Please identify a school, extracurricular, or community activity and explain how it was meaningful to you. (Respond in 500 words or fewer.)
Swish! The ball flies at a velocity of seven mph with an elevation angle of 67 degrees, the optimal path to smoothly glide through the rusty, broken hoop. In my eyes, mathematics serves a purpose far beyond solving how many apples John consumes in an hour. Math acts as the language of logic, a catalyst for technology and innovations that have developed our society.
With an arsenal of math knowledge at my disposal, I volunteered to metor underprivileged middle school kids, enriching their math knowledge with a new approach on teaching. A recent middle schooler myself, I knew innovative teaching methods could spark interest in the classroom. Thus, I named my course “Computational Basketball.” On the day of class signups, students rushed to my course, excited to learn mathematics whilst playing basketball!
As a teacher, I wanted my students to have fun while learning that the concepts learned in the classroom are priceless.
Piggybacking on this steep interest curve, I created an entertaining learning plan utilizing the fundamentals of basketball (shooting, passing, running, dribbling) to teach them mathematics (shooting percentages, passing angles, dribbling height, etc).
Although some students were disruptive and had short attention spans, I learned to become patient to cater to the needs of everyone. At this age, my structured school life taught me the principles of hard work and dedication, but students at these underprivileged communities were often deprived of that passionate spark and value for education. Nonetheless, I had to teach them and ensure they understood the concepts. I incentivized their learning by organizing friendly math competitions, keeping the students interested. I learnt firsthand that a good leader must be equipped with problem solving skills.
As the course progressed, positive and negative student responses taught me how to effectively gain someone’s attention and realize that small actions by mentors can make big impacts on malleable young minds.
Near the end of the course, my middle school students created individual analyses of their improvement throughout the class using numerous statistical values. This taught them the fundamentals of a treatment analysis, a concept normally learned during AP Statistics. Not only did I improve as a teacher, but I also realized that I cannot take my own education for granted, and I seek to take advantage of my educational opportunities to accomplish my future goals.
As a teacher, I not only developed a love for mathematics but also introduced the wonders of interdisciplinary learning to my students. I seek to be a positive role model for my students, inspiring them to love learning and work hard to achieve academic and professional goals. I hope to carry on mentoring underprivileged kids throughout college and my life, motivating students to reach their full potential.