Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

In my two hour-long astronomy classes today I had their review for the quiz on Monday the same as in the hour-and-a-half class last Monday. I showed them the questions on the transparency and told them to copy them first because I was going to turn off the projector in fifteen minutes.

There were twenty questions of eight different types, (two to three per type) with the last two types of questions not having been discussed in class before.

This means that I had to give them some idea of how to answer that type of question (so it wasn’t completely a “review”). This also means that unless they do really badly in the quiz, that there won’t be any questions on the zodiac constellation calendar in their first exam in two weeks time. At least there won’t be any new questions on the calendar.

Since my hour-and-a-half class photocopied the transparency, which I only printed out from a desk jet, some of the words were peeling off by the time I used it on the third class in the afternoon. Luckily there was a whiteboard marker left in the chalk ledge that I used to fill out the rubbed out words.

Also in the third class, because there were fewer students than the other classes (thirty instead of forty) and they have all recited more or less, I made it into a group activity instead, with the assumption that the more knowledgeable students would teach the ones slower to comprehend.

After all, I did tell them that all group members must know how to solve the problems, as I will verify by calling random students to the front. Those who did not answer the questions correctly in front of me would earn deductions for their group. And in the end, the two groups with the highest total scores will get additional credit in their class participation standing.

In the end though, I forgot to give them all the correct answers, and only one student showed up to ask for them. I assume that tomorrow there will be a lot of consultations at the time I gave them, including the late attendee who insists on calling it a make-up session.

Does that mean she hasn’t attempted to understand anything we’ve discussed the past meetings she’s been present? Has she even passed up copying down the notes, until I’ve taught her the basics? We’ll see tomorrow.