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

I was discussing my Trigonometric Applications class last time, which, for the first time in all this time I’ve been teaching the subject, used the computer. That, I think, is what is making my description of it so long.

I can’t say the same for my other classes, though, like the mechanics one lecture where I allowed them to graph the trajectories of the projectiles in two dimensions using the same spreadsheet software a few months ago.

I was talking about how the students were tasked to be able to convert values of angles among the four quadrants.

Good thing this is something that most of the students got correct in the most recent exam, so I just had to remind them that it was exactly like what they did in the table there.

I just had to remind them how to be able compute the reference or equivalent positive acute angle even when given a negative angle (which is also greater than negative ninety degrees anyway).

Afterwards, talking to the other teacher in Trig App (who is in charge of two sections) it was suggested that we have an exam on the Friday of the thirteenth week, whose coverage is all the identities, which was supposed to be the coverage of the quiz last December 2.

But instead of fifty points, which would not have had a large effect on the final grade, it was decided to make it a hundred points and thus an exam.

What makes the whole situation even more unusual is that we chose to announce those who may not take the finals, or, in more popular but not so accurate terms, the ones who are exempted, before the pre-final exam. Thus, they are excused from taking the pre-final exam and the final exam.

We set the limit of those who may not take the exams as ninety percent, or three point five for a sixty percent passing rate.

There were only four in my class who got the cut-off, and, strangely enough, four each in the other two sections. But in the other two classes, two got four point zero and two got three point five. In my class only one got four point zero and three got three point five.

One of the three from my class was asking if he could get a four point zero if he takes one of the last two exams. We told him (and the others who asked) that they had to get a certain cut off in the exam to be able to raise their score, and not performing well may actually pull down their grade.

After all, part of the reason for allowing the students not to take the exams anymore is so that teachers may not have to check as many papers. So it is really against that intention if the teacher still gives a student incentive to take the exam when he or she is given the option not to.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss the mechanics lecture class last Monday, the Mathematical Methods 1 class last Tuesday, and the last meetings of each class Thursday and Friday classes. For now, the class is dismissed.