CS46A Lab Instructor Training
Labs
- 14 labs plus an orginalzational meeting the first week.
- Labs are at sjsucs.bitbucket.org. Select CS 46A.
- 2 hours 45 minutes each week
Labs
- Each lab section has about 30 students
- The lecture is a large-lecture session with about 120 students
- Purpose: Give students ample practice with programming, problem solving,
and tools
- NOT a tutoring session. Don't help students with homework assignments.
- Suggest they go to tutoring center
Lab Instructions
- Students work in pairs
- Two roles: driver and scribe
- Driver “drives” the compiler, tools
- Scribe writes up answers to questions and submits it
- Driver also submits writeup, but only with code
- Roles switch each week
- It will simplify your life if you require
- The reports be .txt files
- They include their name and role and their buddy's name and role
Pairs
- Pairs are good for learning
- When one student is stuck, the other may know the answer
- When both are stuck, they can discuss alternatives
- Keep each other on task
- Goal to have evenly matched pairs
- A strong student paired with strong student
- A weak student paired with weak student
- You assign partners—don't let them pick their buddy
- At the beginning, assign by GPA (CS46A) or CS46A grade (CS46B)
- Assign by gender (avoid boy/girl pairs)
- Revise after 3 weeks (use your observation and quiz/homework scores from
instructor)
- Revise again after 1st exam (use your observation and exam grades from
instructor)
- Partner doesn't show up? Regroup with someone else
- Nobody works alone (no credit for a solo lab)
- If necessary, make one group of three
Lab Structure
- First 10 minutes: You give a short demo of some of the highlights of the
lab
- Motivate students—tell them why it's useful for them
- Show new tools
- Set goals for the day
- Next 60 minutes: lab work
- Walk around and listen
- Don't help unless students are really stuck
- Collect stories for your mid-lab demo
- 10 - 15 minutes: Demo to clarify issues
- Tell people to close their laptop
- Discuss common problems and their solutions
- Discuss alternate solutions that different pairs explored
- Don't do this at the end of the lab
- Next 60 minutes: lab work
- Students complete lab
- Help the weaker students
- Stronger students can leave when they are done with the day's
work
- Final 10 minutes: Meet with at-risk students
At-Risk Students
- Look out for students who make very little progress and tell the
instructor
- You will also get an at-risk list from the instructor
- Have them show you their homework scores, homework grade reports, and
quiz scores in the LMS
- In the last ten minutes or so
- Tell them they must stay until the end
- Send them to tutoring/mentoring
- DO NOT help them with homework
Weekly Report
- You send a report each week (Friday night) to
me
- What was covered in the week
- What were the most common difficulties that students had
- Any issues with at-risk students
- Any no-shows
- Spreadsheet with scores
- 0 points: No-show
- 1 point: did very little work
- 2 points: Did most or all of the parts
- 1 points: switched roles
Your Responsibilities
- Know the labs (i.e. do them in advance yourself)
- Report any problems/bugs with the lab materials to me
- Enforce lab rules
- Help students during labs
- Give demos to motivate, clarify
- Match up pairs
- Grade lab reports
- Enter the grades in Canvas
- Identify at-risk students
- Provide weekly reports and scores to instructors
Before the organizational meeting
- Either Jan 25 or 29
- Practice doing the Virtual Machine installation
- Bring the VirtualBox installer and the Lubuntu.vdi on a USB stick since the downloads can take a long time.
At the organizational Meeting
- Go over the lab rules with them - especially
- The grading
- The fact that if they fail the lab, they fail the class
- Tell the students how to access the labs
- Have every students download and install VirtualBox and the Lubuntu.vdi.
- It has all the required software already installed (JDK, Bluej, Alice, and NetBeans.).
- To get credit(3 points) for the lab that day, they need to do this even if they say they don't plan to use it.
- They will need it in the first lab
- We are encouraging students to use the vm. They do not have to use it, but then they are on their own. There is no support available for other installatiuons.
- You may want to assign buddies at this time. But everyone needs to install the VM and Lubuntu on their machine.
Miscellaneous
- I will enroll you as TA in the Canvas shell for the class
- You will enter the grades there.
- Fill out an acknowledgement of mandated reporter status and legal duty to report child abuse and neglect
- Return it to DeAnna Diaz.
- We need to meet every week
- I will sign your time sheets