I fully understand John's "knee-jerk" reaction. If I thought I was
doing a good job with AP Physics and I had some very good students, I
would probably have the same reaction upon hearing that some schools do
not give credit, or the type of credit expected.
But teachers in that situation do not necessarily understand what is
going on in some colleges, and it might surprise them to learn that in
some respects AP students cause trouble for us.
I'll respond specifically to some of John's points and also try to work
in a description of why some colleges might have problems with AP
students and others not.
* * * *
John says: "I feel most universities are making decisions to accept or
not accept AP scores based primarily on fiscal needs."
That clearly is not the case I described. Since Bluffton students must
have 122 semester hours to graduate, if we give them 3 hours credit for
a 4 or 5 on the AP physics test, we are certainly giving them credit
towards graduation for which they pay us nothing. Bluffton College is
definitely not basing this decision on fiscal needs. At roughly $450
tuition per semester credit-hour, we are giving them about $1350; or
better said, we are not collecting $1350 that we could have collected
by denying credit.
* * * *
John says: I'm not sure of the special situations you have at your
school and so I may be on the wrong page but my experience, two of
which have been in very well funded Big 10 universities, has been that
the AP Course offered in High School is an incredible preparation for
the "next level" mechanics and E& M courses.
Here's a couple differences between Big 10 schools and small schools
like Bluffton.
(1) Big schools often separate lab from lecture. They could give
credit for the lecture part of the course, and still expect the student
to take lab. I'm not saying they all do that... I am just pointing out
that it is an option for them. We integrate the lab into the lecture,
and vice-versa. If we give credit for the course because of AP
results, those students do not get the lab experience we want them to
have. We strongly do not want to separate the lab from lecture, and we
suspect the big schools also would rather not do that. Science is lab
based. We think the course suffers if lab is separate. We understand
the scheduling problems big schools would have if lab and lecture were
together. We think that's a sacrifice of being big. I am not
necessarily trying to put down big schools... there are things they do
better than we... but integrated lab and lecture is typically not one
of them. More on that later.
(2) The regular calculus-based physics at big schools is usually pretty
standardized; I'll stick my neck out and say it is "cut-and-dried." At
a small school we can do some specialized things, or we can do things
in a particular way, and then we can build on that later. Stated
another way, we don't view the year of calculus-based physics as a
stand-alone course. It is a sophomore course and it builds on what we
know the students had in freshman calculus and freshman chemistry, and
what we want them to have in preparation for physical chemistry or
organic chemistry or modern physics or astronomy or computer science.
(Yes, biology majors, chemistry majors, physics majors, and computer
science majors all are required to take the very same calculus-based
physics that I teach.) The point is that not only is our whole physics
program integrated with each course fitting in with others, our whole
science department is integrated.
* * * *
John says: I find it a bit upsetting to think that many schools in
effect only reward our strong students with pseudo credit and force
these students to repeat the material their freshman year.
I have never had an AP physics student tell me that they wasted their
time in my course. In fact, they usually tell me it was the most de
manding course they've ever taken, and they really learned a lot.
How do I manage to keep the AP students interested without blowing away
those less prepared? I'll admit from the start that I am not 100%
successful. But here are some of the things that happen.
(1) A lot of emphasis is placed upon lab report writing. Students
learn to write good abstracts, good introductions, good
apparatus/methods sections, and finally good results/conclusion
sections. The level of writing and analysis is definitely a major step
up from high school... every student says that.
(2) A lot of error analysis is expected in the results/conclusion
section. It is taught as part of the lecture, then students are
expected to do it on the reports. It will not be taught in subsequent
courses, but it will be expected.
(3) Students learn to use the software that we have for analysis. One
major piece of software is Axum, a graphing program from MathSoft. A
competitor would be SigmaPlot. Students not only learn linear
regression, but also how and when to use polynomial fits, exponential
fits, spline curves, etc. The students are expected to submit
"publication quality" graphs with their reports. I teach them what is
expected. In subsequent courses I don't teach it, but I expect it.
Students are also expected to learn MS-Word and MS-Excel. I give
instruction during calculus-based physics, but not later.
(4) Students learn to use equipment they will use again in later
courses without further instruction. This could be as simple as
voltmeters, beyond that to oscilloscopes, beyond that to
analog-to-digital converters on computers. They also use digital
oscilloscopes and upload data from that to computers.
(5) I don't believe there is any lab I have them do that is a repeat of
high-school labs, AP or not. In a typical class week I can easily
spend more time in lecture talking about lab details and data analysis
than I spend talking about the textbook. However, we still proceed
through the textbook and students turn in assigned problems. I don't
spend much time in class doing example problems or showing how to do
assigned problems. I do post my worked-out solutions. If an AP
student is good at this type of thing s/he is allowed to help tutor the
students having problems. Since I do not grade on the curve, AP
students can play the role of "hero" rather than the role of "curve
breaker."
* * * *
There may be a few more points I could make... but I gotta go to class.
Again, this is not a slam on what John said; I understand his
position. I hope he can now understand my position a bit more.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817