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

Last Tuesday in my Mathematical Methods One class, I discussed how to solve systems of equations in three variables using determinants, which some of the students vaguely remembered from their primary and/or secondary school.

That, I guess is what is so frustrating about teaching this class. It is mostly review. It speaks ill of their previous school that they have such a poor recollection of these concepts or that they have such an aversion to the topic. Or that they were not given proper study habits and attitude or that the school is of such low quality they were allowed to pass without learning anything or any combination of the four.

Of course there were already complaints about how long the method was, considering they have to get the sums of six sets of three factors four times to get the solution set.

I just assured them that although they were required to solve by determinants during that day’s exercise, that in the exam they could use any method among the three discussed to solve the systems of equations.

David and I could have proceeded to four variables from there, but I think the students already get the idea about how to go about solving those without having to be subjected to them unless completely necessary.

After that was system of equations of degree two – or quadratic, in two variables. For this one I had to show the cases where they could use elimination or substitution to come up with a new equation that is in one variable. If it is still quadratic, they could use the quadratic formula, factoring or completing the square to solve for that variable. Of course, with this they came up with two values or sets for both variables.

Again, we did not use this method for three variables anymore or the graphical method, since we did not discuss the graphical representation of the conic sections.

On Thursday, we had word problems for two variables, three variables and quadratic equations. They had to recall the formulas we discussed before for simple investments, distance (or speed), perimeter, area, work, and mixtures.

The quiz in that subject we had yesterday only consisted of eight items. Two gave three equations in two variables. Two were quadratic equations in two variables. There were two word problems in two variables of degree one (one was asking for the numerator and the denominator of a fraction given certain conditions, while the other was a distance problem. A simple investment problem used three variables, and a rectangular length and width problem was solvable using quadratic equations in two variables.

What surprised me was that most of them were using determinants for the three variables even knowing how much time it would take.

One of the class top scorers, in fact, wanted to take a make up test instead because she and her classmate was absent the day before when we discussed word problems. I persuaded them to take the quiz then though. She even asked me to rank the four word problems in order of increasing difficulty and I said: rectangle, investment, speed and fraction.

Another student missed the test (but he passed his test booklet) was Mark, who was the guy I gave a special final exam to in Trigonometric Applications last term. His excuse was a Body of Recognized and Accredited Student Organizations (BRASO) meeting, since he is the representative of Youth for Christ.

Still, it seems the students could not finish all the problems in the time given. I told them to keep their questionnaires to answer over the long weekend and submit on Tuesday.

We also had an assignment from Thursday, but only one student passed his and got credit.

And that’s all my MM1 classes this week, leaving me with only four sessions to catch up on. The class is dismissed, and the lesson will continue on Tuesday.