The College Board is a non-profit organization that connects students to college readiness programs, like the SAT® and Advanced Placement® Program, and AP® Physics instructors to a community of resources and other AP® teachers. Signing up for an account with the College Board comes with a number of benefits for Physics instructors.

The AP® Teacher Community, which is organized by subject, gives instructors a flexible, online platform for learning and sharing. While connecting locally with other AP® physics instructors in your school or district is valuable, the College Board enables online conversation with many instructors.

Some useful features include:

• Discussion boards – Where you may engage in conversation, sharing hints, documents, challenges, etc.
• Resource library – Where resources from the AP® Teaching community may be browsed or searched. For example, “Classroom-Ready Materials” include student activities, lesson plans and labs. Many of the materials are organized by keywords and curriculum alignment, which can be bookmarked to your own library for later reference.
• Members section – Here you can view other community members’ profiles and communicate through messaging. There are some 8,000 members, including some experts and mentors.

The AP® Central portal has content and learning objectives for some 30 AP® courses, including AP® Physics 1 and 2, and AP® Physics C courses on Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. Each course provides requirements and guidelines for curriculum design, supplementary materials that can be incorporated into lesson plans, as well as classroom resources contributed by both the College Board and individual AP® Teacher Community members.

A requirement of all AP® courses is the AP® Course Audit which, among other things, enables instructors submit course materials for AP® certification. The course audit for AP® Physics 1, for example, details curriculum guidelines, gives feedback on course syllabi, and provides access to secure practice exams. This blog post, written by three physics teachers in California, provides some in-depth advice in doing the course audit for AP® Physics 1 and 2.

The College Board also provides greater opportunities for collaboration and professional development through one- and two-day workshops and AP® Summer Institutes. View all the professional development options here.

See the following guide for more information about Getting Started with the College Board and the AP® Community. Expert TA is a firm believer in the value of instructor collaboration; see our previous blog post for other ideas on how to share teaching resources.

AP® is a trademark owned by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, Expert TA.