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 the most recent session of my Energy Conversion class, I could have started on the new chapter, but instead, since their second exam is on the next meeting, we had board work/recitation on the topic of series and parallel resonant circuits.

I only prepared five problems, six if I count one example from parallel that I wasn’t able to give them last time.

And each of the problems had several quantities they had to solve for, sometimes in a particular order.

This ended up with everyone in the class being called to solve something at least twice.

The only hitch of the whole thing was that even though I called them all to solve on the board at the same time, some couldn’t compute yet until one of the others had finished.

And if that one person they were relying on was wrong, then all their answers were wrong.

They should have realized there had to be an error in their computation somewhere when one resistance was calculated to be 20 mega ohms, and another, based on that, was 1 terra (or multiplied by 10 raised to 12) ohms.

I emphasized to them that for several quantities there was more than one way to solve the problem, which they could use for checking if their answers are correct.

They also had to learn how to use the special condition approximations from simpler equations.

It was also disheartening to see that four of the usually decent students in that class, whom I had seen earlier that day, were absent, having been distracted on something extracurricular when they all went out for lunch before the subject.

Since in the last exam they asked for the use of index cards with the formulas, which I wouldn’t allow because it was unfair to the students who had no cards, and I wasn’t prepared to allow them to open their notes, that time the formulas were just written on the board for everyone to check.

This time they are to submit a formula sheet to be approved first, to be photocopied and distributed with their exam questionnaire on the day itself.

Session 1715 is fine with short computations by group, but solving solo for the whole problem. Class dismissed.