Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry Learning at WASNJ: How could students discover their passion thus as preparation for future thriving？

'Chemistry is annoying, physics is difficult, and math homework can't be done.’

When it comes to the subjects that cause the most headaches for students, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry are definitely on the list. Due to the higher level of understanding and abstract thinking required, these subjects are often labelled "only smart children can do well" and "requires a lot of practice to understand the essence of this subject." Stereotypes such as this can discourage students.

But, is it true?

In WASNJ, there is a teaching team with strong academic backgrounds and rich teaching experience who do not think so.

Some of them are doctors and post doctors from prestigeous universities, so they have a more profound and comprehensive understanding of the content knowledge. Some have been engaged in education for many years and can quickly respond to and accurately judge any problems that arise in teaching thanks to their experience over the years. They have excellent and diverse educational backgrounds, which have helped to mould not only their knowledge and skills, but also their attitudes, habits, ways of thinking, insight and personality. All of these traits lead the students of WASNJ, to help them to achieve their academic excellence.

1.Laying the foundations of an academic building

Although I have heard interesting things about Ms. Ying Zhu’s class, it is still a surprise and I am amazed when I go and experience the class.

The main teaching tasks of this class were not complicated. It was to combine the use of graphs and the coordinate system to let students understand the quadratic function of one unknown variable. It was a common lesson in which the main concepts such as independent variables, dependent variables and slope could be explained in 15 minutes. Afterwards, several practise exercises were planned to strengthen and consolidate the knowledge.

However, Ms. Zhu did not rush into this. She chose to spend the first 30 minutes on "warm-up activities". When she began teaching the main focus of the lesson, I saw that Ms. Zhu was not rushed, instead letting the students find the laws in a variety of functions and images with different coefficients. Subsequently, after the lesson, I understood the key learning point: the ‘slope’ means the degree of inclination of the straight line of the coordinate system compared to the horizontal axis!

“In fact, teenagers’attention span is only about 10-15 minutes. Getting them to stand up and think in a running game is an effective way to regulate the brain’s nerves and help them focus later.” Zhu Ying explained. After the progressive activities, the classroom difficulties come with -- how to accurately understand the core concept of “Slope”?

By summing up the students’three solutions to a problem, Zhu helps them thoroughly understand the meaning of slope from algebraic and geometric levels. In particular, her carefully drawn animation of a page, and even let me this study of higher mathematics, “Big”students are enlightened, the first thorough, vivid understanding of the meaning of slope.

Ms. Zhu was not surprised by my reaction. She is a ‘master’ in mathematics, and has been teaching mathematics in China and the UK for many years. She, as an experienced teacher, understands the problem very well: in the past, we always thought that large quantities of practice tasks and repetition could lay a solid knowledge foundation. In fact, this kind of teaching method will only make students forget all they have learnt quickly after the exam.

Furthermore, a solid foundation is necessary in order to build up our knowledge base. If aspects of these foundations are missing, it will then affect future learning. ‘To give an example, if you do not understand the fundamentals of the meaning of ‘slope,’ it will then be difficult to learn more challenging calculus later.’

I felt ashamed as the explanation she had given, was what I previously thought. However, because of these ideas, Ms. Zhu pays special attention to the consolidation and foundations of the students’ understanding. ‘Nowadays, students have many ideas and gain even greater knowledge, but if they do not form their own theories and understanding, their knowledge becomes scattered, and they can only learn by rote. This prevents students from consolidating the foundations of the learning, and in turn, their deeper academic learning.’

Ms. Zhu said that similarly to constructing a building, firstly, you must lay the foundations; the deeper the foundation, the higher and more stable the building will become.

Physics teacher Mr. Wang Li holds the same view. He always uses analogies and real-life examples to guide students to understand more complex and abstract concepts in physics. In addition to this, he creates lively and interesting games and activities, to deepen students' understanding further.

After receiving his Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Biology teacher Mr. Li Bin also conducted postdoctoral research at the Shanghai Academy of Sciences. His strong academic and scientific research experience make his biology class like a lesson from one of the world's top universities. Before the class, he distributes materials for students to read in advance. During the lesson, he briefly explains the difficult points and then the students are divided into three groups, to interpret the "transport of substances across a membrane" respectively. Each group must present a poster, a set of slides and an academic report.

By bringing this "flipped learning" into the classroom, the middle school students of WASNJ have taken a step forward and begun to discuss, deepen and apply their knowledge, rather than rely upon rote memorization.

Mr. Li believes that the construction of foundations and the scaffolding of learning need to be guided, and observed by teachers, while still providing opportunities and the space for students to explore and be creative, as every student is unique.

‘And this space is the best soil for nurturing students' innovative ability.’Mr. Wang said.

