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

Yesterday as usual I gave them almost ten exercises in Graphics One. This is to make up for the only two exercises that I gave them last week.

What’s interesting to note though is that there seem to be more students catching up to my “buffer zone” exercises now that I have not given any limit as to up to what exercise they are required to finish by the end of the period.

Maybe next time I’ll increase my buffer zone to ten exercises instead of five. I will also have to start looking for one reserve exercise that is comprehensive and that I will not include in their weekly workouts but will probably give them as their finals. If there’s more than one, better.

In my electricity and magnetism laboratory we were supposed to have the five students who did not give their oral reports last time, of which two were absent on the schedule of the first report, and three just said (back then) that they would not report.

This is because since I told them that I would be getting the higher of the two reports (including the one that is assigned to them after the last three experiments) they have taken the option of getting a zero in the first one and “promising” me a better report on their second one.

I was willing to go along with their request, or loophole. Luckily, though, one of the two students who was absent during that day submitted an excuse letter, so I have to schedule a time for him to present. That was supposed to have been last week, but at the start of the class he said he wasn’t ready. I gave him (and the rest of those who did not report the first time) this week to present.

Despite several reminders though, it seems that they were still not prepared for their report. I had them draw numbers as to the sequence of their reports, and the girl who first let me down a few weeks ago got the first slot.

But she wasn’t ready, just writing down her notes from the manual right there and then. Even when I told her she would not be presenting to her classmates but only to me and with the encouragement of one of her classmates (better than mine, admittedly), she still couldn’t present. She even CRIED, and I was not going to be guilted into bending.

The problem was, if I let her slide again, then the others would also plead the same case, which turned out to be exactly what they did, no preparation and all.

In the end I just wrote on the board that they are required to set a schedule for an oral report before Wednesday next week. This will be on my free time in the conference room, so that they would not be paralyzed by the scrutiny of their peers. I gave the strict requirements that there should be no references larger than index cards, and the experiment results should be on visual aids.

I also wrote the warning that those who do not comply would get a zero for BOTH oral reports, which, in a subject where incomplete means failure, is a big threat.

So except for one group that I allowed to redo their measurements on Kirchhoff’s rules because of their large percentage error the first time, yesterday’s lab session was one big waste of time.