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

In my Trigonometry classes yesterday for the first part I had a graded recitation that was supposed to force the students into memorizing the reciprocal, ratio and Pythagorean identities in preparation for their quiz on conversion and verification on Tuesday next week.

There are only eight basic equations or relationships that they have to memorize, and we still spent a little more than half the class time until twenty students (per class, average) could all get correct answers. There were even times when they were floundering on the definitions of the trigonometric functions, which I assumed they already knew by heart this far into the discussion, and which explains their lack of comprehension on the identities.

I emphasized to them that these were all fundamental principles they had to know in order to be able to understand the later topics. It's also surprising that they have gotten this far in the term without asking for help in applying the previous lessons.

A minor rant: I told Deiv that he did not have a course card with me. He replied that I must have placed his course card with the Graphics One class. Whether or not it was in the other piles, I told him that it was easiest for him to just fill out a new one.

This is just like some students who say they have submitted the requirements when in fact it's not with me.

Of course there's also the possibility that late submissions do get given to the wrong teacher or what not. That's one of the incentives for submitting requirements on time, and of always attending class to be able to pass immediately whatever the teacher asks for on that session. Same goes for passing requirements when the student sees the teacher in the hallway instead of passing to the faculty room.

At the same time we're also trying to devise a system by which the teachers can be sure that students have submitted the requirements they say they have.

I also reminded the class about giving their test booklets on Friday for the test on Tuesday.

For the second half of the class I started on the new identities, which involve the sum of two angles. There were only three new equations given: for sine, cosine and tangent. I did not tell them, and they did not ask, whether they would be required to memorize those also. But I did not give them the derivation for the equations, which they just took on faith.

I showed them the three types of questions that would show up related to the sum identities, which are verifying the trigonometric functions of the sum of unknown and special angles, being given just one function and the quadrant of two angles and getting one function of their sum, and expressing a long equation in terms of one trigonometric function by using one of the sum identities.

But I told them that we would be continuing with this topic only on Friday next week, after the review and the quiz.