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AP® Calculus BC | 2023-24

Blue Tent Calculus BC

AP Calculus BC is a live online class for high school homeschoolers as well as other high school students who are supplementing their math skills. The College Board has designed this course to cover the content of AP Calculus AB in the first semester and the content of AP Calculus BC in the second semester.

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This year-long class class is taught at the pace of a two-semester college course. It is designed for students with a very strong math background since it will require discipline to take on its rigor. 

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There will be up to two teacher-led meetings each week:​

  • Weekly: a live class led by the instructor and designed for active participation solving calculus problems similar to the concepts taught in the recorded instruction and practiced in the weekly assignments.​

  • Periodic: live office hours--offered during exam weeks or by special request--designed to help students prepare for the upcoming chapter exam.

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Class Details

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  • AP Calculus BC is a full-year class. ​

  • Tuition: $825

  • Instructor: Shin Yen

  • Dates: August 14, 2023 to May 2024 (the AP exam).

    • See our FAQ for a complete list of days, times, and breaks.

  • Weekly Live Class: Friday 12-1 p.m. EST

  • Optional Live Office Hours: 

    • ​Wednesday 12-1 p.m. Eastern (as needed--usually around exam time to give students extra review and more detailed feedback on problems)

  • Prerequisites: Student should have successfully completed an honors-level or AP Precalculus class.

    • For age/grade guidelines, prerequisites, and class-fit recommendations for all classes, please see our FAQ.

  • Class size: 30

  • Course materials are listed HERE.

  • Format: Zoom and an online classroom.​

    • Students who attend live classes are requested to keep their webcams on and participate.

    • Live classes will be recorded for those who miss classes or prefer to watch later.​

  • ​Please Note:

    • ​After registering, a diagnostic assessment will be requested from new math students to help assure families that the class will be a good fit.​ An email will be sent to registered students/parents with information.

  • This AP Calculus BC course complies with the AP course audit and has been approved by the College Board for the 2023-24 school year..

    • On the 2022 AP Calculus BC exam, 85% of Shin Yen's students scored a 4 or a 5 (4=10% | 5=75%)

    • By comparison, the 2022 national average of AP Calculus BC students scoring a 4 or 5 was 41.2%.

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Class Content

This class will cover topics in both a first and second semester college calculus class:

  • Limits and Their Properties

  • Differentiation and applications of differentiation

  • Integration and applications of integration

  • Differential Equations.

  • Advanced integration techniques, L’Hopital’s Rule and improper integrals.

  • Infinite Series: Series convergence and divergence, Taylor and Maclaurin Series and polynomials.

  • Parametric Equations, Polar Coordinates and Vectors

 

Foundational Elements

  • The classroom will open each week with:

    • Weekly announcements 

    • One or more weekly instructor-recorded lectures (typically 20-40 min each) for every textbook section covered during that week

    • Additional resources that will help students with the calculus content covered that week

    • Any quizzes or exams, if they are scheduled for the week

  • Since AP Calculus BC is taught at the pace of a college course, students will need to be disciplined about accessing the Dr. Yen's recorded instruction at the beginning of each week and working through the assignments during the week in order to come prepared to the live problem session on Fridays.

  • A combination of recorded instruction and live interaction gives students more flexibility and permits Dr. Yen to go into more detail in her recorded instruction than a one-hour lecture would allow.

  • Students will start learning to write answers to Free Response Questions (FRQs) from Chapter 1.

    • All FRQs are graded by the instructor (not self-graded by the students) and detailed feedback is provided so the student can learn to write well thought-out responses to FRQs. 

    • Test corrections are allowed to give students an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and earn points back!

  • Most student/teacher interaction takes place in Friday problem sessions, and those live meetings are a key component of the class.

    • During the live problem sessions, students will have the opportunity to ask questions about the material they covered during the week, and Dr. Yen will present problems and problem solving approaches relevant to each topic.

  • Students will be interacting with their classmates during live sessions as well as in text-based discussion forums. In class forums, students can post questions about reading assignments or homework, answer other students' questions, or post solutions to problems.

    • The instructor will be available to answer questions on homework assignments throughout each week via WebAssign, discussion forums, and messaging.

    • There will also be one or more TAs available to help.

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Resources

The textbook for this class is Calculus for AP, 2nd edition, by Ron Larson and Paul Battaglia.

 

  • This is an excellent textbook designed specifically for the AP curriculum framework and exam. While it covers all the topics a calculus student will need to succeed in subsequent calculus courses, its emphasis is placed on AP exam material, and AP-style problem practices are provided in each chapter.

  • Students will be assigned weekly homework through WebAssign--an interactive platform with features such as Read It, Master It, and Watch it links that will direct students to the relevant section in the textbook (Read It), provide another version of the same problem, with step-by-step guidance (Master It), or offer a short video tutorial on the problem (Watch it).

  • An electronic version of the textbook will be provided through WebAssign.

  • Through the Blue Tent OnLoan program, students can borrow a hard-copy of the class textbook for use during the year, so they can utilize both interactive and print resources in a manner that fits their needs and preferences

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Dr. Yen has successfully taught calculus to many bright students over the years, and she looks forward to working with future students to nurture their interest in mathematics and prepare them for success.

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