Next week are trimester 1 final exams. In both my courses this week, we wrapped up our last topic and started reviewing for the final.

AP Physics 1: Goal-less Problems

I really like Kelly O’Shea’s goal-less problems, so I decided to try that as a final review. I went through the released free-response problems and took the diagram and prompt from several that could fit with topics we’ve done so far this year. We focused on identifying applicable models, sketching additional diagrams, and reading strategies. Students especially liked a strategy to cross out information in the prompt that is accounted for in the diagram, especially once we started annotating diagrams to get rid of even more text.

Physics: Units vs. Variables

Students worked on, then whiteboarded a fairly standard final review packet with written problems. One of the biggest things I worked with students on is the difference between a variable and a unit, which has been a recurring challenge this year. For example, in the force of gravity equation, a lot of students are reading “g” as grams, rather than as 10 N/kg. I’ve been working on talking frequently about variables as representing a quantity and quantities as a number with a unit that describe something we can measure or calculate. Going into tri 2, I need to keep thinking about how to help students make sense of when a letter represents a quantity and when it represents a unit that is part of a quantity.