Calculus

Climbing a Staircase to the Vast Possibilities in Open Learning

Photo of Khadija NiaziKhadija Niazi – Lahore, Pakistan

I am 14 years old and I am a student of 9th grade. Reading interesting novels and watching anime online is my hobby. My life has been transformed by MOOCs because of the immense amount of knowledge I am acquiring at this age, which by no means I could have acquired by only remaining in my typical environment. I have always been interested in science subjects and physics. The focus of my learning is Astrophysics and quantum physics because these two topics are the most intriguing topics I have ever set my eyes upon. I took my first MOOC at the early age of 10, and since then I never looked back. One MOOC led to another and the learning continued, it was like climbing up a staircase, small steps at a time. I found out about my first MOOC through a newspaper article and later through the forums of that MOOC, I learnt about different MOOC platforms. The thing I most enjoy in a MOOC is the forums. The forums give you a chance to interact with various people, having different experiences, all around the world sharing one common goal; learning. A global, united community of people, who are striving and share only one goal; to be enlightened and to improve their lives by knowledge which is free of cost.

My life was deeply impacted since I started taking MOOCs. It not only helped me in my own school but it also opened up a door to learning more advance topics. As I told you above, one of my main focus was Quantum Physics. And when I found a course of quantum physics I found out that I needed to learn calculus for it. I immediately started looking for a calculus course and got myself enrolled in Calculus One by Ohio State University. I found myself so lucky that after that course, everything started coming in a flow for me. After Calculus One, Calculus Two came which was also by OSU and then I took one more step ahead and enrolled in Single Variable by Penn University which was more advanced. I remember that I thanked my lucky stars when I found out OSU had a multivariable course and I wasted no time and enrolled in it. All of these courses prepared me for the Quantum Physics course on Coursera which I was aiming to take.

All these MOOCs on Calculus have enabled me to view the world from a different perspective, a calculus perspective. Due to these Calculus courses I was able to meet my dreams of completing the Quantum Physics course with more than 80%. I could not have imagined to be able to complete such advanced course at the age of 13.

Not only that those calculus courses have contributed a lot in my wish to complete a Quantum physics course, but they have also made me understand physics books which I could never understand without the knowledge of calculus.

All the MOOCs I have taken have helped me in one way or the other. I had a friend in my school who was interested in computer science but she couldn’t learn it because her parents could not afford any other institution’s fee because they were hardly managing the school fee for her. So I told her and a few other to search for a MOOC online and fulfill their passion for learning and I was very glad to see her taking those MOOCs and completing them. We have a great responsibility, and that is to introduce people of our community to MOOCs and to spread the message of free online education with no boundaries.

When I started my learning with MOOCs I did not know how far it would take me but let me assure all of you, it has enabled me to touch those horizons which I could never have imagined to grasp. MOOCs have not only have shaped the system of education, it has also shape the learning process in which a learner is free to explore so many vast possibilities, while having a complete control on them. In MOOCs, he is the teacher and he is the student as well because he can help others in forums and he can also be helped. Let us not confine ourselves with typical learning when there are many other possibilities yet to be explored.

My life is totally changed after I took control of my own learning, many lives are still waiting to be changed. All we need is to give them the resources and we can always hope for a better and educated world.

Thinking 100 Steps Ahead toward a Revolution in Education

Photo of M. Shaheer NiaziM. Shaheer Niazi – Lahore, Pakistan

I am a 9th grade student; I am 14 years old since September 25th 2014. Learning science subjects like astronomy/physics has been my interest for a long time. I even love history and geography and I am an avid collector of coins, stamps and minerals. I always knew science and mathematics are necessary for each other, so I always wanted to learn the mathematics behind all the theories, and I wanted to know how to calculate the constants, so that I could recreate them on my own. Make my own theories and test them with the formulas. I had a beautiful book on the mathematics of the universe. It was difficult for me, I had no idea how to do some of the problems. I tried miserably to do those difficult problems, but I couldn’t. This failure is what motivated me to learn more, so that I could finally solve those questions. So I found a perfect way to do it all, the MOOCs way.

MOOCs not only helped me in learning they also sparked my new passion which was to do practical experiments. Experimenting is the most productive way of learning about the physical world and how it works. I use many common household objects and experiment around with them. One of my most productive experiments was the Quantum interferometer experiment, in which I used the interference pattern of a laser due to my hair, to find its width. I got interested in this experiment due to a wonderful MOOC of Quantum physics.

MOOCs have impacted my life, like no other thing has. Learning in a typical school environment has not helped me the way I look at my learning world now. My experience with MOOCs has introduced me to a world which has no boundaries, no restriction of age and I can freely experience the different realms of knowledge on my own. There are so many diverse possibilities suddenly opened up in front of me thanks to MOOCs which I would later choose from.

After taking my Astronomy MOOC, I was finally able to solve those hard questions from my book. MOOCs even helped me make my own blog, in which I solve interesting questions of astronomy and many other subjects. During that I found out that this adventure was just beginning. I found out what real astronomy was. There was more to this. Real astronomical and astrophysical problems cannot be solved with normal Mathematics. They need Calculus. So the Ohio State MOOCs of Calculus helped me pass that hurdle. Just to bring me face to face with another, which was Quantum Physics. Quantum physics just baffled me. I had never seen something like this before and I wanted to learn it badly. I am still learning Quantum Physics, and there are not one but many MOOCs which helped me reach the point at which I start learning Quantum physics. So I can’t credit one particular course as being most important, because all the course I have ever taken have been staircase for me to reach this point. I don’t know how long this staircase of learning is, but I want to work hard until I reach the highest point which I can achieve. Until today I have completed almost 20 courses which have all been intertwined with each other all helping me in a sequence to reach my goal.

The world is transforming day by day. And the pedagogy of teaching and learning is also changing. I consider myself very lucky to have access to these MOOCs at such a young age, which will, in the end, shape the future of many who have limited resources. I hope in the future, that when I need to publish any scientific paper, I will have open access just like I have open access to MOOCs. We need a world where education is facilitated and encouraged without the boundaries of money. So we need one more step further in this direction. My mother always used to tell me to think 100 steps ahead of others. This quote is what has kept me going, which has kept me ahead of others and I believe it is high time for the world to revolutionize education by thinking 100 steps ahead. Only then we can have a better future for our coming generation.