Mail Time: coverage vs. pace in AP Physics 1. It's not a binary choice.

On a physics mailing list, a teacher asked about the "battle between comprehension and coverage" in AP Physics 1.  That's a great question, one that I'm asked a lot.  My response is below...

Firstly, the class structure you indicated - essentially first-year physics students meeting for a bit less than 315 minutes per week - is more than sufficient for AP Physics 1.  For comparison, I'm teaching first-time physics students on a 225-minute week starting in late September with copious breaks.  You're in good shape time- and structure- wise.  :-)

My own advice to teachers is to work at YOUR pace, designed to get a reasonably deep treatment of fundamental concepts before April 1.  That means moving on, even when some students seem like they don't get something.  Why?

(1) The ones still struggling with material likely won't improve their understanding right now with simply more instruction.

(2) The ones who *do* get the current topic will become bored and less cooperative if you don't move along.

(3) The ones who seem stumped now will likely appreciate a new topic that might be more comprehensible.

(4) The ones who seem stumped now will almost universally make a comment later in the year like "oh, remember when we thought this was hard?"  :-)

(5) The quicker you get to putting all physics topics together in a creative way, the happier and more successful your students will be.

Physics is best learned in small, unrelated chunks over a long time period.  Some people call this "spiraling".  Let your class see the same topics in different contexts, and eventually most students will get most topics just fine.  Different contexts means not only integrating topics with one another, but also using different approaches to understanding physics: quantitative, semi-quantitative, descriptive, experimental, etc.

I don't think the choice between coverage and pace is as stark as you make it.  If you're teaching e.g. kinematics well but quickly, and revisiting kinematics in brief chunks throughout the year, then you don't need to "cover" e.g. rotational kinematics later on - you can simply explain what a radian per second means, and let students to problems and experiments for a day.  They'll get it without additional work.  And once students are familiar with a disciplined approach to learning physics and solving physics problems from your work early on, then later specialty topics (e.g. Coulomb's law) can be doled out for students to figure out on their own.  They will, and quickly, too.  :-)

The last month before the AP exam provides the venue for students to put the whole course together, to teach each other, to figure out that the topics that were so difficult early on are straightforward now that they understand how to learn physics in general.  It's beautiful to watch each year as the class gets more relaxed and more comfortable with what they know, and as they learn to focus on what they CAN do rather than what they can't do.  After all, they only need ~55% of the available points to get a 4 on the exam!

Here's a link to an article from collegeboard.com written back in 2008, addressing pacing issues in AP Physics B... the point is, Less is More.  The advice is still good regarding the new course, which doesn't require anywhere near the same crazy pace.  

Good luck!

greg