.

Here is an example choice board that I made for my AP Physics 1 class. Students had to make tic-tac-toe through the middle but had the choice on which path to take. Choice boards are one way to create a learning menu. I created this board using Blendspace.

With learning menus, the assignments can vary from practice problems to videos to labs. I like including a small group lecture so students that benefit from having a real person working with them get a chance to have more guided direct instruction. This is also a great strategy if you only have a few computers available – perhaps only one or two of the items are technology based.

3. Reinforcement videos

This one can go hand-in-hand with the learning menus, but it’s a good one. Sometimes it just helps to have something explained by more than one person. While showing videos all the time isn’t the best teaching method, assigning videos to help reinforce concepts can be extremely beneficial.

I like assigning videos for homework when I feel like my class needed further explanation. Including these videos on a work-at-your-own-pace assignment can help students get the reinforcement they need or provide extension opportunities for your ahead-of-the-curve students.

Khan Academy is always for videos. I am also a fan of Crash Course and Flipping Physics.

4. Virtual lab notebooks

I am still experimenting with virtual lab notebooks as part of my blending learning endeavors. However, I have used Canvas, Google Docs, and OneDrive’s collaborative document integration. Students can submit their lab work online, work on lab reports together, and the teacher can track who added/edited in the document.

Virtual lab notebooks enhance the laboratory experience by allowing for a more collaborative data analysis phase, as well as being closer to what students can expect in college and career.

5. Virtual lab experiences

Virtual labs are excellent tools for a variety of reasons, and they are such a natural place to include blended learning in science classrooms. Whether you don’t have the equipment, the topic is too abstract, or just to reinforce an idea, virtual experiences enhance the learning process in a profound way.

I love using the PhET simulations from https://phet.colorado.edu/. I often create inquiry-based labs using these. Many are being converted to HTML5 so they can be used on mobile devices as well.

Perhaps my favorite PhET is the Energy Skate Park. Students always have so much fun while exploring energy!

Another example of a virtual lab I use is the Photoelectric Effect from PhET. My school does not have the equipment available to perform this lab, and students often have trouble understanding it without a visual. However, the virtual lab for this is the perfect resource to give them a laboratory experience without the supplies.