Speaker
Description
A challenge for high school teachers pursuing the National Board Certification is the ability to demonstrate differentiation in the classroom. One example of such differentiation is implementing multiple formative or summative assessments adequate for the critical thinking level of the students for an 11th grade Honors Physics class. Yet designing a curriculum for each individual student level is impractical. While the differentiation might encourage engagement and build relationships, it might be counterproductive to the overall classroom effectiveness. Since our school did not open an AP Physics 1 class due to low enrollment, one manageable approach was to open a Honors Physics and AP Physics 1 class concurrently. The Honors Physics class follows the curriculum based on the same College Physics textbook from Dr. Etkina used for AP Physics 1. They both use the ISLE methodology but differ on the summative assessment. A transition and trial period was provided for students with a soft landing if they did not want to continue with the AP Physics 1 curriculum. This talk will discuss the challenges of such implementation, the efficiencies that can be achieved and how it contributed to the goal of increasing AP Physics courses enrollment in the school.
