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What’s your name?

My name is Yanjun Zhou and I am a Data & Software Engineer.

My teaching experience?

My teaching journey started back in college. I taught other students to play GO in the Go/Chess club of the university, meanwhile, I tutored a 5 year old and a 8 year boy playing Go. During the weekends, I also assisted basketball classes which were designed for 6 to 12 year old kids.

In 2020, I worked as a Java instructor for 3 month before I came to singapore. My students were fresh graduates in their early 20’s. Most of them were from non-technical backgrounds and wanted to find a job in the IT industry after the class. I taught them both general Object-Oriented programming concepts and Java basics.

After I came to Singapore, I worked as a part time Python assistant instructor at a coding bootcamp. The course covers python programming fundamentals, data analytics and machine learning using a variety of python libraries. My audiences were both young and middle-age professionals who wanted to learn python and machine learning to boost their career. My job was addressing students’ questions and offering one-to-one tutoring sessions when they requested.

I also worked as a freelance technical instructor and assisted a VR & AR introduction series for primary school teachers, helping them grasp those powerful and cutting-edge tools to enhance their teaching techniques and learning experience for their students.

How do I teach that helps students learn effectively?

I often like to keep students alert and excited by asking them challenging questions throughout the class, leading them to think about what are the potential solutions. I want to teach them to voluntarily face the challenges and believe that there are always ways to solve them.

I also ask students to build small games together with me using what they’ve learned, so they can practice and see how powerful their knowledge is. In my classes, they are not “forced” to learn for the purpose of passing exams, instead, they keep their wonderful curiosities and the beautiful human nature of exploration to get the most out of the class.

Why do I enjoy teaching?

I have had broad interests in cool technologies and tools across different fields since I was very young. One day I realized that I have so much to offer, why don’t I just share my knowledge with people.

I especially enjoy working with kids, because they are not driven by “fear” — worries of losing jobs, peer pressure, or even the insecurity feeling of “I’m not good enough so I have to learn more”. Instead, they’re led by their natural curiosity to the “unknown territory”, which can help them study new knowledge without the feeling of stress and the fear of making mistakes, as long as teachers (including parents!! ) lead and inspire them in a proper way. I feel I’m privileged if I can be the one who can inspire them and protect their curiosity.

I love to see how each individual student makes progress at his/her own pace, that’s why I also enjoy the small class format.

One fun fact about me?

After I finished my master’s degree in the U.S I had a trip to Austin. As a poor student, I wanted to save money on accommodation, so I searched everywhere for an affordable place to stay. At the end of the story, I stayed in a discarded big yellow school bus placed in the owner’s backyard and the time in that bus became an interesting and unforgettable experience for me during the journey.