News

Regional Exchange begins

We welcomed 15 new students to JMSS this week. All are settling in to JMSS life really well.  

The group and some staff are heading off to the football and museum this weekend to really immerse the students into Melbourne life.

The regional students are here until 9th August. 

Japanese Exchange

Two Japanese students have also joined us this week, from Ritsumeikan HS in Kyoto, Japan visiting JMSS for the next four weeks:

• Mayu Kajitani
• Moeka Chiba

If you see them around campus, please make them feel welcome. 

Mini-Mathematicians - ESV

In term 2, several JMSS students had participated in the Mini-Mathematician programme that is a part of the school’s involvement in the Emerging Science Victoria (ESV) programme. We are offered this excellent opportunity to share our knowledge with primary school students across Victoria through an online platform that kids can participate in live discussions and share their ideas with children from other schools. It is fascinating to see that so many kids took interests in mathematics at such an early stage in their academic development, and we hope this programme can inspire them to pursue their passion in mathematics in the future.

While in this programme, we have got the chance to discuss with the children about some extraordinary topics of mathematics that are not commonly taught in class, including cryptography, ordering and shuffling, graph theory, paradox, and the concept of infinity.  In each of the topics, we decide to lead by example, showing children a set of scenarios that are easy to understand and learn. As soon as we gain their interests, we gradually reveal the reasoning and theory behind each concept. On a few occasions, we encounter sophisticated contents of knowledge that even ourselves found it challenging to comprehend. However, during the interaction with the children, we found that they demonstrate surprisingly high acceptance of new knowledge. Also, they are very proactive about participating in our engagers, where they are not afraid of wrong answers and present their purest understanding. Overall, it was a learning opportunity for both us, as presenters, and the children as the audience.

Furthermore, this programme allows us to experience what it is like to be a teacher. As we emerge ourselves in the world of lecturing, we soon realise that the 40-minute lesson goes by in a blink of an eye. This programme also gave us the fun and joy of being a teacher, and it helped us to develop our interactive and communication skills that would aid us in the future. We strongly recommend this sensational programme to all future senior students in Victoria who are interested in mathematics or want to experience the wonders of teaching!

It was indeed a difficult journey for the five of us. As we were divided into two groups, we had one group teaching the children one week while the other group observed or planned the next lesson. This two-week rotation allowed us to learn from each other and improve our teaching style as well as the skills to suit better for the children. It also provided us enough time for us to produce a well-planned lesson that would entertain the kids and teach them the contents effectively.

Through these virtual lessons, the primary school students were able to encounter a learning experience that significantly varied from their usual learning style. Therefore, we believe that the ESV programme is highly beneficial to inspire children to develop a passion for mathematics. It could be used to convert the fixed learning within a classroom into a more dynamic and engaging learning experience, which will further increase a student’s interest and performance in their academic subjects. Moreover, the ESV programme takes away the physical boundaries of a classroom, where we, as school students, can resonate with the children's dreams and goals, and encourage the students to achieve them.

By Chethaka Jayasekaramudeli, Andy Zhang, Nathan Lee, James Xu and Tony Gu