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 first day of the fourth week of classes, I had the second preparatory activity for the experiments in my mechanics lab class, errors.

In the quiz, which only a handful of students were able to take, first I asked for the title of the activity. Then I asked for some materials used, as well as the equation for the mean and the percentage difference. If they were expecting that there would be a clue in the questions as to the title of the activity, there was none.

The students, at the start, asked for the quiz not to be given anymore because they still had not gotten the manual. I told them they could guess the answers (which were correct for some people from the first activity even though they didn’t read up on the procedure). Besides, that was my indication of who are not considered late in the class, the ones who were able to take the quiz.

One student, Ian, who barely escaped being marked absent the meeting before, arrived just as the quiz ended and, typical of the type of student who wants to be credited for showing up, asked to take the quiz, because his effort was still supreme compared to the previous meeting about showing up.

Maybe I shouldn’t print out the test papers next time so that I will just announce the questions in class, and if they miss it, they can’t take it up afterwards.

Or will their classmates just give them the questions, and they pass their papers expecting me to accept them? Better that I deny them the official test paper in the first place.

Instead I gave Ian the task of going to the photocopier to have the procedure reproduced. But I gave the whole class the ultimatum that by any means possible they had to have one manual per group by the next meeting, which was already the first experiment.

Because we missed one meeting when the section was newly opened on the first week of classes and no one showed up because no one knew the class existed (including me), I had to squeeze out the third prep activity – graphs and equations – to fit in the remaining twelve weeks, including the practical exam, because of the All Souls’ Day holiday. Graphs and equations, after all could be answered out of the lab.

The leader, secretary and written report assignments for all of the experiments, I posted inside the lab (and outside the faculty room) for the students’ easy reference. They have no excuse to complain at the end of the term not knowing who was given what task.

Session 787 did not make it to the lab in time for the quiz today. Class dismissed.