In any case, let me list the good parts so I can remember next year and laugh at my naivete. The students in this class do listen sometimes and they are clearly motivated by grades if nothing else. They work with me outside of class when needed and so far, I am delighted to meet with them during study hall or G blocks. I can actually get into the more interesting stuff with them and do cooler labs and more interesting problems. The grading is easier because I have a homework set a week/a chapter and I give them the solutions and they add to their homework so that they have a corrected version. I grade the tests (half m/c and half free response) and the labs carefully, but there isn't a lot of other stuff to grade.
Then there is the bad: since I am doing the B test, we have to go very fast. I have one student who needs help with the math, and most of them who have never taken physics before. Usually AP classes are the second year of the subject for the students. Not mine... Anyhow, I don't have much time so the labs I have done are not as well thought out, interesting, or fun as they should be. The problem sets are easy to grade but doing the solutions means I need to do the homework myself. Good for me but time consuming. When the kids thing, "Oh, she is such a nice person," somehow that translates into, "Her classes must be easy." Then they are shocked when the class is not the easy thing that they expect.
Anyhow, this next summer I would like to go back to the AP Summer Institute in St.Johnsbury, VT and take the AP lab week. I think that will really help me out. Perhaps next year I can teach C instead - half the material but adding calculus. I will have a different set of students at that point. I think I will also make a prerequisite of the completion of pre-calculus to the course since sin/cos/tan knowledge is prime and one of my students hadn't run into that before.
In the meantime, Physics 12 has a number of students who completely lack motivation and I can't even imagine what the springtime for those seniors will be like. I have taken a more traditional approach this year to see how things work, and so far - bleah. Tradition just isn't what it used to be. (-8 Next year perhaps back to a lab-based idea or a conceptual model. I will have to think about it. If I have a lab-based model, the write ups will be tough for the unmotivated students, though the labs usually get them into the material. If I stick with conceptual, it is tough to have extra/different stuff for the honors students who are planning on taking AP after this. I only have one of those this year.
Physics 9 has a wide range, as usual, but they are pretty good kids overall (not that the others aren't, but there isn't as much pressure for some reason). I have ESL mixed in with non-ESL this year, and they are doing relatively well now that we have passed the first mid-trimester phase.
Geometry is harder this year because I have it E block. I let the kids out early a few times because I had soccer games, and now I have interviews with the head of school candidates and one last soccer game and then a conference. That means every class this week will be shortened or I won't be there. I feel terrible about it. I should have thought twice about going to the AIMS conference since I already have so many obligations. Sigh.
Hopefully I can convince other teachers to help me out. Perhaps I can trade Starbucks cards for substituting. Who knows?
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