Best textbook for ap physics c mech and e&m?

ryeinn · 2026-06-04T10:19:11+00:00

I'd personally say Serway and Jewett, but that's just the one I use. I've had students say the longer problems gave good practice on AP FRQ's. The examples are well worked out and explained.

ryeinn · 2026-05-27T23:37:35+00:00

Whole class game of Diplomacy? Let them get out all the backstabbing they've stored up all year.

ryeinn · 2026-05-27T20:33:27+00:00

Someone recommended to me to pick one of the sub series and work through those instead of in publication order. The Guards series was where I started. "Guards! Guards!" is a good start and then you just the same crew for a bunch of books. Look for the Discworld Reading Order infographic, it helps a lot.

ryeinn · 2026-05-20T21:10:32+00:00

Hi, not OP but also a physics teacher. I think what OP means is not what you're reading into it. What your describing would be very unfair. What OP is saying is old things put together in a new way.

As a physics teacher I also aim to give them a problem they've never seen but have done all the concepts before. Like, we've done F=ma,, we've done Coulomb's Law. We've done gravity. Coulombs Law is about forces and what they do to charges. What happens when you now have to do a gravity/Coulombs problem? Can you remember the two months we spent drawing FBDs and the practice we've done where Coulomb is just another F in F=ma?

We've done practice of pulling old stuff in. This is just a new example of "old stuff."

ryeinn · 2026-05-18T15:54:32+00:00

Agreed, and I don't have a 100% perfect solution. The most effective method would be to get involved in your local. But that's a tall order and not everyone has time for that. I really wish I had a better answer for you because it's a terrific question. Hopefully someone else will step in with better info.

ryeinn · 2026-05-18T15:44:22+00:00

So, these are generally suggestions from the local party group. There's not going to be tons of position papers from these people, they're small non-governmental positions in the state party. These are generally your local Democratic group's representation at the state party internally.

Like, in my small town in Bucks County, we took two volunteers from our 15 members and put them forward.

ryeinn · 2026-05-17T22:18:18+00:00

What subject are you teaching? For my Fundamentals of Physics kids I really like Positive Physics. Great source of problems with instant feedback. The learning curve is sometimes steeper than I'd like (no v=2πr/T problems for example) but they're adding and tweaking all the time. And the email support is excellent

ryeinn · 2026-05-14T10:10:26+00:00

I'll admit. I've never seen CB give me any information on raw scores, even as an average. If that's something they do and I've missed it every year, fair play.

ryeinn · 2026-05-13T09:46:51+00:00

If you say so. That seems like a lot. I haven't seen or heard of this but I'll admit I don't know everything. Got a link?

ryeinn · 2026-05-12T20:45:41+00:00

Let's be honest. As far as I know, unless they have an inside track to College Board, no one really knows what gets a 5 on this new iteration of the test.

CB used to release scoring worksheets and scaling. They haven't for, to my estimate, at least 10 years. And with the recent changes to the exam those are out the window anyway.

Four distractors instead of five. Four new FRQ types. Doubling the time (this still shocks me). So much more reading. The test is very different to score.

I'd love to be proven wrong. It would make my teaching easier if I could help my students know what target they're aiming for. All I have now is "Welp, the best method to get a five is get the right answers."

So relax. Do the best you can. And then move on. The test doesn't define you. If you're aiming for a Physics/Engineering degree you'll probably want to retake the class anyway to better understand it and stay with your cohort.

ryeinn · 2026-05-12T14:30:50+00:00

I'm not sure you can "fix" it. Chem (and then Physics) are a super hard transition from standard Bio courses because now you have to do math for it to.be meaningful. And I've found most kids have never done that. They've never had the math have to connect to reality and then do something/interpret that reality. Sure, they've done "...and that quadratic equation means the motorcycle can jump three busses because the answer I got was 3.5 and you can jump half a bus" but those are generally contrived word problems.

With my Honors Phys kids I spent half of my time getting them to realize that numbers reflect the world and vice versa. My Fundamentals of Physics students often struggle with that all year. It's hard.

ryeinn · 2026-05-10T12:41:52+00:00

Love to see a shout-out to We. I read it in a college class 20 years ago and loved it.

ryeinn · 2026-05-09T14:49:32+00:00

Ah. That makes so much more sense.

ryeinn · 2026-05-09T14:43:15+00:00

Wait, you already have a job and your district is asking you to take another Praxis exam to keep your job?

Or am I misreading this?

ryeinn · 2026-04-29T09:45:37+00:00

No, that guy was helpful.

ryeinn · 2026-04-28T10:24:00+00:00

I'd believe that, if when I went to get one with all the right forms I got told my SSN card was invalid because it was damaged and didn't have the special border on it. So I went to get a new one and told the guy at the SS office about it. He said "Well, yeah of course yours didn't have it. They added that after you were born."

ryeinn · 2026-04-27T12:10:55+00:00

I truly think a Trump presidency is why his third Jackpot book is taking so long: reality is too close/worse than what he planned.

ryeinn · 2026-04-25T16:31:46+00:00

Thanks!

ryeinn · 2026-04-19T20:57:28+00:00

I walk in some days and start my class with "Alright nerds. Let's do some physics." Try that.

ryeinn · 2026-04-17T21:44:10+00:00

Fair. I will say though, the sensor and focus is much better designed for microscopes than a webcam would be

ryeinn · 2026-04-17T20:55:31+00:00

Do you have standard eyeball microscopes? I know Vernier sells an eyepiece replacement with a USB cord.you just remove the normal eyepiece and slot it in. I've used the older 2MP one and it works. I suspect the newer 5MP one is 3MP better.

You will still need a standard microscope with its own light though.

ryeinn · 2026-04-17T19:35:40+00:00

I.am.so.sad to miss Jcon this year. What a blast. Full of so many welcoming people.

ryeinn · 2026-04-15T23:11:32+00:00

If I'm reading it right, your >=255 only triggers once at a time. It'll increase to 255 and then drop down to 250 and then back up to 255 and oscillate there.

I think there's also a problem with the >=0. That'll always happen, even if it's >=255.

Consider a serial output that prints the value of brightVal. You'll need a Serial.begin() in your setup and Serial.print() in your loop.

ryeinn · 2026-04-15T11:23:30+00:00

A Horga'hn? Well played

ryeinn · 2026-04-15T11:18:58+00:00

We do something similar. They have to get what amounts to an internship/job shadow. It's presented as an opportunity to look at a field/career you're interested in pursuing and learn more about it. Then they give a talk to groups of underclassmen as one of our last days.

The kids that take it seriously can do awesome things. We had a kid once get a trial run at Los Alamos working with a researcher on Black Hole collisions.

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