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How to learn without a teacher? (1 Viewer)

The Savior

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
48
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HSC
2015
Hi all.
My chemistry teacher rarely teaches anything and talks about his life most of the time. Before you jump to the conclusion that I am complaining for no reason, just hear me out. My chem class started with about 20 people in year 11, now we got 7 in year 12. The only reason that some of us are staying is because we need it for prerequisites at uni. I have also talked to past years who had him for chemistry, and they all experienced the same situation. Nobody ever scored even a band 5 with him in chem. I have talked to the head science teacher at my school and she won't do anything about it because they haven't got teachers to fill his position. Seriously, I don't know what's wrong with him, when he gets bored, he just gets random chemicals to burn on a Bunsen. Please understand that I am not just complaining for no reason. To be honest, he is a good person, just not a very good teacher, but I have to do HSC chem for my course at uni and I can't get tutoring because I live in a rural area with the nearest tutor about 250kms away. Do you guys reckon I should talk to the principal about it? I guess I can learn most of the content myself, but the experiments are impossible to conduct at home. In fact, I have even asked him if I could do some of the experiments at lunch time with his supervision, but he won't let me. I am stuck on what I should do.:confused:
 

QZP

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I'll let someone else comment on the issue of learning, but for the experiments you don't have to actually do them. It's all there in the textbooks :) Tbh doing experiments at school felt like a waste of time as I could have gotten the same amount of knowledge from a textbook in 5 minutes
 

theodore0307

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In not sure how your syllabus is set out, but if it's clearly set out, then just follow that. Make your own notes according to the syllabus. You can use other people's notes as a guide line. Check on the resources section of bos for notes and other stuff.
 

Lethal Toxin

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Mar 3, 2013
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Bored of studies ----> Resources -----> Chemistry -----> band 6 notes -----> profit
 

ManDarren

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Bos --> Meet me --> tell u to go youtube --> letslearnscience chem videos --> band 5 --> thank me --> promoting myself on utube.
 

Bronze Radio Return

New Member
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Sep 24, 2014
Messages
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I had a very similar situation in Year 11 as my Chem teacher was pretty rubbish as well. Class went from 12 down to 4. Luckily for me the head of Science took over at the start of year 12 and she could actually teach chem well. My advice would be to either borrow or buy a good textbook like conquering chemistry and read through that. I feel with Science subjects its important to not just make summaries but really understand the concepts thoroughly so if your teacher isn't teaching them reading from a good textbook is probably the best alternative. Also like somebody said early there is a heap of good youtube videos that cover the entire syllabus
 

strawberrye

Premium Member
Joined
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2018
You can search up some of the experiments on youtube and watch videos on it, you could also consider online tutoring options, you could also ask questions on BOS, I think the best way to learn without a teacher is to ask another science teacher at your school any chemistry questions you have and feel free to post on BOS forums any questions you may not be understanding. Best wishes-at the end of the day, it is all about self-discipline and belief:) Best wishes for your HSC chemistry journey:)
 

Cleavage

Clarence
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
563
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2014
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2018
Hi all.
My chemistry teacher rarely teaches anything and talks about his life most of the time. Before you jump to the conclusion that I am complaining for no reason, just hear me out. My chem class started with about 20 people in year 11, now we got 7 in year 12. The only reason that some of us are staying is because we need it for prerequisites at uni. I have also talked to past years who had him for chemistry, and they all experienced the same situation. Nobody ever scored even a band 5 with him in chem. I have talked to the head science teacher at my school and she won't do anything about it because they haven't got teachers to fill his position. Seriously, I don't know what's wrong with him, when he gets bored, he just gets random chemicals to burn on a Bunsen. Please understand that I am not just complaining for no reason. To be honest, he is a good person, just not a very good teacher, but I have to do HSC chem for my course at uni and I can't get tutoring because I live in a rural area with the nearest tutor about 250kms away. Do you guys reckon I should talk to the principal about it? I guess I can learn most of the content myself, but the experiments are impossible to conduct at home. In fact, I have even asked him if I could do some of the experiments at lunch time with his supervision, but he won't let me. I am stuck on what I should do.:confused:
Hey mate, that seems quite the predicament, I had perhaps quite a similar situation for Economics. My teacher had 1 B6 total in 6 years of teaching, and I wanted one incredibly badly.

Good thing about HSC chem is that there are resources everywhere. It isn't THAT important to perform the experiments yourself (it may be beneficial if you are a visual person). If you are a visual person, most experiments are posted on youtube. I sat on my phone during the only time we did titrations at my school, had no idea what was happening (lol what a mistake) but i looked up a matrix video on youtube and it was incredibly informative, more informative than how my teacher actually explained it herself.

For me, I motivated myself to learn economics by myself because I had an interest in the subject, but also I thought that if I were to do well, it would be infinitely more satisfying. Using the school supplied one and another textbook, I made what I believe to be a quite good set of notes. I also committed myself to learning about all the little "intricacies" of the subject, and used guides on the forums and past HSC papers, as references to ensure I wasn't missing any content or technique. When BoS had a study day, I dumped all of my practice essays onto RoT (ty forever <33) and he gave me extensive feedback. If i might say so myself, I've done quite well in economics so far, and felt comfortable in my HSC last Friday.

All you need is a textbook, past papers, a few subject guides and the very occasional assessment of your ability (be it an assessment task or feedback on a practice paper).

If you enjoy the subject enough, you'll be able to study it yourself. Work very hard at it, and you'll find how personally fulfilling it is. Then with good results, you can walk always knowing you are the greatest and that you've developed the ability to learn independently, which will set you apart from a lot of students in your first year of university.

Good Luck!
 
Last edited:

Cleavage

Clarence
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
563
Gender
Male
HSC
2014
Uni Grad
2018
Hey mate, that seems quite the predicament, I had perhaps quite a similar situation for Economics. My teacher had 1 B6 total in 6 years of teaching, and I wanted one incredibly badly.

Good thing about HSC chem is that there are resources everywhere. It isn't THAT important to perform the experiments yourself (it may be beneficial if you are a visual person). If you are a visual person, most experiments are posted on youtube. I sat on my phone during the only time we did titrations at my school, had no idea what was happening (lol what a mistake) but i looked up a matrix video on youtube and it was incredibly informative, more informative than how my teacher actually explained it herself.

For me, I motivated myself to learn economics by myself because I had an interest in the subject, but also I thought that if I were to do well, it would be infinitely more satisfying. Using the school supplied one and another textbook, I made what I believe to be a quite good set of notes. I also committed myself to learning about all the little "intricacies" of the subject, and used guides on the forums and past HSC papers, as references to ensure I wasn't missing any content or technique. When BoS had a study day, I dumped all of my practice essays onto RoT (ty forever <33) and he gave me extensive feedback. If i might say so myself, I've done quite well in economics so far, and felt comfortable in my HSC last Friday.

All you need is a textbook, past papers, a few subject guides and the very occasional assessment of your ability (be it an assessment task or feedback on a practice paper).

If you enjoy the subject enough, you'll be able to study it yourself. Work very hard at it, and you'll find how personally fulfilling it is. Then with good results, you can walk always knowing you are the greatest and that you've developed the ability to learn independently, which will set you apart from a lot of students in your first year of university.

Good Luck!
+ grab ahmad shah's notes if you don't have them
 

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