Winter holiday always makes people feel time is short, but rich. While students in BCOS enjoyed their winter holiday, they also accomplished homework assigned by teachers. Among all subjects’ homework, there is one that students chatted a lot at the beginning of the new semester, which was a pre-calculus teaching video assigned by Mr. Vuorela.
For this homework, students wrote down their possible university majors that they were interested in, and then they were all assigned a related mathematical topic. Students did some research about this topic and recorded a teaching video. After posting the video online, students needed to choose five different topics to learn, take some notes and finish homework assigned in the video. During the interview with Mr. V, he said that based on the university courses taken by himself, he selected the topics that are most suitable for each individual, which can help students get a bit of a heads start in learning.
Of course, Mr. V also hopes students to practice English skills during this project. In terms of oral English, Mr. V said that it is intimidating to teach in English, students’ second language, but they can rehearse. In terms of listening skills, this project can also help with that, because learning to listen to others and then understand is also an important study skill.
This is the first time for students gained experience teaching online. From their perspective, this is a new but challenging task. When we asked about the inspiration behind this project, he said that he wanted students to explore different parts of math and a little bit of philosophy as well by themselves. Actually, compared with the traditional class that teachers offer the lecture on the platform, students have to plan classes and questions on their own, they will have more interests on exploring math.
Additionally, building the skills how to study by themselves is one of the main purposes of this project. During the interview, Mr. V said that in university, you always find that professors rarely teach you everything you need to know, but rather they give you the start, and you have to go further on your own.
Students also learned a lot during this project, they not only gained new knowledge, but also improved their study skills. Mr. V expressed his great satisfaction with students’ work quality, and some people even exceed his expectations because their video was so professional. Only when students are interested in knowledge, their efficiency of learning will be improved. We hope that students continue to make great efforts to improve in the future.
By Grade 12 Brenda & Dorothy