AP Precalculus
AP Precalculus, taught by Elizabeth Dore, will be offered starting in the 2023-2024 school year.
Please describe the new course you will be teaching, including main objectives, projects or focuses.
“The College Board is introducing AP Precalculus for the first time next year, the 2023-2024 school year, and [Algonquin is] planning to offer it. They have four main objectives for the course, and three of the four are covered right now by our Precalculus Honors curriculum. The new topic that we don’t cover is matrices, so the big difference is we will be adding in a unit on matrices. Other than that, it’s going to be pretty similar to what we offer now. Our Precalculus Honors class that we offer now is taught from a college level textbook, so it already is a really advanced course. No one has written an AP Precalculus textbook yet, but we’re hoping for the following year that we will have a brand new textbook that is aligned really closely with the AP curriculum. So for next year we’ll use our current textbook and we’re going to be using resources from the AP website, the College Board website.”
Why do you think this course is beneficial to have offered at Algonquin?
“I think our current course is an incredible course and it really gets kids prepared for Calculus. This class will continue to do the same thing. I think it’s going to be maybe a little bit more rigorous because we’re going to be using the AP format and we’ll be using open response questions and things like that. It’s going to be really similar to what we already do, because what we already do is really good. I don’t think it’s really going to be that different because what we have right now is rigorous, but students may be able to get college credit for it depending on where they’re going to school and what they get on the AP exam.”
Why do you encourage/suggest students take this course?
“If people want a really rigorous math course, which the people that take Precalculus Honors right now, that’s what they’re looking for. They’re good at math. They want something rigorous. It’s just going to help prepare people for the math that they’re going to see in college if they’re in one of the STEM fields.”
What are you most looking forward to about teaching this course?
“I think I’m teaching it; at this point, I’m not 100% certain because we need to see who signs up for it. I’m looking forward to it just because I’ve taught the Precalculus Honors curriculum for the last 14 years and I’m excited about freshening up the course, maybe using some new resources and having it be a little bit more rigorous.”
Because the AP curriculum will be so similar to the current honors curriculum, will there be any changes to the honors curriculum?
“At this point, with our program of studies, we have Precalculus Honors listed and we have AP Precalculus listed. I’m not certain if we’re going to run both. We’re going to see who signs up for which courses. If I have enough students that sign up for Precalculus Honors, we’ll run Precalculus Honors and we’ll run AP Precalculus. If I only have two kids that sign up for Precalculus Honors, then they’re going to have to decide to either move up to AP or down to Precalculus CP. I’m not even certain that we’re going to run [Honors Precalculus] at this point, but if we do run it, it will be the current curriculum that we’re running right now, so it won’t have the unit on matrices.”