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assistant_guide.md

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{{assistant_name|title}} guide

While the {{assistant_name}} is the intended audience here, others are welcome to read it.

General info

  • Responsibilities section of the job post
  • Schedule
  • In grading/Discussions:
    • We want to try giving students just enough hints to figure it out without giving them the answer.
    • Don't spend a ton of time trying to figure out something that you don't understand; feel free to escalate to the instructor.
  • For students seeking one-on-one help, direct them to office hours.
    • If someone asks to meet with you specifically, you're welcome to do so, but not required.
  • Notifications:
  • Log hours for any time you put in related to this class, including any learning you're needing to do yourself to answer questions. {%- endif %}
  • Keep an eye out for students who I should encourage to apply as a {{assistant_name}} next term. Things to look for:
    • Being consistently helpful in the Discussions
    • Clean, well-documented solutions for the homeworks
    • Asking good questions

Weekly cadence

Weeks end the day of class, the next one starts the day after. "Weeks" is therefore referring to the class-to-class cycle. These "weeks" may be longer than seven days if there's no lecture due to a holiday.

{% if id == "columbia" -%}

  • Attending class {% else -%}
  • While you aren't expected to attend class in general, you are more than welcome to join for the guest lecture. {% endif -%}
  • Recording attendance based on the sign-in sheets
    • Attendance policy {% if id == "columbia" -%}
    • Please arrive to class a bit early to sit with the attendance sheet as people walk in.
      • This is to ensure that people are only signing for themselves.
    • 20 minutes into the lecture, please put the sheet away. Students who arrive after that are considered absent.
    • Please hold onto a copy/photo of the attendance sheets, in case we need to reference the signatures later. {%- endif %}
  • Grading assignment submissions{% if id == "nyu" %} and resubmissions{% endif %} and releasing grades for your section {% if id == "columbia" -%}
    • Recommend waiting until the submission deadline to start grading, to avoid issues with students who may have been intending to continue working on it {% else -%}
    • Feel free to grade things as they come in, in the order received, to give those students more time for resubmission
    • Please try and be done with grading of an assignment within four days after it's due (so they have time for resubmission) {%- endif %}

Between-class participation tracking

{% if id == "columbia" %}... for students in your section.{% endif %} Helper notebook.

Discussions

  • Help page
  • We are trying to strike a balance between students getting accurate answers quickly and encouraging students to help one another to cement their learning.
  • Ensure Discussion questions have answers within the specified timeline. {% if id == "columbia" -%}
    • Discussion monitoring schedule:
      • Sunday-Tuesday: Claire
      • Wednesday-Saturday: Serena {%- endif %}
    • Wait 24 hours to respond to questions that could be answered by another student, giving them a chance to do so.
      • Make sure homework questions have an answer within 48 hours, since they are time-sensitive.
      • Within 24 hours of when homework is due, answer questions as soon as possible to get students unstuck.
  • Please give corrections/clarifications on student answers where necessary.
  • If posts have the wrong Category, are a Question when they should be a Post or vice versa, please fix.
  • Mark correct answers as Accepted, if they aren't already.

Check-in meeting

  • How's the workload?
  • Anything you need clarification on?
  • Any Discussions the instructor should jump in on?
  • What came up in Discussions/assignments (common problems, etc.) that might be useful to cover in class?
  • Are all cells in the gradebook filled in (through last week)?

Assignments

{% if id == "columbia" -%} It's recommended that you create a GMail filter for something like from:google.com subject:"shared with you" ("colab notebooks" OR homework) to Skip Inbox so that you aren't notified every time a student shares a notebook with you. {%- endif %}

Checks

The following should be true for each Assignment:

  • The description is a link to the assignment page on this site
  • Points
    • 100 points per Assignment, except for Homework 3 and the Final Project Proposal which are 50 each
    • Percentage of the overall grade matches the breakdown in the syllabus {% if id == "columbia" -%}
  • Grouped and ordered in a logical way
  • Display Grade as: Percentage
  • Submission Type: Online, Website URL
    • Final Project Proposal is a Discussion
  • Dates match the schedule:
    • Due date
    • {{assignment_cutoff_name}}
  • Published
  • Grading Policy Settings (under Grades tab)
    • Late Policies: Check "Automatically apply deduction to late assignments"
    • Grade Posting Policies: Automatic {% else -%}
  • Allow late submissions
  • Dates match the schedule:
    • Release Date is the start of the course
    • Due Date
      • Use the start of the second section, if applicable.
    • {{assignment_cutoff_name}}
      • Ditto.
  • Enable manual grading
  • Submission Methods Enabled: Upload only {%- endif %}

