I am happy to announce that the third edition of my book Teaching AP Calculus is now available.
Teaching AP Calculus is a summer institute in book form. The third edition is one-third longer than the previous edition and contains more insights, thoughts, hints, and ideas that you will not find in textbooks. There are references to actual AP Calculus exam questions to help you understand how the concepts are actually tested. New teachers will find a place to begin, and experienced AP teachers will find a wealth of new ideas. Whether this is your first year or your twenty-fifth, there is something here for you.
The book has 295 pages of information with 23 chapters in three sections, plus 4 appendices and an index.
Section I The first section of Teaching AP Calculus is about what you should know to get started teaching an AP calculus course. It will tell you where to find resources. The Philosophy and Goals are explained. There is a chapter on finding and recruiting students, pacing and planning the year. A chapter is devoted to technology, especially the use of graphing calculators; this is an important part of the course. The last chapter in the section talks about the prerequisites and things students should know before they start AP calculus.
Section 2 The middle section of Teaching AP Calculus is the longest. In it all of the topics that should be included in the AB and BC courses are discussed: limits, derivatives and their applications, definite integrals and their applications, differential equations, and the additional topics of parametric and polar equations, and power series that are tested on only the BC exam.
These chapters present ideas about how to present the topics. The chapters include some classroom activities. The last chapter is concerned with the writing that students must do on the exams: how to justify and explain their answers.
Margin references lead the reader to actual AP Calculus exam questions on all the important concepts.
Section 3 The last section of Teaching AP Calculus is about the AP exams. Here you will learn how the exams are made up and graded. You will learn how to read the scoring standards. The “type” questions on the exams are each discussed in detail along with what your students should know about them. The final chapter is for you and especially your students. It has lots of information and hints on how to do well on the AP calculus exams.
Teaching AP Calculus may be ordered online at http://www.dsmarketing.com/teapca.html. The website includes sample sections from the book and downloads of calculator programs mentioned in the book.
I hope both new and experienced teachers will find Teaching AP Calculus useful and informative.
AP Summer Institute leaders: To obtain complimentary examination copy of Teaching AP Calculus, third edition, to show your participants email info@dsmarketing.com. Please include your full name, complete shipping address with zip code, and the location and date of your APSI.
Teaching Calculus 
Great post thaank you
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Greetings. Prof. McMullin , do you plan to update your book, Teaching AP Calculus 3rd edition, since then College Board has been through quite few changes? Please let me know. Thanks and have a great day. Pauline
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Unfortunately, we are not planning a new edition. You are correct the book was written when the Acorn Book was in effect and there have been two changes since then. College Board and exam information has changed, but the “calculus” stuff has not. There is still plenty of material and ideas that you can use in the current edition. Thanks for inquiring.
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I like the look of this and am thinking of getting it, but should I wait for a new edition based on the 2016-2017 changes to the AP test?
Thanks!
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What is AP? One of the things I have learned as a lecturer is that this is no such thing as common sense or common knowledge. We learn it all.
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“AP” is an abbreviation for Advanced Placement. Advanced Placement is a program of the College Board that allows deserving high school students to earn college credit for work done in high school. For more about the program click here.
In 2015 over 2,480,000 high school student wrote over 4,478,000 AP exams in 30+ disciplines. The program is growing rapidly; these numbers are a 6% and 7% increase respectively over 2014. Of these the AB calculus (one semester) and BC (two semester) calculus exams were written by more than 451,000 students worldwide. Source.
For quite a few years now, more than half of all first-year calculus student took the course in high school; most of these were in the AP program. For more information on the courses and the topics tested on the exams see the AP Calculus Course and Exam Description.
I use the abbreviation AP since I assume most of my readers are AP teachers and the book is intended for them as well. Of course, calculus is calculus and the ideas, hints, suggestions, etc. in the book and on the blog will be helpful – I hope – to all calculus teachers.
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