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 fifth day of the eighth week of classes I had the seventh quiz for my Mathematical Methods One class. The topic was solution sets for systems of equations in three variables of degree one, which have quite lengthy solutions. This was the one with the lowest number of items I gave them - six, with nine points each so that they could get a highest possible score of fifty four out of fifty.

I have been forgetting to mention that starting from the fifth quiz that I have stopped giving the students in this class bonuses of up to sixty or even seventy out of fifty points in their quizzes, because I noticed that despite the fact that some students would get several mistakes, it was still possible for them to get scores in the high forties.

First time I recall that I have had to give consideration towards the other extreme for some time now, instead of leeway for the students to get higher grades.

On the first day of the ninth week of classes, in the same section, I started on solution sets for systems of equations in two variables, of degree two.

For this lesson I had to remind them that they had to be able to use the methods discussed in two previous ones: equations in one variable of degree two and equations in two variables of degree one.

After that I told them that we were finished with chapter nine, and that we would start with chapter ten on the next meeting.

In my DIFEREQ class after that, we took up the fifth method of solving differential equations of degree one: linearity.

For this one they had to be able to convert the equation into the form (dy/dx) + P(x)y = Q(x). If they could, the equation was linear. Then they got the exponential of the integral of P(x), which would then be the integrating factor. Multiplying that to the equation in linear form, most of the time the equation would then become exact, so they could solve it using that method, although sometimes it would also become separable or homogeneous.

We ended the class because we were stuck at one example that we knew to be linear (because the book said so), but which we couldn’t make into the linear form. So I ended up giving it to them as an impromptu assignment.

In my Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism class I finished with potential, including potential from a charge, a system of charges, and potential energy of a system of charges. I’ll talk more about that next time though.

Session 682 has to be tucked in. Class dismissed.