There are two major changes which were first introduced in 2006:
Firstly: you will have a
(Undergraduate Teaching Assistant) (UTA)
to mark the
lab exercise and take the weekly PPT meeting.
Secondly: the PPT marks are now
zero weighted.
Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) are third and fourth year undergraduates (and in some cases PhD students) who have offered to help with teaching and marking of first year work. They have been recruited from students who are known to be excellent programmers. They are required to have an 'A' overall on their degree so far and an 'A' in first year programming.
The UTAs will be given some initial training at the beginning of term and they should be broadly familiar with the way the PPT system works. They will also have a monthly meeting with the First Year Lab Organiser Peter Cutler to review their work and discuss any problems they may have. As a PPT you will be mentoring and supervising your UTA. You will also be signing-off their payment claims via the Tutorial System. The UTAs will be paid 3.5 hours per week in the Autumn term and 4 hours per week in the Spring term. This will involve one hour for the PPT meeting and the rest for marking and preparation.
If possible we have selected a UTA who was in your PPT group when he/she was a first year student. If you weren't a PPT before or there was no UTA suitable we have assigned a UTA from the pool of possible helpers.
The role of the UTA is:
Firstly: to do the marking for your PPT group and
enter the marks into CATE.
Secondly: to help you run your PPT meeting and enter
the attendance into CATE.
You will still have the overall responsibility for running
the PPT group but you will have the assistance of a UTA
who will mark the lab submissions, enter the marks and attendance
into CATE and help you run the tutorials.
You will have help with the less
interesting but time consuming part of the task.
Your UTA will be developing his/her skills in programming
and communication while he/she is helping you to run the PPT group
and you will be mentoring and supervising him/her.
You should agree a marking methodology with your UTA
and supervise his/her marking to ensure that it is
consistent and contains sufficient helpful feedback.
You should attend every PPT meeting but you can let the
UTA take an active role.
Before the PPT meeting you should discuss the teaching strategy
with your UTA and then review the progress of the meeting
afterwards.
Although the UTA will be partially taking over your PPT
duties you will still ensure the smooth running of the PPT
group and pastoral care of the individual students.
You will need to take decisions about whether late submissions
are accepted, what to do about a student who is
falling behind or whether to refer a student to the Senior
Tutor Margaret Cunningham etc.
You will also be supervising the work of your UTA helper.
CATE has been modified to accept submissions up to a week late
without the student requesting an extension in advance.
We can mark work that is a few minutes late without asking
for an explanation from the student involved.
However in all other cases we will want the student to contact either
their PPT or First Year Lab Organiser Peter Cutler
to explain why their submission was handed in late.
We have no obligation to mark late submissions.
As the PPT has overall responsibility for the PPT group and
has more detailed knowledge about their PPT students any
decision about whether to mark late submissions is for
them to make in cases where he Senior Tutor is not involved.
The First Year Lab Organiser Peter Cutler will refer
any request from a student who asks for their late submission to be
marked to their PPT.
Each individual case should be dealt with on its merits.
If you do decide to accept a late submission for marking you should
let First Year Lab Organiser know so that he
enter the extension in CATE.
Although it is important that students don't fall behind with their
programming it is also important that students don't get into
the habit of making late submissions.
Hence students should always have to explain why their work was
submitted late and understand that they should ensure that
they submit their work on time in future.
We hope that all PPT helpers will stay for the entire year as it is hard to find replacements. It will good for everyone concerned to have continuity. For this reason we would like to make helping with the PPT system a positive experience for UTAs. If the experience is positive it will be easier to extend the UTA system next year.
The "look and feel" of the assessements will be similar to
last year. The students will receive their previous submission
at each PPT meeting marked out of 10.
The change from previous years is that the lab marks will be
zero weighted. This means that the the students are no longer
required to get 40% overall for their lab work to pass the
first year.
The lab marks should give a clear indication of how the students
are expected to do on the online lab tests.
In previous years the average lab marks were considerably higher
than the average online test marks.
The students do spend time ensuring their labs are correct and well
written and this partly explains the difference.
However we would expect the marks to be more closely aligned
with the online tests this year.
The PPT students will still required to submit
every lab exercise and attend every PPT meeting.
The students will be assessed on programming through online
lab tests and students who fail these tests will fail the
first year. PPT students are expected to do their lab work
well and will be at risk of failing their online tests and
hence the first year if they don't.
In addition some of the lab exercises in the second
term will be designated as courseworks and will be included
in the first year coursework asessment.
Most students want to do well in the labs and take the feedback given with the marks and at PPT meetings seriously. They should be aware that programming is a core skill and that the labs play a vital role in helping them become Computer Scientists. Students who adopt a "marks based culture" should be motivated by the need to pass the online assessments and exams. PPT students are expected to attend every PPT meeting and submit every lab. Any student who misses a PPT meeting or submission should be reported to the First Year Laboratory Organiser Peter Cutler and the Senior Tutor Margaret Cunningham
It is important that students who fall behind with programming seek help as soon possible. Students can get help from a variety of sources at the moment such as the PPT meeting, the lab workshop, the lab sessions etc. We are also going to run surgery sessions with UTAs where students can get help with programming concepts. Any student who has difficulty understanding any basic programming concepts should be recommended to attend these surgery sessions.
The Driving Tests (which give the students practice for the Final Lab
Tests (lab exams) take place in weeks 5 and 6 (term 1) for Haskell,
week 11 (term 1) for Kenya/Java and week 11 (term 2) for Java O-O.
Students who fail the Kenya/Java driving test have to attend additional
problem solving classes in term 2 and they will then
do a resit towards the end of
term 2.
After this they will hopefully pass the Kenya/Java Final Lab test
(done in week 11 of term 2).
The Final Lab Tests (lab exams)
take place in week 1 (term 2) for Haskell,
week 11 (term 2) for Kenya/Java and week 1 (term 3) for Java O-O.
The students will do a Prolog Final Lab Test in term 3.
The Final Lab Tests assess the programming skills acquired by the
students in the course of attending lectures, tutorials, labs, PPT
meetings etc.
They measure a students ability as a programmer.
The students have to pass the Final Lab Tests to continue
to the second year.