Each week, the students are able to list their preferences for which classes they would like to take. They take one course for four hours a day, and another for two hours a day. Each week, new classes are offered and the students have the opportunity to immerse themselves in different advanced mathematical topics.
While each of BEAM’s classes explores incredibly interesting and advanced ideas, we’ve put together a spotlight on just one of the six courses offered this week: Analytic Number Theory with Cory.
The class has just seven students, with a teacher and a teaching assistant—the kids get to really get to know one another and the staff members! In just three days, the class has gone from not knowing what a function is to being able to find the limit as n approaches infinity of f(n) = (-1)n/n: zero. The students are basically doing calculus without using the word “calculus” itself!
Sitting in on the class, what is most impressive to our staff, even more than the sheer speed and intensity of the class, is how engaged each student is. Cory will give short lectures, but for a majority of the class, the students work in small groups in order to work on difficult problem sets. Mostly, they are teaching themselves the topics! Today in class, we were beyond impressed to see how each of the students was able to find patterns and draw conclusions from sequences of numbers.
When Anaís and Cynthia talked about the class, they said that they couldn’t believe how much they were learning in such a short period of time!
Jack agreed, saying: “I’ve learned more math in the past three days than I did in the last two months.”
Cynthia, Jack, Anaís, and Alvin work together on the board
Week two classes are now officially over at BEAM 7 Union College. We can't wait to see how much learning takes place in week three!