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.

Second term, week three of classes, first day: I had my first mechanics laboratory session - which wasn’t a discussion of class policies and listing or requirements for the next meeting.

As usual, we started with the activity on Significant Figures, even though those who arrived early complained that they still had not gotten a copy of the manual. They could have borrowed from the sophomores and the upperclassmen that have finished with the subject, but they had the idea that I would not allow that because it already contained the answers.

What I didn’t want to tell them was that it would do them no good if I changed the given and they didn’t understand the concepts in the first place.

As usual there were some who arrived after the first ten minutes and still asked for the quiz. I had to be firm though, and refused.

I also reiterated the ruling I would implement that if they do not make it for the quiz, they are considered late, and if they arrive after the first half of the class or after their group had already effectively finished the experiment (even if they have not yet passed their group notebook), the tardy student is considered absent.

So I specifically mentioned in the middle of the class that those who were not able to take the quiz are now five more late arrivals away from an automatic failure in the class.

I also had to allow them to photocopy the manual I brought, because those who were early were not able to borrow any. There was one who a manual borrowed from one of my students last term, but that was the volume for Electricity, Magnetism and Thermodynamics, NOT mechanics, so it was of no use to him.

The students were also able to read from the calipers without overbearing instructions, but based just on their reading of the instructions, with minor verification.

I also had two additional students: one who failed in the same class two terms ago (under another teacher) and one who was moved from the dissolved class since he was the only one who enrolled there. Because of this, the divisions of the groups were uneven and there is one group that has one member more than the others.

I told them though that if the sole tardy person, who was only two minutes shy of being declared absent by the halftime rule, gets automatically dropped (if he exceeds the allowable absences in the first four weeks), I will reshuffle the group memberships to even out.

Session 775 is marked late here. Class dismissed.