2.Offering personalized teaching and tutoring

"Actually, the activity you see before the class is a personalized survey." Ms. Zhu explained that the cognitive level of the whole class is different, some students may already understand this mathematical concept, while some do not know it. Some children may still be developing their English skills, and find the comprehension of the questions challenging, while some may not.

In her opinion, ‘every child can excel’, does not mean leading all children to grow into a ‘one size fits all’ successful template, but instead to encourage them to become a better versions of themselves.

Therefore, Ms. Zhu uses a worksheet to mark the different situations of each student with different colors, and then give personalized teaching. Every time a new topic is introduced, after completing the necessary foundations, Ms. Zhu will assign different learning tasks. Even in this small activity before class, each student got a different task list, which shows the high degree of differentiation.

The reason for this is because Ms. Zhu has realized in her teaching experience over the years, that every student is different and therefore the learning challenges they encounter are often very different too. If the same set of standards are used to assess every student, it can be easy to ignore the problems each child faces, and may lead to a dilemma.

She has an example. At the beginning of learning decimals, some students thought that 0.701 was larger than 0.8. From an adult’s perspective, we may think it is very strange, such a simple question, why do children get it wrong?

‘I asked one student for their reasoning. The child said that because 701 is larger than 8, 0.701 must be larger than 0.8. ‘

Not eager to correct mistakes, Ms. Zhu’s "unnecessary" question allowed her to see the source of the problem: that in fact, the students had not mastered the concept of hexadecimal notation.

This reminds me of Salman Khan, who founded Khan Academy. In his early years, he gave his cousin extra mathematics lessons. It was in a similar way that he found the reason why his cousin could not learn mathematics well: she was stuck on a very simple concept. After finding out the crux of the problem, the learning dilemma was solved.

This mentality runs throughout the academic life of WASNJ students. In a Mathematics class, the students asked Ms. Zhu how to say ‘fuhao’ in English. So Ms. Zhu talked about the difference between the symbols of ‘addition, subtraction, multiplication and division’ and Greek letters (like α, β). The former is translated as “sign”, the latter is “symbol”. The CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is applied naturally.

On the other hand, Mr. Li, as a boarding tutor, also noticed that a student who was struggling in biology class likes to observe very much in daily life.

WASNJ is located in Tangshan, where the ecological environment is very good and students can often see a variety of birds on campus or in the park near the school. "Education beyond the classroom" is also a major academic feature of WASNJ. Therefore, Mr. Li taught according to his aptitude, and recommended relevant books, videos and other learning materials to the student, and encouraged him to join the biological society.

3.Inheriting learning passion, methods and creative thinking?

One asset that distinguishes the teaching team at WASNJ from other schools is teachers in-depth knowledge of the subject plus their respect given to students’ learning. What comes with the immersed-learning experience is the life-long benefit: how to learn and how to live.??

Mr. Henry Wang obtained his Ph. D in Geology and Geophysics from China University of Petroleum, and has completed his post-doctoral research. He had been involved in 2 state level research projects and other 16 research projects sponsored by organizations in various fields.

Students in his class are not only guided with approaches to learn and explore, but also taught scientific research paradigms and methodologies.

How to determine a research topic? What methodologies and resources and be considered? Any norms or unknown areas involved in? The whole process is about how knowledges are formed. Every detail even chart drawing is also considered as part of the research for Mr. Wang.

Mr. Wang regards being rigid, reflective and innovative as the top 3 qualities that a serious researcher for natural science should have. That’s why he insists on embedding these three features into his daily teachings as way to help build up these qualities in students.

Looking back her own learning experience as a student, Ms. Sunny Zhu attributes her success in Math learning to her math teacher. “I always had so many questions and my math teacher never got impatient with my whys.”

Such a robust interaction maintains Ms. Zhu’s curiosity and motivation towards learning. Ever since becoming a part of WASNJ, Ms. Zhu’s passion for life-long learning will undoubtedly benefit her own students here.

Prior to joining WASNJ, Mr. Bin Li has been working for a university as a lecturer for two years. He prefers student-centered classroom rather than a teacher-dominant teaching environment.

Mr. Anthony Starkie, assistant Head of upper school, graduated from Imperial College London with a bachelor’s degree in Physics. Being a member of Institute of Physics (IOP), Mr. Anthony is also currently working on his master’s degree in Space Science and Technology.

Dr. Joanne Ladds, Executive Head of upper school, owns a master’s degree and PhD in Chemistry from the University of York. She is also a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and owns a master’s degree in Education. Her enthusiasm towards teaching can easily impress everyone in her class.?

Dr. Joanne teaches in hope that students can discover their passion through learning thus as preparation for their future thriving.