Here’s the thing. Both sequence and timing are going to be largely personal decision, based upon local circumstances such as your own schedule, unique school schedules, the type of students you have, and a multitude of other factors. It’s really impossible to give specific, meaningful advice on these matters, but I’ll offer some general pointers, and then a notes about some of my circumstances in two separate schools that might help to shape some of your decisions.
Here are three sequences with approx. timings that may help to guide you. None are necessarily philosophy driven, rather they are driven by necessity, and the individual circumstances mentioned above, and those found locally.
Private, highly selective school, where AP chemistry was taught almost exclusively to sophomores with ZERO prior chemistry course.
Mid August – Mid December, Semester 1
Three week (14 day) Jan Semester, Jan Term, where the students ONLY do AP chem, ALL day
Last week in Jan – first week in May, Semester 2
The pattern within the first and second semester is a seven day rotation, with me meeting the AP kids six times out of every seven days. Four 70 minute periods, and two 110 minute periods.
The numbers and letters refer to the 2013-2019 CED, when the curriculum was divided into six, Big Ideas.
1st Semester
00 ABC
00 D
01 ADE
01 B
01 C
03 A
03 B
02 A
02 BCD
03 C
Jan Term
05 ABCDE
2nd Semester
04 ABCD
06 AB
06 C
06 D
Private, boarding, much less selective school than circumstance 1, where AP chemistry was taught to a large variety of students, a few with a prior chemistry course, some without, and a mixture of 9th-12th grades. The course was condensed into 3/4 of a school year.
The numbers and letters refer to the 2013-2019 CED, when the curriculum was divided into six, Big Ideas.
UNIT 1 – approx. 1155 mins
UNIT 2 – approx. 1285 mins
UNIT 3 – approx. 900 mins
UNIT 4 – approx. 470 mins
UNIT 5 – approx. 855 mins
UNIT 6 – approx. 1670 mins
REVIEW. approx. 1540 mins
CIRCUMSTANCE 3
Private, boarding, much less selective school than circumstance 1, where AP chemistry was taught to a large variety of students, a few with a prior chemistry course, some without, and a mixture of 9th-12th grades. The course was condensed into 3/4 of a school year.
The numbers in parentheses are the approx number of days that I spend on each section of the course. This includes any labs, quizzes and tests. In any given week, 4 of my periods are 90 mins, and 1 is 45 mins, as a result he average length of “1 day” is 81 mins; in a normal year I get approx. 110 days between the start of the course and the AP exam.
The numbers and letters refer to the 2020 CED, where the curriculum is divided into nine UNITS.
- 01ABCD (6)
- 01EFGH (6)
- 04ABCDEF (9)
- 04GHI (4)
- 09GHIJ (8)
- 02ABCDEFG (9)
- 03ABCIJ (4)
- 03DEFGHKLM (6)
- 05ABCDEFGHIJK (7)
- 07ABCDEFGHIJKLMN (9)
- 08ABCDEFGHIJ (11)
- 06ABCDEFGHI and 09ABCDEF (6) + (4)
- Review (20)