Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 10:43:12 GMT From: Adrian West acstaff aig Staff (holders of the red books) -------------------------------- I recommend the person with the red book goes around taking attendance and sorting out any anomalies with student's records. This means you get to see each student, and to keep the record straight. Anomalies (missed labs, late work etc) are listed in the red book next to the attendnace sheet. Students changing groups/modules (so not in the "right" place in the book) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Coping with "turbulence" in the first week of labs. Problems arise when people arnt on the right sheets on the red book. That needs sorting out pretty quick to reduce hassle all around. First week module changes --------------------------- For the first week of labs, student can still change modules. You will get a number of people attending several labs till they make up their mind what their choices are. We just have to be tollerant of that. If they are not registered on the module, their name will appear on the "NON-REGISTERED" sheet that we print for the first session, and you can enter their attendance there. Making changes --------------- If they do have a good reason to change module then the only way that happens is if I (ajw) change their entries in Arcade. The student concerned *needs to contact me* for that - you dont need to make that change. Recording the info anyway -------------------------- You will have to record their attendance/mark somehow though. If they aren't anywhere (unusual), then write their entry at the bottom of the sheet, and tell them to get in touch with ajw and sort out their registration. Red Book Handling ------------------ Please dont write unnecessary annotations in the red book, it can cause us a lot of confusion trying to decipher what was intended (if anything). It should really just be "Excuses". Marking Queues ("running" the lab) ------------------------------------ Assuming you are familiar with the basic way the Arcade lab works, there are a couple of important points I'd like to emphasise. (1) extensions are to the *beginning* of the following session. If you dont enforce that you'll run into problems as you'll be asking them to hand in at the end of the lab. This causes - panic at the end of the lab - no time to mark that work - students falling a session behind - student not finishing work outside the lab (relying on having the next session to do that). its important to enforce wherever practical and fair. So at the start of such a "following" session, you should put up a "marking queue" on the whiteboard and announce: "if you have any work ready for the *beginning* of this session you should put your name on the marking queue" After 10 mins or so, reannounce that and then draw a line under the marking queue. Anything put on after that is not considered ready for the "beginning" of the session, so is usually late. (the annotation in the book is a cross for "completed by extension" and todays date in the "date handed in". Randomising ----------- People try to put their work at the end of the queue so they get more time to work on it. So for the work supposedly ready for the beginning of the session, you could process that queue in random order; other students see that as fair then. JTL adds: There is a supporting device, (or possibly even an alternative in some labs), which is easy, and goes a long way to reinforcing the correct working pattern to the students. When you take attendance you may notice a "<" to the left of some of the students's names. These are the students who have an extension from a previous session (usually the immediately previous one) to the start of this one. You can ask them whether they have completed the work, as you mark their attandance. If they say yes, (they're very unlikely to lie to you), you can put a little tick next to the "<" (this is only for your benefit: it will be ignored by Lynda). If they say no, you might then negotiate how long they need, and remind them that they're supposed to have it done by now, etc. This obviously will identify people who are struggling, which is a good thing. You'll have controlled discretion right at the start of the lab, and you'll reduce the effectiveness of the trick Adrian identified above. If you decide to give them another 10 minutes, `this time', then you can write their machine name next to the "<", and go back after taking attendance. If you do decide that they have not met the extension, you could write a cross next to the "<", and then after you've finished attendance, transfer all the crosses to the "completed by extension" column of the relevant sheet: this avoids the chance of the students later convincing a demonstrator that it's not late -- the demonstrator will know s/he's been duped when s/he comes to put in the marks at the end of the lab. This is what [JTL] do in my labs (as does GDG, I think), and I've found it very effective: the students know they can't get away with abusing the extensions. (If more than one extension lands on the same session, a student will have as many "<" as due pieces of work.) (2) Helping Put up a second queue called "helping queue". People should put their names on that if they are waiting for help. You can then process that queue yourself when you've finished taking attendance, and can allocate demonstrators to queues depending on how marking is going. (3) Off-line marking / marking left to do. Rarely, you can't process the marking queue. If this would otherwise cause the remaining people to be "late" you should: Record they have their work ready, but not enter the mark(!) then they wont get email saying they are late. Get them to labmail their work (for exercises where thats appropriate). If they need to do a demonstration you can put a "D" in the mark column, which is a useful reminder Exhort them to get it marked at the beginning of the next session.