Specialist as Correspondance

[generalkorn12]

As the title suggests, my schools not offering Specialist next year due to a low (only 3!) number of students.

I've been asking teachers around saying how hard they feel specialist is, but I'm wondering if it's a subject that can be self-taught with only a gentle push in the right direction by a teacher?

[tony3272]

If you enjoy maths and don't find it too difficult then you should be fine. The concepts can definitely be self taught but it will require quite a bit of motivation and effort without a teacher.
If you can, try to get those other 2 students to do specialist as well. That way you wont feel like a loner and you guys can encourage each other throughout the year.

[Lasercookie]

I'll be doing spesh over DECV next year (only one that wants to do spesh LOL). Quite a few others (previous students at my school and a few people on here) have done it, and also done well in it. So yeah, it looks like it can be done. It does seem you would need an incredible amount of motivation though, have heard of a few people who haven't done that well since they slacked off.

There seems to be more than enough resources available. The teachers at school are willing to answer questions, also the DECV teacher and of course AN. I was questioning how helpful a DECV teacher might be, but after being on AN and being able to understand stuff being explained over text after awhile, I'd assume they would be just as useful. Of course there's Khan Academy and all the other maths resources on the internet.

So yeah, I'm pretty excited for it next year, should be pretty good. I'm not too worried that I'd struggle with understanding content, there's more than enough resources available to help with that. 

[paulsterio]

ive self taught myself specialist maths, cause i usually dont ever pay attention in class (A) i always seem to be talking or i have other things to do, but self teaching yourself the course isnt too bad, just go through the book and work through the exercises and you should be fine, thats what i did, also, you should take a look at kyzoo's dot points, they're stickied on the specialist forum, which point out some important points, but yeah, i agree, you'll need motivation, but theres no reason why it cant be done

[Lasercookie]

If you haven't looked at the DECV site already, take a look at the spesh section: http://www.distance.vic.edu.au/subschools/vcesubjectinfo/math_specialist/samples.htm

They have a sample of the general course overview sheet (which has a timeline/due dates for Unit 3) and the notes for week 1. I guess frequent due dates should be a good enough source of motivation right there .

Looks like it'll be the Heinemann book, pity, I would have preferred the Essentials book. Oh well.