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 fourth day of the seventh week of classes, during my Mathematical Methods One lecture, I finished with the topic of word problems in systems of equations in two variables of degree one.

We took up one mixture problem, one speed problem and one general analysis problem (with manipulation of the numerator and denominator of a fraction, and they had to get the original fraction). In retrospect though, I should have given more examples, or at least more problems with final answers that they could have gotten the solutions for.

In my Differential Equations class, due to my cold, I decided to conserve my voice and give them a seatwork instead that they are supposed to solve by group, the segregation of which I assigned. I was just alphabetical arrangement after all.

I guess I had to be glad that they understood the lesson enough to ask that I change some of the terms in the original problem instead to make it easier.

But I didn’t. Instead I just provided them with the holdover step so that they could continue with the problem.

For example, the denominator of a fraction to be integrated is x squared minus x. The numerator though, is two x PLUS one. So by substitution, u is equal to x squared plus one, and the derivative of u would now be equal to two x minus 1 time the derivative of x. So they were stuck, because they could not replace both terms directly.

I had to show them that they could make the numerator two x minus one plus 2, make 2x – 1 a separate integral, make the 2 a numerator of a separate fraction. This one they could now use with partial fractions to get (A/x) + (B/(x + 1)), which are also easy to integrate.

At least these problems they were able to submit at the end of the class because of those hints.

For the Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism lecture session afterwards, with the same students, I gave them four problems to solve, and their own groupings. This one they could not pass at the end of the period, so they asked that it be an assignment instead. After all, their exam wasn’t until the next meeting.

Since no one wanted to be part of Deiv’s group, I had to be the one to assign his group for him and ask some of the other students to switch around.

I also asked the students one by one to write down the pertinent equations on the board, and from there I could gage their basic comprehension.

I hear session 640’s warning buzzer now. Class dismissed.