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A whole lesson, free, no form.

The most useful thing I can show you before you hire anyone is how I actually work a problem. So here is one complete AP Physics 1 lesson: the plan I teach from, the problem set the student gets, and the key I mark against.

Detail from the answer key: the worked solution W = Fd cos θ = (40)(6.0)cos 25° = 218 J, followed by the reasoning that both perpendicular forces do exactly zero work.

AP Physics 1 · Unit 3, Lesson 1

Work and the work-energy theorem

Sixty minutes on one question: which piece of the force lies along the motion, and which way does it point. Three documents, all of them the real thing rather than a sample written for a website.

It is one lesson out of a library that gets built for actual students, a unit at a time. Unit 3 exists because a student is in Unit 3. Units 1 and 2 get built the same way, to the same standard, ahead of the sessions that need them.

No email, no form, no unlock.

Page one of the AP Physics 1 lesson plan: the title Work and the work-energy theorem, the sixty-minute aim, citations to Giancoli sections 6-1 through 6-3, and a boxed note listing the four specific student errors the hour is built against.

Lesson plan · 16 pages · PDF

What I teach from

The hour in order, with the timings, the questions I ask and the ones I hold back, and every worked solution written out. It opens by naming the four errors the lesson is built against, because a lesson that is not aimed at a specific wrong answer tends to be aimed at nothing.

Sources are cited to section and figure. If the hour runs long, the cut list is marked in each phase, which is the part nobody writes down and everybody needs.

Download the lesson plan (PDF, 16 pp) →
An interior page of the lesson plan: a four-part question asking whether the work done by a named force is positive, negative or zero, followed by the full worked solution to each part, including why the normal force in a rising elevator does positive work.
An interior page. Every problem in the plan carries its full solution and the wrong path underneath it, so the tutor is reading the same thing the student will get wrong.
Page one of the student problem set: two work-energy problems, a 15 kg crate pushed 6.0 m at 25 degrees below horizontal and a 160 kg crate pushed at constant speed across a rough floor, each followed by a ruled answer box.

Problem set · 6 pages · PDF

What the student works

Six problems with room to write in. The instruction at the top asks for the angle between each force and the displacement before anything gets computed, because that angle sets the sign and the sign is where these problems are lost.

Download the problem set (PDF, 6 pp) →
Page one of the tutor answer key: a three-block difficulty bar marked HARD, the same two problems with typeset equations for each worked solution, and a WATCH note under each one naming the trap and what to ask the student.

Answer key · 7 pages · PDF

What it gets marked against

Full solutions, and under each one a note on the specific wrong answer that problem is designed to catch and what to ask the student who produced it. A key that only holds the right answer tells you a student got it wrong and nothing about why.

Download the answer key (PDF, 7 pp) →

Physics · AP Physics 1

How an AP Physics 1 free response is actually scored

A complete AP-style collision problem, the point-by-point rubric, a wrong answer of the kind I see constantly, and a diagnosis of what that wrong answer tells you about the student who wrote it. It earns two marks out of eight, and part (a) is perfect, which is the whole lesson.

Read the walkthrough →

More coming

Calculus and CS walkthroughs in the same format are in progress. Longer pieces on how I teach are on the blog.

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