Curriculum & Content: How Much Time Do you Spend on Each Unit?

Pacing, pacing... so much material and so little time!
How can you possibly do it?
Let's hear tips and tricks from other teachers on how they fit in as much material in our limited time frame.

Curriculum & Content: What Order Do You Teach the Units?

First let's make it clear: There is no wrong order to teach biology. There are many curriculum schemes and each is justifiable by the teacher using it.

Usually when AP Biology teachers first start out teaching the course they follow the order of the chapters in the textbook they are using -- you seem to have enough to deal with just keeping your head above water on the content and the labs, who can possibly handle mixing up the units! And all the textbooks seem to organize the course the same way -- by domains of scale: Biomolecules, Cells, Organisms, Populations, Communities, Ecosystems, Biosphere. But many of us have broken away from this organization scheme in a variety of ways for a whole range of reasons. Let's hear from teachers about how they teach their course and why they use their unique organization scheme...

Choosing a Textbook...

One of the first questions many AP Biology teachers have is, "Which is the best textbook?". There is no single answer to that. It very much depends on the group of students you will be teaching. You need to balance readability and breath of coverage as well as consider supporting material that the publisher offers.

The major textbooks out there in 2009 are:

• Biology by Campbell & Reece (Pearson/Benjamin Cummings)
• Biology: Concepts & Connections (aka "Baby Campbell") by Campbell & Reece (Pearson/Benjamin Cummings)
• Biology by Raven & Johnson (Glencoe/McGraw Hill)
• Life: The Science of Biology by Purves (Sinauer/Freeman)
• Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life by Starr & Taggart (Thomson Brooks/Cole)
• Biology by Mader (McGraw Hill)

Let's hear the opinions of teachers and why they chose their particular textbook...