about

The cbsquared way of teaching is about understanding, not rote learning. It’s having the confidence to overcome any confusion. It’s starting at the rock bottom basics and then realising how these concepts all link together, in an amazingly complex way. It’s seeing a clear direction of where your study is going and knowing what you need to do to get there. It’s being part of a community where others are all in the same boat as you, and encouraging and supporting each other.

It’s being inspired by what you are learning and seeing the world in a way that you never imagined before.

All teachers at cbsquared have studied to a postgraduate university level in their field and are all experienced University tutors and lecturers. They are passionate about science and hope that you will become just as passionate as they are. You can be sure whatever it is you need to learn, our teachers know what you need to know backwards.

Corri Baker teaching GAMSAT Chemistry.

 

 

The cbsquared story – By Corri Baker

At the end of 2009 I was 4 years into a Chemistry PhD and my ARC scholarship funding had run out. More and more students were emailing me for GAMSAT Chemistry tuition, but I didn’t really have the time with my PhD commitment to do bar work and tutorial work. I was at a crossroads. Do I go back to a bar job, or keep going with the private tuition even though there was no guarantee of regular income?

The students who wanted my help knew me as they had been in my chemistry tutorials and practical classes in the years prior. They liked my teaching style and they wanted me to help them study for the GAMSAT.

The first GAMSAT chemistry students and I sat down together and worked through the ACER materials. I realised pretty quickly that these students were going to be up for a lot of private tutorials if we were even going to cover all the Chemistry required for the GAMSAT, let alone get them feeling comfortable with it .

Then I thought, what if I write a dedicated chemistry course for the GAMSAT? That way these students (and others) get to learn what they need without paying for lots of expensive private tutorials, they can work together instead of alone, and the course notes that I created would be a great resource that was tailored to their needs. I could also hope to set up some sort of semi-regular income for myself while I worked on my PhD.

It was a bit of a risk as I had to dedicate a lot of time to setting up the course and my money was running out, but I decided to give it a shot. I had no money to put into marketing, I got my boyfriend (now husband) to design my logo, and his friend put together a website for me all in under a month. I printed flyers off and walked around all three Universities in Adelaide on foot (no small feat for those who have been out to Flinders) and stuck my fliers up everywhere I could, and everywhere I could see the competitors (much bigger and glossier!) fliers.

In under a month I had 17 people signed up to my first “cbsquared Chemistry for GAMSAT course”. The first class I taught started in November 2009, and it was wonderful-the students were so appreciative that they had found the course and were so enthusiastic and engaged. I felt like Harry Potter teaching “Dumbledore’s Army”. I suppose the GAMSAT was the “dark lord” the students and I were fighting against. 🙂

Since then through cbsquared I have taught and interacted with over 1000 students, through both the attendance course in Adelaide and the online course. I have also enlisted the help of a colleague with a PhD in Physics to teach a Physics course as I had a number of students asking about Physics help.

I started with just one GAMSAT student back in 2008 who studied Medicine at Flinders and is now a Doctor. He told me when I first met him that his brother had passed away from cancer and he wanted to be a oncologist. Then there was Physio with two kids who thought she was too old to study medicine but wanted to give the GAMSAT a go. She wasn’t successful in her interview first time around but much to my delight she got in the second time. There are so many stories that students tell me like this that I remember-and feel lucky that I was able to help them fulfil their passion, even if it was in the smallest way.

I am still friends with many students from past classes and we are in touch regularly to catch up for coffee. I am also in email contact with many students from the online course. I feel like I know some of them, even though we have never met. I think students value my personalised service and I wouldn’t like to deliver a course any other way.

I am super proud of what I teach and my course. I believe the product should speak for itself, and it has. I welcome all feedback, negative and positive, positive means I am doing a good job, negative means I can improve it even more.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope this story encourages you to pursue your goals.

Corri Baker

 

Science in the community

At cbsquared, we are passionate about placing science at the heart of the community. At a time where climate change, overpopulation and water shortages are a reality, and technology continues to develop exponentially, we feel every individual requires an awareness and understanding of science.

We hope that we might share common interests, perhaps in science, medicine, the communication of new ideas and ways of thinking, or the protection of our environment. We hope that we can work together in some way in order to combine these interests, in order to make our world a better place.

If you want to get involved, join the cbsquared community! We love to share ideas about technology, science, medicine, and our environment. We’d love to hear if you come across any interesting ideas too, so please share them with us!

 

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