AP SEQUENCE AND TIMING
GENERAL ADVICE
CIRCUMSTANCES
,Here’s the thing. Both sequence and timing are going to be largely personal decisions, 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 just about impossible to give specific, meaningful advice on these matters.
Below I offer some general pointers, and then to the right a few notes about some of my own circumstances in two separate schools, that might help to shape some of your decisions.
- I strongly suggest building in review time. I like to have 4 weeks, you may feel that you need less, or perhaps even want less, but for me this is crucial to my success
- STICK TO the schedule. NEVER, EVER, EVER let the students dictate the pace of the class. EVER. It is impossible to emphasize this enough. If the kids think the pace is too fast then they are in the WRONG class. Do NOT change the class to meet them, they need to rise to the external standard that IS AP chemistry
- Whilst fulfilling my audited syllabus to the best of my ability, I always de-emphasize labs since I don’t believe that they add value in terms of preparing kids to get high scores on the AP exam, which is my only goal
CIRCUMSTANCE 1
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
CIRCUMSTANCE 2
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 85 mins, and 1 is 45 mins, as a result the average length of “1 day” is 77 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