AP-Calculus AB focus on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provide experience with methods and applications. Although computational competence is an important outcome, the main emphasis is on a multi-representational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems being expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. The connections among these representations are important.
Teachers and students should regularly use technology to reinforce relationships among functions, to confirm written work, to implement experimentation, and to assist in interpreting results. Through the use of the unifying themes of calculus (e.g., derivatives, integrals, limits, approximation, and applications and modeling) the courses become cohesive rather than a collection of unrelated topics.
AP-Calculus AB is roughly equivalent to a first semester university calculus course devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus. The AP course covers topics in these areas, including concepts and skills of limits, derivatives, definite integrals, and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. The course teaches students to approach calculus concepts and problems when they are represented graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally, and to make connections amongst these representations. Students learn how to use technology to help solve problems, experiment, interpret results, and support conclusions.
