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

I limited the quiz for my astronomy classes today to twenty questions just like we practiced, although last term the first quiz had been twenty-five questions. I printed to the transparency less than an hour before my first class.

Well, they’re all finished, although there were some hitches in each class.

In the first one (920am) I arrived five minutes early to set up the overhead projector properly.

Unfortunately, the projector in the room wasn’t working. I thought it will have to plug it in the side of the room again instead of in the outlet under the platform, but the students and I noticed that the fan was turning. So it was really the bulb that was busted. Two students volunteered to look for another one in the neighboring classrooms.

The u-shaped structure of the building made it possible for me to see them go to the other side of the building, seventeen rooms away, before they came back with one. All the overhead projectors here are on rolling carts, of course.

While I set it up, they complained to me that some of the teachers didn’t want to lend them the ones in their rooms, even though they weren’t using them (yet). I couldn’t fault those, as I have had lectures where I didn’t need the projector until later in the hour.

But what seemed unfair to me is that one of the teachers they had approached scolded them for disrupting his/her class! Talk about thinking the whole world revolves around you and your lecture. Although I didn’t ask the students anymore information about the said teacher (even the gender), I did recall the room number and could easily inquire who teaches there for that period.

As always, I told the students that they can write in pencil to minimize erasures (erasures are not subject to deductions though), but they have to finalize all their answers in ball pen before submitting it. In other words, no answers written in pencils will be checked.

What’s my rationale for this? I already write the correct answers on the students’ paper to minimize the possibility of them approaching me afterwards saying I checked their answers incorrectly. Making them write in a more or less permanent medium takes away the temptation to fool the teacher by changing their answers after their paper has been returned to them.

One of the students also asked if there was a bonus. I wasn’t planning on it yet until the first long exam, but right there and then I told them that students who had submitted index cards early on in the term with pictures will get additional five points. I also said that I would be accepting index cards with pictures until the end of the day for the bonus.

This is because on the average, I handle one hundred students during the trimester (currently it’s 133). I don’t find it easy to associate names with faces unless they stand out in class, either academically or through negative behavior. We’re talking about a handful of students per section. But I do remember faces better. So it’s more advantageous for them in the long run when I give out the teacher’s evaluation part of the grade that I recall they were in class, although they may not have exceptional performance or active in the discussions.

Anyway, that’s it’s for now. I’ll continue tomorrow.