A half-dozen decades ago (really!), when I first started out teaching, we were given a large grade book that included pages for lesson plans. For each week of the year there were two facing pages ruled into thirty two-inch squares.
We were expected to write our lesson plans in the squares. A lesson plan consisted of something like “Product and Chain rule” or “Factor perfect square trinomials” or even just “Section 4.7.” Also, you were expected to include the homework assignment. We had to have plans written for at least two weeks in advance. Principals could collect these (although they rarely did) and check up on you.
Lesson planning changed over the years. Even though no one ever checked up on us, I soon started including more in my lesson plans. The suggested structure came to include “behavioral objectives:” brief statements of what the student should be able to do once the lesson was taught. Not a bad idea. Schools started to require the teacher to write these on the board at the beginning of the class, so students would know what they were expected to learn to do. An even better idea.
As time went on and lecturing got a bad name, you were supposed to include activities (other than copying down what you wrote on the board) in your lesson. Also, a good idea.
All this came to mind when I was asked to look at a website that offered FREE lesson plans for AP Calculus AB.
The website is Calc-medic.com. There are 150 daily lesson plans closely following the AB Calculus Course and Exam Description. The lessons are free and available to AP Calculus AB teachers. All you need to do is register. (BC lessons are planned, but since all AB topics are also BC topics, the plans will help BC teachers as well.)
If nothing more, they are a good pacing guide. BUT there is a lot more.
Before you continue, I suggest you read Tips for Lesson Planning from the Calc-Medic Blog. It discusses lesson planning, and I am sure it will be helpful whether you follow their lesson or write your own.
They call their approach “Experience First, Formalize Later” (EFFL). Each of the Calc-Medic EFFL lesson plans is organized like this:
Learning Objectives: A statement of what the lesson will teach.
Success Criteria: One or more succinct first-person statements of what students should be able to do: “I can use …”, “I can determine …”, “I can reason …”, “I can distinguish ….”
Quick Lesson Plan: Each lesson consists of four segments: (1) an activity – 15 minutes, (2) debrief [the activity] – 10 minutes, (3) Important Ideas – 10 minutes, and (4) check your understanding – 20 minutes. More about this shortly.
A brief Overview of the topic.
Teaching Tips – items you should be sure to mention with hints.
Exam Insights – notes on how the topic may appear on the exams and reference to specific AP exam questions.
Student Misconceptions – a discussion of things that may confuse students or that they may overlook.
The Activity.
Each lesson has a handout in PDF or DOCX (so you can adapt it) and an annotated Answer Key to the activity. This is the heart of the lesson plan.
The entire lesson is in the activity handout. It begins with a set of questions that will lead the students to the topic of the lesson. These are often close to AP format and have questions based on analytic, graphic, tabular and/or a written stem. Regardless of the way the question is presented, student writing is usually included.
The activity includes a box for student notes (summarized in the answer key).
Practice questions are in the “check your understanding” part of the lesson. Teachers can use the annotated answer sheet to help decide what to present to the students and help them make their notes. To help the teacher, answers are in blue, and annotations are in red.
The lessons do not include any homework assignments. Nor are the lessons linked to any textbook. This allows you to adapt them to your textbook and situation. The authors do assign homework. They explain their philosophy in “How Do We Assign Homework?” from the blog.
There is the old generic lesson plan: (1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them, (2) Tell them, and (3) Tell them what you’ve told them. This works for classes that are primarily lectures. The EFFL lessons at Calc-Medic are more of a discovery approach. The “Activity” leads students up to the new concept(s) presented. This is then firmed up in the “Debrief” and “Important Ideas” parts of the plan and practiced in “Check Your Understanding.”
There are occasional suggestions of where to find off-site information related to the lesson, such as College Board Curriculum Modules and this blog. Links to this information are not provided; it would be helpful if they were.
Tests and Quizzes are not included. However, when the lesson calls for a test or quiz there are detailed suggestions on how to write and grade the assessment. These are generic, but nonetheless useful. There are suggestions of what to include when writing the assessment (e.g., calculator problems), what question topics to include (specific to the topics assessed), grading tips, and reflections.
The last twenty lessons are a 4-week day-by-day review for the AP Exam. Some, but by no means all, of the review lessons are linked to the Calc-medic “Review Course.” Everything mentioned above is free; the full “Review Course” is available for a per student fee.
Calc-medic has added a searchable database to all the AP Calculus free-response questions since 1998. You may find it here.
Also worth your time is the Calc-Medic Blog with posts on topics related to AP Calculus and teaching AP Calculus. There are posts on pedagogy, the AP Exams, original videos by the authors, slide decks, and discussion of individual topics in more detail. These provide helpful insights for the teacher. It would help if these were linked to and from the lesson(s) they discuss, and if they had “tags.”
Mathmedic.com, companion website. contains similar lesson plans for Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus. The 180 Days of Precalculus lesson plans are not aligned with the upcoming AP Precalculus course, but lessons for this course are planned in time for the 2023 – 2024 school year. BC lesson plans are also in the works.
The sites are the work of Sarah Stecher and Barb Montgomery, teachers at East Kenwood High School in Kenwood, Michigan. They are both experienced AP Calculus Teachers. They have done a fabulous job with the lessons and their Calc-Medic Website. Both new and experienced teachers will find the lesson plans and blog helpful.
I cannot recommend Calc-Medic more highly.
ALSO:Last year I reviewed an iPad app called A Little Calculus. This app demonstrates graphically all the main concepts of AB and BC Calculus. It is quite easy to use and a quick way to prepare and present good visual examples for your class. The app has recently been updated to allow you to save and recall your own examples. Several new topics have been added. If you are not familiar with it, take a look.
P.S. Hope you like the Blog’s new look!
Updated August 15, 18, 22, 2022, March 9, 2923
Teaching Calculus 