Physics Across a Whole Department: A Plan for New Hampshire Teachers

Quick answer: Agree the competencies first, then the tasks that prove them, and only then the lessons. A department-wide physics plan in New Hampshire means every section, whoever teaches it, produces comparable evidence against the same statements. Shared assessment tasks do that work; a shared pacing calendar on its own does not.

How do we build one physics sequence across a small department?

In most New Hampshire high schools the physics department is one teacher, sometimes two, and often a colleague who also carries chemistry or an engineering elective. Everyone is writing their own materials in their own preps, which is why two sections of the same course can end the year having assessed genuinely different things. Fixing that starts with a conversation about evidence, not about textbooks.

Pick one unit to standardize before touching the rest. Simple machines is a sensible first choice because every section teaches it, the equipment is cheap, and the reasoning is visible enough to mark consistently. Physics Escape Room – Lever Law & Pulley Systems gives a department a common starting task for grades 7 through 9, so two teachers can compare what their students actually produced rather than comparing lesson plans.

How do we stay consistent when two teachers run the course differently?

Consistency belongs in the assessment, not the delivery. Let each teacher open a unit however they want, then hand both sections the same performance task with the same rubric language, marked together for the first two rounds. Differences in scoring show up fast, and they are usually about what counts as sufficient evidence rather than about physics.

Keep the shared materials somewhere both people actually look, and keep the version count at one. Departments lose more time to three slightly different worksheets than to any pedagogical disagreement. Naming one person as owner of each unit file is usually enough. Units that work as a common departmental spine, alongside the rest of the New Hampshire material, are collected on New Hampshire Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12).

What does competency-based reporting change about planning?

New Hampshire has been unusual here for a long time. Districts working within Performance Assessment for Competency Education report against competency statements rather than accumulated points, so a unit has to be designed backwards from the statement it will evidence. NH SAS covers grades 3 through 8 and the SAT sits at grade 11, which leaves upper physics answering mostly to local competencies.

That makes the depth of your senior units a departmental decision rather than an external one. Momentum, projectiles and circular motion are where honest competency evidence gets produced, because a student either models the situation correctly or does not. Advanced Mechanics | Momentum, Impulse, Projectiles & Circular Motion | Physics Unit | Honors & AP covers that ground for grades 11 and 12 and gives both sections the same demanding tasks to mark against.

How do we equip a department for a year on one budget?

Departments buy better than individuals do. One purchase covering several units, shared across every section, ends the annual scramble in which each teacher separately hunts for something on electricity in the week before they have to teach it. It also means new staff inherit a working course rather than a folder of links and half-remembered advice.

Electricity, Magnetism & Optics Bundle | Circuits, Induction & Lenses | 3 Complete Units | Grades 8–11 does that for circuits, induction and lenses across grades 8 through 11, which covers a large slice of a typical New Hampshire physics sequence in one place. Because the three units share a format, a teacher picking up the second one is not learning a new layout mid-year. Departments comparing notes with colleagues in nearby states can find the same material organized by state on New England Teaching Resources (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT).

Frequently asked questions

Can these units carry competency-based grading?

They can, because the tasks ask students to model, justify and calculate rather than to recall. Departments usually attach their own competency statements and rubric to the task, then use the provided answer keys to check accuracy. The evidence a student produces is what your local reporting language describes.

Are these resources connected to PACE or approved by the state?

No. They are independent classroom materials, not affiliated with or endorsed by the New Hampshire Department of Education, any competency assessment program, or any exam authority. Departments map them to their own competencies and to the standards their district has adopted, which is where alignment properly belongs.

What if only one teacher in the department wants to use them?

Start there. A single teacher running a common task for one unit still produces something the department can look at together, and that conversation tends to be more persuasive than a proposal at a meeting. Adoption across sections usually follows a unit that visibly worked.

Related reading

• New Hampshire Physics: Planning a Unit to the Standards
• New Hampshire Physics: Teaching in the Weeks Around NH SAS
• New Hampshire Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12)