Here is some required course content. What would you teach? Use the article to guide you: he danger of failing to interpret and contextualize the CED

September 19, 2023
The AP Chemistry Course & Exam Description (CED) is the document that tells teachers the content can be examined on the AP Chemistry exam in May of each year. As an AP Chemistry teacher, the CED is the single most important guide to the teaching of the course, so when questions arise about what content is in – and just as importantly what content is out – is it just as simple as searching the CED to find the relevant phrase? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

I often see AP Chemistry teachers ask questions such as, “Should I teach combustion analysis” followed by, “I searched the CED and couldn’t find it”. Well, be careful! There’s a real danger in searching that document and drawing the conclusion that if a particular phrase is not present then that means a topic is not examinable. The simple explanation of the disconnect lies in interpretation and context.

Let’s take combustion analysis as an example. The better question to ask about teaching it is, “Would teaching combustion analysis involve the calculation of moles, the application of stoichiometry, and the possible calculation of empirical and/or molecular formula?” Well, I think we all know the answer to those questions, and hence combustion analysis’s potential relevance to an AP chemistry course.

A similar (but different) example is the question of teaching paramagentism and diamagnetism. I have dealt with that question here. In this instance the conversation revolves around the way that LOs connected with electronic configuration might be interpreted beyond the literal. I have a simple test for this. I ask myself, “If a question about [blank] came up on the exam, would I feel it “unfair”?”  With paramagnetism I would not, so it’s “in” for me. It should be noted that teaching something like paramagnetism is such a low impact topic in terms of time and deviation from what I have to teach about electronic configuration anyway, that it’s almost a nothing-burger, and perhaps time might make a difference in other examples.

Finally I deal with balancing REDOX in acid and base here. This treatment is similar to that related to paramagnetism in as much as it involves an interpretation of LOs rather than their literal reading, but also goes further. I feel there is just too much value in teaching balancing REDOX in acid and base for other areas of the course for it to be ignored.

It’s still true that the literal reading of the CED is vital, but so are these other ways to consume it. In the first instance combustion is essentially just another name for a bunch of things that are explicitly listed in the CED; the second example is a “safety first” approach, where a wider interpretation of the application of LOs means that I teach something that I feel feasibly could be examined; and thirdly there’s an example of a topic that I don’t think will be examined literally, but offers way too much value across other areas of the examinable curriculum for it to be omitted. Each of these is subtlety different, but each offers a window into the CED that goes beyond just “Ctrl+F”.

Required Course Content:
TOPIC 1.1
Moles and
Molar Mass
Required Course Content
ENDURING UNDERSTANDING
SPQ-1
The mole allows different units to be compared.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE
SPQ-1.A
Calculate quantities of a
substance or its relative
number of particles using
dimensional analysis and the
mole concept.
SPQ-1.A.1
One cannot count particles directly while
performing laboratory work. Thus, there must
be a connection between the masses of
substances reacting and the actual number of
particles undergoing chemical changes.
SPQ-1.A.2
Avogadro’s number (N = 6.022 × 1023 mol−1
A )
provides the connection between the number
of moles in a pure sample of a substance and
the number of constituent particles (or formula
units) of that substance.
SPQ-1.A.3
Expressing the mass of an individual atom
or molecule in atomic mass units (amu) is
useful because the average mass in amu of
one particle (atom or molecule) or formula
unit of a substance will always be numerically
equal to the molar mass of that substance
in grams. Thus, there is a quantitative
connection between the mass of a substance
and the number of particles that the
substance contains.
EQN: n = m/M