Our mathematics microteaching just concluded recently and it ended with a bang, quite literally. The order for microteaching was arranged according to topics and working on A Maths syllabus means it will only be our turn on the last day and this friend of my, HX, who blew everyone away with his microteaching was the last presenter in the list.

We have seen many concrete manipulative (or educational toys) used by peers in earlier E Maths topics since it is easier to relate those topics to real life and that really got me worried for my Binomial Theorem. I thought, "what could I do to bring in concrete manipulative for Binomial Theorem?!" I concluded that it is next to impossible since some A Maths topics are much more abstract compared to E Maths.

And true enough, for those of us doing A Maths, we were helpless to bring in manipulatives. Remainder and Factor Theorem, Circular Measures and Matrices were some of the A Maths topics we dealt with. Then it came to HX's differentiation, the mother of all things abstract also known as Calculus. The mammoth mathematics created by Sir Issac Newton himself who selfishly claim all glory.

A guitar and a simple equation: f = sqrt(T/p) / 2L was all he needed.

He differentiated it and demonstrated the change in frequency if we adjusted the length (L), tension (T) and density (p) of the guitar strings. The sheer simplicity in the demonstration would make students fall in love with calculus. To borrow from mathematician lingo, it was straight out of the book!

HX had a first class honours in Physics and top his cohort in NUS during his time. Completed a full marathon and a capable badminton player, he plays the piano and loves his Physics. He can be found working on Physics problems, like proving the normal distribution is a natural consequence of statistical mechanics, during lectures.

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