Believe it or not, it’s time to recruit students for next year! I’ve visited two classes this week (AP Biology and Precalculus).
Here is a link to some recruiting posters I have made. You can view them if you are added to my Google Drive.
Dean Baird’s “Take Phyz” posters
Put these up in the halls and the right students will likely stop and look at them.
In 2026, will be presenting the following APSIs (links to be added when available)
hosted by Texas Christian University
Go to Noragulfa.com/nplot (or click the link in the heading above). This one is so simple. It’s my current favorite. The screen looks like the one below. Just read the instructions and do those things and it works flawlessly. Thanks Geoff Nunes!
Go to: https://thephysicsaviary.com/Physics/Programs/Tools/Graphing/. It looks like this:
Super easy, just click on the buttons on the lower right.
allows you to “Zero” or “Reverse” the sensor, if needed.
located at the top left of your screen. (always save a Graphical Analysis file with a descriptive name in your Google Drive).
button on the lower left and “Apply Curve Fit” command. 
button on the upper right. Export your graph using the “file-name” button (top left). 
and selecting “Graph Options”
you can also access options for a column of data by clicking the three dots
I will be presenting the following APSIs:
Shared by @AP_Trevor on X.com (Trevor Packer, VP for AP at College Board)
I will be presenting the following APSIs:
I took the new Science Practices from the College Board’s Draft Course and Exam Description for AP Physics 1 and 2, and turned them in to a draft of a rubric for assessing work in a Standards-Based Grading environment. The changes to AP Physics take place for the 2024-2025 school year. In the 2023-2024 school year, there are no changes to the AP Physics CEDs. I am just trying to get ahead!
This Draft CED has since been taken off of the CB website, so I can’t link to it. But look for emails and announcements with the final new CED, or at least a revised new CED to be released in the fall of 2024 for the 2025 first Exam date.
Previously I used content-based learning standards and created a rubric for each assignment, using a set scale, like “Mastery-Proficient-Developing-Beginning-No Evidence” or “Meets Standard-Approaches Standard-Doesn’t Meet Standard.” This meant that I was often using a mental checklist of what met the standard, since I didn’t always have time to write up a Google Doc with specific criteria for every assignment. I can see where this rubric might make things easier. The standards could be the same for every unit. The standards would be repeated every unit, and become familiar to the students, so the AP Skills will become familiar. I just need to tell the students when they will be assessed on each skill.
The new Rubric is below. The idea is to tell students the codes they would be working on during each assignment, and each assessment. I need to look to see what other teachers have done in a similar vein. Most of what I have seen is learning standards that is solely content-based. Maybe this won’t work? Please share your thoughts. If nothing else, I’m pretty sure I can use this for assessing lab skills.
In-Person: Woodward Academy, AP Physics 1, June 5-8, Atlanta, Georgia
In-Person: Midwest APSI, AP Physics C Mechanics; Electricity & Magnetism, June 11-15, Olathe, Kansas
Online: AP Physics C Mechanics, Event 1 June 20-23 (Hosted by Walton High School, Marietta, Georgia)
Online: AP Physics C Mechanics; Electricity & Magnetism, Event 2 June 26-29 (Hosted by Walton High School, Marietta, Georgia)
Online: AP Physics 2, Week 2 July 11-14 (Hosted by William and Mary School of Education, Williamsburg, Virginia)
Online: AP Physics 1 for New Teachers, Week 2 July 17-21 (Hosted by Rice University, Houston, Texas)
Online: AP Physics 2, July 24-27 (Hosted by Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas)
In modeling instruction, practitioners talk about the “storyline” that we present. This morning I woke up and decided to attempt “stories” for AP1/CM (using the sequence from the AP1 Course and Exam Description). I tried to write them “student-friendly” without a lot of jargon, but of course some creeped in. Let me know what you think.
