Reddit mentions of Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching

While you likely won't have any issues with learning the content, teaching physics is a very, very different beast than teaching mathematics. There are similarities, for sure. Lots of them. But there are also vast differences.

If you're serious about teaching physics, especially at the AP level, look into these resources:

• Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching
  
  
• Teaching for Conceptual Understanding in Science. Conceptual understanding in physics is essential. If students can solve complex physics problems mathematically, but can't explain things conceptually, then their true understanding of physics is quite limited.
  
  
• Look into Modeling Instrucution, a research-based method of teaching physics. Frank Noschese's blog has a collection of videos explaining the methodology, and the American Modeling Teachers Association holds workshops in the summer around the US.
  
  
• Teaching Introductory Physics. While Five Easy Lessons is an awesome resource, it's footnote compared to this. It's basically the bible of physics education.
  
  
• Physics! Blog! by Kelly OShea. See her model building posts in particular for what an excellent physics class looks like. It probably looks absolutely nothing like what the physics classes you took looked like. But it's what a 5-star physics class should look like.
  
  Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I have lots more to say on the subject :P

Hi, I've taught physics and developed curriculum (for better or worse) for the last ten years. I work in an independent school so I may not be able to transfer all of my experiences to you if you work in public school, but the following steps have helped me immensely.

1. Use your standards, but also break them down into actionable (for the student) objectives. I use the NGSS as a framework since my school doesn't use the state standards. Here is an example of what I mean. These are the units for the course I will be teaching next year. This represents the 4th iteration of this course in 5 years! The course is designed for 9th graders as we are a physics first school.
   
   
2. Create your major assessments. This may be difficult since you haven't taught physics before. Here is an example of my WIP unit 1 test (which you are free to pilfer if you like). The books I mention below also come with a wealth of suggested problems that can be altered depending on the level of your students or what you are trying to accomplish.
   
   
3. Check out Arnold Arons and 5 Easy Lessons for a comprehensive guide to student misconceptions and teaching strategies that are backed by research. Arons is expensive, but has more suggested problems. 5 Easy lessons draws heavily from Arons and is much cheaper so if you just want the quick and dirty pedagogy go with that. These books are geared for introductory physics at the college level, but relevant concepts can easily be transferred to the high school level.
   
   
4. The modeling curriculum mentioned is nice because it comes with a ton of stuff ready made, but if you haven't done a workshop you may struggle to implement it well. Check out physport.org for research backed resources that may help you find a curriculum or curriculum plan you like.
   
   
5. Feel free to PM me with questions. I have done lots of curriculum development on my own and it can feel overwhelming. I'd also be happy to look at things you create and offer feedback. I'm no expert by any means, but an extra pair of eyes is always good.

You might be interested in Randy Knight's book Five Easy Lessons. He included with his textbook (which I dislike) but he goes through every subject that an introductory physics textbook goes over listing common misconceptions and how to combat them and not reinforce them.

Here is my copy and paste list:

Books

TIPERS

• TIPERs: Sensemaking Tasks for Introductory Physics
  
• Newtonian Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research: nTIPERs
  
• E&M TIPERs: Electricity & Magnetism Tasks
  
• Ranking Task Exercises in Physics
  
  TIPERs are a fantastic resource for including conceptual thinking assignments. Answer keys are generally available if you talk to your school's Pearson Rep. IMO, the E/M book is the weakest, in part because it ignores that circuits are a thing. I would start with the first as it is a general overview, and go from there.
  
  

  General Physics Education
  

  
  

• Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching
  
• Hands-On Physics Activities with Real-Life Applications
  
• Tutorials In Introductory Physics and Homework Package - This is less helpful as you get further in your career and are more comfortable designing your own assignments, but was very helpful when I first started.
  
• Thinking Physics: Understandable Practical Reality - If you like Hewitt's next time questions you'll love these.
  
• Teaching Introductory Physics - Pretty much all physics teachers should read this at some point, such a fantastic resource.
  
• Teaching High School Physics Volume I - First of a three volume set, I like these, but they were written by one of my college profs, so I am biased.
  
  

  Websites
  

• Pretty Good Physics - While mostly an AP resource, tons of teacher made materials are available. If you want access to the good stuff (tests and such) those are keep in PGP-secure, there are instructions on how you can gain access.
  
• PheT
  
• Compadre - Tends to be hit or miss for me, but a good collection of resources.
  
• AP Physics HTML 5 Sims - A collection of simple simulations written by an AP Physics teacher, good for introductory labs.
  
• New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning - Another collection of materials for all types of courses, particularly handy if you have any ESL students and know none of the language.
  
• Physics Classroom - Pretty much the defacto online physics textbook.
  
  

  Youtube
  

• Lasseviren1 - Great Calc-physics tutorials
  
• Flipping Physics
  
• Minutephysics
  
• Veritasium
  
  Let me know if you have questions about any of these, or about particular types of physics courses.