AP PHYSICS 1: ALGEBRA-BASEDClassroom Resources

AP resources are designed to support all students and teachers—with daily instruction, practice, and feedback to help cover and connect content and skills—in any learning environment.

AP Course Pacing Guide: January–April 2021

Download Guide (.pdf/200.2 KB)

The new course pacing guide, designed for classrooms that have only completed approximately 25% of typical course content by January, can help students develop their knowledge and skills by May. This guide can help you assign the AP Daily videos and topic questions necessary for student-led learning each week, using the reports generated by these topic questions to focus your limited, direct class time on the areas where students need more help. The guide shows how students can make up the pace by completing approximately 30 minutes of AP Daily videos and topic questions per night, in lieu of or in addition to teacher-led learning and other class assignments.

If your students are ahead of this pace, you’ll be able to incorporate additional days or weeks to spend more time on challenging topics, practice course skills, or begin reviewing for the exam.

Please note that the pacing guide for Physics 1 covers only Units 1–7. Colleges agree that Units 8–10 can be removed from AP Physics 1 since they are covered in AP Physics 2; accordingly, Units 8–10 will no longer be tested in AP Physics 1, effective this year.

Watch how you can use these pacing guides in this short video.

Note: The course pacing guide does not reflect the course curricular requirements for labs. The 25% instructional time spent on the hands-on lab requirement must still be met. If the coronavirus pandemic is preventing your school from providing onsite access to a laboratory environment, instruments, or materials, this requirement can be met in the following ways under the supervision of a science educator:

• Virtual labs
• Simulations accompanied by student work (data collection, data analysis, etc.)
• Labs that can be safely conducted at home

AP Daily

Sign in to AP Classroom to access AP Daily. 

• Made for any learning environment, AP teachers can assign these short videos on every topic and skill as homework alongside topic questions, warm-ups, lectures, reviews, and more.
• AP students can also access videos on their own for additional support.
• Videos for units 1–10 are available now in AP Classroom, on your homepage under the unit tabs. 

AP Daily Release Dates for Physics 1: 10 Units

AP Daily Instructors

Expert AP teachers across the country can support your course virtually:

• Lead teacher: Josh Beck, Clayton High School, Clayton, N.C.
• Kristin Gonzales-Vega, Reedy High School, Frisco, Texas
• Greg Jacobs, Woodberry Forest School, Woodberry Forest, Va.
• Oluwanifemi (Nifemi) Kolayemi, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, Roxbury, Mass.
• Jim Vander Weide, Hudsonville High School, Hudsonville, Mich.
• Oather Strawderman, Lawrence Free State High School, Lawrence, Kan.
• Jennifer Kaelin, José Martí MAST 6-12 Academy, Hialeah, Fla.
• Douglas (Doug) Hutton, Glastonbury High School, Glastonbury, Conn.

Higher Education Faculty Lecturers

Supplement your instruction with 30-minute videos on each unit hosted by college or university professors. Guest lecturers include:

• Gerald Cleaver, Baylor University
• Arthur Eisenkraft, University of Massachusetts, Boston
• Andy Elby, University of Maryland
• Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University
• Corey Gerving, West Point
• Samuel Lofland, Rowan University
• Ken Podolak, SUNY Plattsburgh
• Carol Scarlett, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
• Jiang Yu, Fitchburg State University

The Faculty Lectures are available on the AP Classroom homepage, on your course tab, as well as YouTube.

AP Classroom

Sign in to AP Classroom and explore these resources:

• AP Daily videos are short, searchable instructional segments you can:
  • Assign to students before or after class to maximize time for discussion.
  • Assign alongside topic questions to address misunderstandings.
  • Encourage students to take advantage of on their own, on mobile devices or computers.
  • Track to see which students are watching each video in each class. 
• Topic questions are formative questions to check student understanding as you teach. Assign topic questions to reveal student misunderstandings and target your lessons.
• Progress checks help you gauge student knowledge and skills for each unit through:
  • multiple-choice questions with rationales explaining correct and incorrect answers, and
  • free-response questions with scoring guides to help you evaluate student work.
• The progress dashboard highlights progress for every student and class across AP units.
• The question bank is a searchable database of real AP questions. You can:
  • find topic questions and practice exam questions, indexed by content and skills.
  • search for any question, passage, or stimulus by text or keyword.
  • create custom quizzes that can be assigned online or on paper.

Learn how to get started in AP Classroom.

AP Community

Sign in to the AP Physics Community.

• Share real-time strategies, ask questions, and collaborate with teachers worldwide.
• Search, add, and rate teacher resources with your peers in the resource library.
• Daily or weekly digests help you keep up with your community, wherever you are. Select all discussions or just the topics and discussion threads you choose to follow. You can also reply to discussion posts through email.

Learn more about the AP Community.

Additional Resources for AP Physics 1

From Your AP Colleagues