Grading

Official docs

{% if id == "columbia" -%}

  • Grading is done through SpeedGrader.
    • Filter the students to your particular section in the top right.
    • You can leave comments on particular cells through the Colab interface.
    • If points are deducted, explicitly state what the deductions are for.
  • If you're having trouble accessing the notebook in {{coding_env_name}}, make sure the URL doesn't include an authuser parameter. {% endif -%}
  • Scoring {% if id == "nyu" %}and regrade {% endif %}rules
  • You are checking student submissions against the solutions. That said, student code/output doesn't need to look exactly like what's in the solution, as long as they're doing what's asked for in each Step. When grading, points should only be deducted based on these criteria. Please leave comments for:
    • Point deductions, explaining what it's being deducted for
    • Feedback like "this could be done better/differently," even if there isn't a corresponding point deduction
  • How to give extensions
    • Grant any request for 1-2 days made before the deadline; escalate others to the instructor.
    • Set the {{assignment_cutoff_name}} to the original late submission deadline or the new due date, whichever is later. {%- if id == "nyu" %}
    • Don't give extensions on the resubmission deadline unless authorized by the instructor. {%- endif %}
  • Solutions folder will be shared with you from Google Drive
    • The students don't need to match the provided solution exactly, as long as they do what the question is asking. {%- if id == "nyu" %}
  • {{assistant_name|capitalize}} will manually apply late penalty {%- endif %}

Plagiarism

{% if id == "columbia" -%} Per the Code of Academic and Professional Conduct:

It is the responsibility of all members of the SIPA community to encourage academic integrity and to deter, confront, and report all acts of academic dishonesty. {%- endif %}

See the class policies for more details for what constitues plagiarism vs. fair reuse.

It isn't your responsibility to look for potential instances of cheating/plagiarism. That said, if you have suspicions of those occuring, you must report them to the instructor. Things you might notice:

  • Use of a package we haven't covered in class
  • Using a technique we didn't cover in class
  • Multiple student submisions:
    • Being identical
    • Solving a problem in the same unusual way

Final Project

Proposals

  • Students are encouraged to submit before the deadline to get feedback sooner.

    • Please provide feedback on the proposals within four days of submission so that students can get started.

  • If the proposal shows effort and follows the format, full credit should be given.

  • Things to look for (don't spend too long on these):

    • Will their dataset answer their question?
    • Do they have a question that is objectively answerable?
    • Will it be the right level of challenge for the duration of the project and their skills, not too much, not too little?

  • You will often need to provide feedback along the lines of:

    Your question is good, but you'll probably be able to answer it in relatively few lines of code. Think about what your follow-up question(s) will be.

  • Constructive feedback can be given as a reply in Ed (where other students can see). If the proposal is bad, send an email.

    • In other words, avoid embarrassing anyone.

  • To indicate to a student that their proposal is good to go, mark the reply as Resolved.

Grading

The Final Projects themselves are peer graded. {% if id == "nyu" %}We're using PeerMark to facilitate the peer grading.{% endif %} Once the peer review deadline passes:

{% if id == "columbia" -%}

  1. In the Final Project Assignment, open Speedgrader. {%- endif %}
  2. Open each submission. {% if id == "nyu" -%}
  3. For similarity scores over 20%, look at the report.
    • Matches in data output can be ignored.
    • If it seems like there may be instances of plagiarism or you're not sure, let the instructor know. {% endif -%}
  4. Calculate the median of the scores from the peers, using that as the final grade.
  5. In the Gradebook, give points to the reviewer under the Final Project Peer Review.

Scoring details.

{% if id == "columbia" -%}

Final grades

To compute the attendance score:

  1. Export the Roll Call attendance data.
  2. Copy the script into {{coding_env_name}}.
  3. Adjust the constants at the top as necessary.
  4. Run the code. {%- endif %}