What do you do when the amount of time you have to teach gets cut in half? This is the problem that AP Physics teacher Mr. Vargas is facing. This dilemma has even higher stakes when you consider the implications that a good score on the exam at the end of the year can have on college bound seniors.
Adding to this, Mr. Vargas was made aware of this change shortly before the start of the 2023-2024 school year, saying “I was made aware that this change was going to happen before the school year started, but I was not consulted on this change before it was made and I was only told after this change was made already.”
Regarding the impact that this change has had on his ability to get through his curriculum, he stated “With the courses being dropped from two periods to one, in general I’m not happy about it. It causes strain on the schedule and things we are able to do. However, I will try to do my best given my very specific situation.
Given, I have a smaller number of students, so I can give them a little bit more attention than I would otherwise be able to. However, it is going to be in my opinion harder than it needs to be to prepare for the AP exam”.
A class that was already difficult for students that had two periods, may now become more challenging for students dealing with this time constraint.
Senior Aqryf Syah Zrul Syahrin is no stranger to some of these struggles, saying, “I feel that this class is somewhat difficult to grasp at first when it comes to equations, graphs and how to understand what they mean but I am beginning to get the hang of it. I think that this class would be easier with more than one period because the time that we have has been cut down significantly and we have to separate our tests into two parts. Also, having one less period gives us significantly less time to ask questions and understand the course.”
The situation Aqryf is in compared to previous students (who were able to have two periods) like Daniel Lu is the opposite, “In my experience, having two periods allowed me to have more time to study and prepare for the AP exam. Having more time meant I could invest more time into studies and learning. If I had only one period I would have a limited time to learn AP physics which is considered to be one of the hardest classes to take”.
Senior Han Xiang Li, who also took the AP Physics course last year, added “I definitely felt more prepared for the AP exam due to the longer time we had each day. Mr. Vargas was able to assist us more and explain things slower due to the extended time, and that allowed me to grasp the fundamentals of physics way better.”
The main problem current students have is the lack of time to go over the proper material, asking questions, reviewing tests and having to split up lessons into multiple days. According to Mr. Vargas and some of his current AP Physics students, most of these complications could be solved if the class was two periods.
