Education Technology

Free Resources for AP® Calculus

Posted 01/28/2019 by Curtis Brown, math specialist, Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas

In a world bursting at the seams with resources for teaching AP® Calculus, we are all in search of a resource that can further our ability to teach students the depth and breadth of understanding needed for success on the exam and in further math courses. Former AP® Calculus Chief Reader Steve Kokoska and former AP® Calculus development committee member Tom Dick have partnered with Texas Instruments (TI) to make a set of resources geared to help you better prepare for teaching calculus. The TI in Focus: AP® Calculus resources provide videos, documents and calculator files that are intended to give that required depth. We will briefly discuss each of the video types in order to help you make better use of this valuable set of resources. The videos are based on free-response questions from the most recent AP® Calculus exams. The resources are sorted by year and question number, as well as by topics.

Free Resources for AP® Calculus

Scoring and Common Errors

As the name suggests, these videos explore the scoring of each part of the free-response question, as well as common errors students made. The in-depth analysis of each part of the exam question helps you, as the teacher, see where your students may struggle in similar parts and can help clarify the expected levels of communication for the exam. The following video would also be quite valuable for sharing with students as a test-preparation strategy.

Technology Solutions and Extensions

These videos explore each of the parts of the free-response question from a technology perspective. Solutions for each part of the question using technology are shown, and then possible extensions to the question or other topics the question lends itself to are explored as well. These videos will give you great perspective on using free-response questions as a platform for teaching relevant and challenging topics.

Topic Summary

These videos focus on the main topic inherent in the question and give several examples on how to teach and explore the topic using graphing technology. The questions and prompts contained in these presentations were written specifically for the TI in Focus series and so are completely unique. These videos can be used with students as an overview of specific topics in AP® Calculus.

Technology Videos

In the two technology videos available for each question, the free-response question is used as a platform for showing several strategies to explore a topic or topics on both the TI-Nspire™ CX and TI-84 Plus CE graphing calculators. These videos show how to use the technology to solve problems and explore the topic as shown in the question.

Free Resources for AP® Calculus

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About the author: Curtis Brown has a bachelor’s degree in laser optical engineering and worked as an AP® Statistics and algebra II teacher for seven years before becoming a math specialist for Texas Instruments (TI). Since starting at TI in 2015, he has led many content development projects, including several of the STEM Behind series. Not a computer programmer by training, he has found a love for coding in TI-Basic, particularly for the purpose of teaching mathematics.