Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

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

On the third day of the eighth week of classes for the first term, I had my fourth experiment in the Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism lab class: resistors in parallel and in series-parallel.

This time I provided printouts of the tables that the students were supposed to fill out for the experiment, as well as the new circuits. I especially had to give the new formulas for computing the total resistance of two resistors in parallel, which has a shortcut form compared to the one for three resistors, and a fourth one for resistors in a parallel-series circuit (only a series-parallel circuit is given in the manual).

I was particularly surprised that the students still did not know how to read from an analog VOM, even though they had no problems reading the voltmeters and ammeters provided with just one scale. I had to threaten them that being able to read a non-digital meter correctly in ten seconds will be part of their practical exam near the end of the term.

It also happens to be the experiment on which Deiv will write his first individual report. He asked me for the format, and I said I’d copy the file into his diskette. He declined and just said he’d copy it by hand from the computer screen.

He also asked me if he could write down the methodology in numbered form instead of in paragraph form. I said there would be corresponding deductions for not being able to rewrite the experiment in his own words, which may mean a failure to understand it. I guess it is part of his social handicap that he doesn’t know the teacher doesn’t appreciate when the student tries to worm their way out of the work that the teacher gives them.

When I got back to the faculty room that day, I was told by the secretary that Deiv’s mom also showed up to ask about his quizzes (well, there has only been one so far). Although he may have misrepresented that only he hasn’t received his results so far, when in fact it is the whole class.

But one of my co-teachers afterwards said a student should never rush a teacher on having checked papers, because with hurried work or subconscious irritation – especially in problem solving type exams – the student can only get less points than if the teacher is allowed time to deliberate.

Lastly, his excuse letter for getting out of the exam the other day was on half a sheet of paper, and signed by his grandmother and not the school doctor, who, he said was not there when he passed by the day before. Whatever, his exam will still be more difficult.

I’ll have to turn off the main switch on session 644 at this point. Class dismissed.