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

In yesterday’s Mathematical Methods 1 class we started on the word problems.

There were supposed to be five types of problems we would take up, but we were only able to discuss three: perimeter (rectangle, square and triangle), simple investment (so simple there’s not even a measure of time; didn’t know such existed until I saw it in the textbook), and mixture (wet and dry).

These were all equations in one variable and with one degree, by the way.

It was bad enough that there were some of my former students who asked to sit in and were very noisy at the back of the room that the students in front of them were already shushing them.

The discussion ground to a halt further with the complication of adding or removing quantities of one part in the mixture problems. I was still in the midst of discussing the first example for this category when I could already tell that the students could not absorb anymore.

The exercise I gave them was only on the first two types of problems.

I will have to finish the last two types tomorrow: uniform velocity and work. Plus I will have to go back to a segment of the first topic for the chapter: solving for operations on several fractions in an equation.

I also have to announce if we are pushing through the fifty-point quiz on Friday, but that will have to be after I ask David.

I checked the group folders for my mechanics lab classes, and unfortunately, I will have to ask some of them to repeat their measurements, and most of them to repeat their computations.

Next time I will have to emphasize that the accuracy of the measuring instrument (the ruler, Vernier caliper or the micrometer caliper) determines the number of decimal places and significant figures in their recorded values, which in turn will give them the number of significant figures in their computed quantities (area and volume).

There was also one group who only submitted their data on pad paper and not a photocopy of the data sheet in the manual, which I will ask them to repeat also.

But I did grade their answers to the questions at the end of the activity, so that they could not consult with their classmates and change their answers for extra points.

I will also have to find a better way (than simply writing with a permanent marker) of labeling their folder on the outside so that I know immediately which are for the morning class and which are for the afternoon class, and which is for each group, without having to list down all the names of the members.

Maybe I will just print some that I can stick to the cover of the folder. I’m also assuming that there will be no more additional students coming in, which is really most detrimental to the records of lab classes more than in the lecture.

That’s all there is time for today. Class dismissed.