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

Returning to my topic of the Differential Equations class for the first day of the fifth week of classes in the first term of school year 2005-6: there were three topics in their DIFEREQ test: elimination of arbitrary variables, equations of families of curves or lines, and solving for functions from derivatives by separations of variables.

I gave them three questions each in the first and third part, and five questions in the second part. The students asked about the scoring system, something that in my experience is usually only inquired about when they are trying to count up to a passing score. I told them the first and third part had the same number of points each, and since the second part led directly to the first part, it had the most number of points allotted.

At once I noticed people mentally getting stalled on the side of the “road”, staring at their papers blankly (and their papers were also blank) or writing down the questions furiously just to have the appearance of answering, when the teacher will eventually know better.

Another student from another class was there, hanging around, and I asked him to write on the board the general equations for the lines and the conic sections, and some useful derivatives (which also double as integrals).

But even the two usually quick finishers (one of whom was part of the team that one first runner up in the invitational science and math contest we joined last term) apparently had difficulty answering. It eventually became one of the exams where those who submitted first were the ones who gave up the soonest.

Maybe next time I’ll just include the commonly used derivatives and conic section equations in their questionnaire. It sure beats having to succumb to their requests to open their notes (even for just fifteen minutes, they begged) something I prefer not to allow because I know they rarely have the same level of completeness of notes and thus it could potentially lead to sharing.

In my Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism class afterwards, we talked about the effect of electric fields on particles, instead of the other way around (electric fields produced by particles). I detailed the Millikan oil drop experiment that was used to determine that principle.

The day succeeding that, in my Mathematical Methods One class, we took up the last two methods for solving quadratic equations in one variable: completing the square and the quadratic formula. As expected, they took a shining to the last one because it is easiest to use, just substituting directly. I was able to demonstrate from one of our examples that they also had to simplify the final expression by extracting perfect squares from inside the radical, and if it turns out to be negative, making the answer into the standard form of complex numbers.

Session 626 is thus sealed off. For now, class dismissed.