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

In my mechanics classes this week, I first continued with several more examples from the book, which I’m not feeling is not such a good idea. They’re a bit too complex for people trying to understand the concept.

With these ones alone I realized that I had to let the students deal with trying to find out when to use substitution when faced with at least two equations in two unknowns. And despite the fact that we have one equation for time that is of degree two, we have not yet had the chance to use the quadratic formula.

Despite my earlier intention of getting the students to refer to the book for practice problems that might show up in the test, I have to use another simpler text for basic questions.

The last problem, it turned out, took too long to solve that I had to assign to them the last question as their exercise after I had listed down the given.

In my Wednesday mechanics lab class, it was the first of two weeks that I would be meeting both classes in the morning, making me free for the afternoon. I had twenty-one students in six groups (this is the only project from last year that the students back then submitted more than four set-ups, for which I’m thankful now) running around during the experiment.

I gave them a real simple enumeration quiz, and I think a lot of people were able to get at least half of this one.

Afterwards, when I told them that I would demonstrate what they were supposed to do with the experiment, there were still people lounging about at their group tables.

That, I believe, was the start of my bad mood that lasted until the start of Friday morning’s quiz.

I said to the class that it was sad enough people didn’t read the procedure beforehand, resulting not only in low quiz scores but forcing them to consume the whole three hours in their lab activities, now they didn’t want to listen to how they could finish the experiment quicker.

Well, I got their attention.

Four mistakes though (I know my outbursts cost me to lose focus): I told them to move the impact board every five spaces on the graphing paper instead of three, which I took back for some of the belated groups after seeing one group come up with less than ten points on their plotting board.

I also didn’t see that the new manual only required measuring the distances of seven points instead of the dozen or so I’m used to.

I forgot to tell them how to attach their carbon paper to the impact board, so that groups were wrapping it around the board, and finding it difficult to remove them to transfer the marks made to the plotting board.

Lastly, I neglected to heed that the two graphs to be drawn for this experiment were both vertical velocity versus time for both trials, instead of one horizontal velocity and one vertical velocity like I was used to from the old procedure.

And there were still groups that finished way after the hour and a half estimation that I gave them for the experiment. But, accentuating the positive, two thirds of the groups completed their data sheets and passed them early.

Next time I’ll talk about the new exercises I made for Graphics Two, the Interactive Science update when I met with the Dean on his birthday, and the classes from Thursday onwards. But other than that, the session is finished for this week.

Class dismissed.