T2W5 A Math

Lesson 1: Students were very competent at handling Ex 4D, the one on solving questions on basic logarithms. What a relief! We could then use the lesson to go on to the 3 laws of logarithms.

Lesson 2: Continuation on logarithms.

Lesson 3: Introduced students to common and natural logarithms and the use of calculators to solve the questions. Most of the students were quite cooperative, except a few who needed constant reminders to be on task and to take down notes. It's tiring to keep doing that, and to consider that it should have been a breeze to teach this class because of the smaller class size. Argh...

Sometimes, I feel like an idiot in the class, trying my best to engage the class and come up with different ways to get the students to remember concepts, while some daydream or even read Reader's Digest. We had a short test today on rationalising surds and solving questions on logarithms. Q3 was a question from the textbook which I explained on the board prior to the test, but some students still couldn't do it.

I hate to say that I was insulting their intelligence by using the EXACT question that had been discussed as part of the test, but if they still couldn't handle, it exasperates me. Faizal teachers the 3N students Geography too and experience the same situation in his class. Such classes make teachers feel really bad about themselves and question their confidence in being competent teachers.