For the next school year, Aliso Niguel High School has made a few changes to the path that students can take with AP Physics courses.
This year, the school offered AP Physics 1 and AP Physics C to juniors and seniors. AP Physics C teaches two topics, magnetism and electricity. These two subjects are taught as semester classes and are two separate AP tests.
It is advised for juniors who want to take an AP Physics course to first take AP Physics 1 to prepare for AP Physics C.
Mr. Jansen, one of the AP Physics teachers at Aliso, said, “AP Physics C is a very intense class, if a junior was taking it with a calculus class then it would be a hectic schedule.”
In order for a junior to take AP Physics C they would have to be enrolled in a calculus class at the same time. If a junior was in pre-calculus they would only have the option of AP Physics 1 and not AP Physics C.
For the next school year, AP Central has made a spontaneous change to how the AP Physics C test is set up. This year, the exam is three hours long, one and a half hours for the magnetism test and another hour and half for the electricity test.
“AP Central blind sided us in September and announced that they are doing full three hour exams each for magnetism and electricity, making the courses even harder than they already are,” said Mr. Jansen.
Since AP Physics C is adding more material for students to learn, the AP Physics teachers and administration team have decided that they can not teach it all in one year. They split the course into two, AP Physics Magnetism and AP Physics Electricity.
“This new system for Aliso has been applied to every school in the district for years. What I was teaching in one semester, other schools were teaching for a full year. In Tesoro High School and Dana Hill High School they teach AP Physics Magnetism for a full year and completely exclude the electricity unit.” said Mr. Jansen.
This sudden change makes it difficult for teachers who teach this subject because they must spend extra time changing their lessons to prepare students for the new formated exam.
Before juniors and seniors were advised to take AP Physics 1 then AP Physics C in order to succeed in the subject.
Now there is a new path offered, juniors can go straight to AP Physics Magnetism and skip AP Physics 1 since it will be taught at a slower pace and will not be as difficult and intense as the combined topics of AP Physics C.
“Some students can take AP Physics 1 then AP Physics Magnetism, but some informations from AP Physics 1 is repeated in magnetism and can be awfully boring for students,” Mr. Jansen comments.
Ultimately, these new conditions offered to students of Aliso Niguel High School are rather complicated and take a lot of effort. However, they pave the way for success with fewer rushed lessons and more time to learn.
