Reply to AP Calculus - AB or BC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][list][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fascinating to me that APS (?) is directing kids to take Calculus AB junior year followed by BC senior year.  Am I reading your post correctly?   Why?  BC is an offshoot of Calculus AB since all of the topics in Calculus AB are also included in Calculus BC, plus some.  It’s basically taking the class over again plus some additional material.  I view this as an admission that they are accelerating too many kids.  Kids get to junior year and aren’t ready for BC Calc so this is the solution?  [/quote]
DP Not necessarily. To be well prepared to go from precalc directly to BC, you need to start accelerating BC-bound students in Algebra 2. Then, precalc content can be compressed and introductory calculus content introduced in the second half of precalc. This makes the pace of BC itself less rushed. This approach has worked well for decades. However, there is a growing movement to avoid tracking in math classes and to structure courses so that students can enter accelerated pathways at any point. But that means less content gets covered before BC and BC becomes more rushed. The concern with AP Precalc is that will not permit sufficient introductory calculus content to be covered pre-BC. Therefore, BC pacing becomes more aggressive and students can start to struggle.

Other districts also do the Precalc-AB-BC pathway so APS is not alone there. But AP Precalc may potentially make it more challenging to go AP Precalc - BC which may incline more students to use AB as intermediary step. That doesn't mean acceleration has failed. It means the preparation for acceleration to BC is lacking.[/quote]

This. Plus, the peer group in these classes matter. The students in my kid’s accelerated math class were off the charts, which made it not a good fit for her. Slowing down and doing Calc AB in 11th puts her with strong math students, but not math dynamos. [/quote]

The truth is your child should not have been accelerated.  She doesn’t need to take Calculus twice because she is probably a smart kid.  [/quote]

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