Unit 1: Kinematics
When we look carefully at the positions of objects moving in one dimension at equally-spaced moments in time, patterns emerge (two models: constant velocity and constant acceleration). We describe the patterns with different representations: words, graphs, equations (derived from the graphs), and other diagrams (motion maps or dot diagrams).
Unit 2: Dynamics
Now we turn from observing the two patterns/models to trying to explain their origins. We observe that objects interact with each other in several different ways. We model the effect of the interactions on an object as forces and observe that an object will maintain constant velocity with no net force exerted on it. When a constant net force is exerted, we observe constant acceleration motion. Since we have new ideas, new representations are needed (free-body diagrams, new mathematical representations, Newton’s Laws, the concept of systems).
Unit 3: Circular Motion and Gravitation
We extend the ideas from Dynamics (that interactions between objects may cause changes to the motion of an object or objects) to a third pattern, an object that moves in a circular path. We begin with an object moving at constant speed in a circular path due to a contact interaction(s), and then extend to objects that remain in a circular path solely due to a non-contact interaction (gravitation).
Unit 4: Energy
In Unit 2 we noticed that systems can change internally due to interactions within, or they can change due to external interactions. In this unit we go back to that idea and develop tools for comparing the initial state (“before”) to the final state (“after”) of an object or system. First we develop new quantities by examining how changes in the initial conditions of the system result in changes to the final state of a system. This leads to a very important principle: some quantities that can be calculated will remain the same total amount in the initial state as the final state, no matter how much change occurs within the system. Whenever this principle appears to be violated, we find that if we look carefully enough, we can see that it is actually correct. We keep our focus (relatively) narrow: the lens that we use in this unit is what happens when forces are exerted through a displacement. We examine many different systems, thinking qualitatively and quantitatively about their internal interactions and their interactions with external objects. More new representations result (new quantities, mathematical representations/equations, graphical representations (bar charts), and perhaps others).
Unit 5: Momentum
We begin by examining the quantity of motion that an object possesses. That quantity can be transferred to another object, and always maintains the same total amount, no matter what happens in the interaction. Again, we uncover an important principle about a different physical quantity that always remains the same and develop new representations. In Unit 4 we were concerned with the effect of interactions over a distance or displacement. In this unit we extend the observations about “quantity of motion” to examine changes to the initial and final state of a system or object with respect to the amount of time an interaction occurs.
Unit 6: Simple Harmonic Motion
We go back to observing motion, and note that some systems that have a particular back-and-forth quality to their motion (called simple harmonic motion) all share a unique aspect: a net force that is directed towards an equilibrium position and is proportional to the displacement of an object from the equilibrium position. We apply familiar techniques to the systems as well as develop new representations/models.
Unit 7: Rotation
We apply all the previous representations and models from linear (1-d) motion to objects/systems that change their angular position with respect to a coordinate axis.
John Pinizzotto, one of the two Directors of AP Physics at the College Board, sponsored a reception at the AP Reading in June. He did a Q and A session during the reception. He said that he and Amy Johnson, the other AP Physics Director, have asked that the revision/realignment of the AP Physics courses (1/2, CM/CE) be pushed back a year, from 2023-2024 (first exam in 2024) to the 2024-2025 (first exam in 2025) school year. This change, he said, is to be sure that all of the materials that they can make available (AP Classroom, etc.) are completed and edited in time. This will be officially announced in the fall, assuming the higher-ups at College Board approve the change. John seemed very certain that the date will be pushed back, and offered no hedge words.
If I hear more from CB I will revise this.
Update!! On 3 May 2023, Amy Johnson, AP Physics Co-Director at College Board, posted this on the AP Physics Community: “A formal announcement of timelines for the revised AP Physics courses is expected Summer 2023. Revised courses will be launched no sooner than Fall 2024. A workshop outlining the revisions will be available at the AAPT meeting in Sacramento, and at the AP Annual Conference in Seattle, both in July 2023.
AP Summer institutes for the new courses will be available the summer before the redesigned courses launch.”
marcreif
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