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.

In my first mechanics lecture meeting for the third week of classes, I told them that we would have a fifty point quiz on the next session with the conversions, scientific notation, prefixes and constant velocity in one dimension as the coverage.

First we discussed the assignment I gave them, which I outlined here a few entries ago. They were able to get the correct answer, maybe through trial and error, but they could not explain how they got it.

So I had to standardize the process of solving where they had to start with having at least two equations involving the two velocities, times or distances.

Sometimes, for both vehicles, a pair of these quantities is equal. If not usually the difference or the total is provided, and they have to know when to use addition and when to use subtraction – if they did not start at the same time or not at the same point, for instance.

In this specific problem, there was one difference equation for time and another for distance. They had to start with one, and substitute the other (no more than once otherwise they would just be going in circles), as well as the velocity equals distance over time relation and any numeric values given, until they ended up with one variable, the one they were supposed to solve for.

Then from there they could isolate the variable until they got a numeric equivalent.

Afterwards they had to decide if that was the final answer, or if a comparison is asked for, or a relation.

When that was finished, rather than introducing a new topic that will not be part of the exam until two weeks from now, I, as usual, gave them a review recitation board work instead, wherein all the students were able to participate.

Of course at the start I asked for volunteers again, with the unspoken rule that I would be giving the easy topics first then increase in difficulty. Afterwards, when people stopped volunteering (or began asking for the problem first, which I didn’t concede to) I started drawing names from their course cards.

Towards the end, when statistically those with low confidence in their ability to answer the questions were left, I had to give them hints about simplifying complex fractions and operations on fractions that they have to remember from Mathematical Methods One.

Session 779 is deemed ready for the upcoming test at this point, and needs no more instruction or practice. Class dismissed.