Teaching Associates Grading Instructions

Please read the following instructions carefully. It will make both of our lives much easier.

OVERVIEW OF YOUR WORK ASSIGNMENTS

This semester we have the privilege of teaching several excellent classes to a group of brilliant students. However, I am also advising 1/2 time, which leaves me about 1/2 time to devote to teaching these classes. The department realizes that it would be impossible for me to teach these classes without some top notch graduate student assistance. Hence, your employment.

Your duties, should you agree to accept them, include the following:

• Setting aside 20 hours a week to be available in your office, at which time you will:
  • Tutor students who show up requesting assistance on the material.
  • Grade their homework.
  • Assist us in grading pop quizzes.
  • Assist us in grading major exams and the final exam, under our direct supervision.
  • You are welcome to work on your own research and classes if no one shows up.
  • Teach some evening review sessions, if possible. Hours spent here are 2 to 1 - i.e. if you are willing to teach a 2 hour evening review once a week, you should knock off 4 hours a week from your office hours.
• You will also be expected to:
  • Attend class and/or lab if you are unfamiliar with any of the course content you are grading and tutoring. Any time you spend here should be deducted from your 20 hours above.
  • Teach one or two classes only if you would like to sharpen your teaching skills. Tell us if you would like to teach a class, and over what material.

In order to do your job properly, we have generated the following list which you must read carefully and understand. This is so you will fully understand what you are being asked to do, and so there are no questions as to what is expected. The list may appear overly detailed, even simplistic, but I assure you that there is nothing here that hasn't caused a major disruption in teaching these classes sometime in the past.

If you have any questions or need any help during the semester, come see me. You will usually find my office full of students, and a long line outside. However, you may come straight into my office at any time, for instance to pick up the homework, or return it, or to ask any questions. Please do not stand outside my office waiting for the students to leave. Just stick your head in the door, knock, and get my attention and I will be happy to take a break to talk with you. You come first over the students. If I am not there, simply ask D'Anne to let you in to pick up or return papers.

RECORDS

Accurate records are critical. I will email you an Excel spreadsheet to be used in recording the grades in this course. Please keep one copy of the student grades on your hard disk, and make a new copy, under a new name, every time you make a change in the file. Then immediately email a copy of the new file to me at lowery@tamu.edu as an attachment. Use sequential filenames Yourname01.xls, Yourname02.xls, etc. I need a new file every time you make a change. Don't worry about sending me too many files. Better too many than too few. Simply increment the last number for each file. PLEASE USE ONLY THE EXCEL TEMPLATE THAT I SEND TO YOU FOR RECORDING GRADES! DO NOT USE ANYTHING ELSE. Simply enter the grades on my template. The only change in my template should be the addition of new students that show up during the semester, and the entry of grades. Finally, print out a hard copy of the excel spread sheet every time you make a change and store it in a safe place. This may seem like overkill, but when your hard drive dies, or someone else erases it to get some extra space and we have no record of their grades, the world ceases to rotate.

PROBLEM ID NUMBERS

Assign a unique, ascending identification number to each homework set and pop quiz, and list this number on the Excel grade sheet, starting with 01. At the end of the semester, when I tell some student that he didn't take the pop quiz on 9/9/05 or hand in the 8th homework problem, he will bring me a stack of stuff two feet high swearing that it's in there somewhere, since he was never absent and he handed in every assignment. We must be able to show him exactly what is missing. Thus, start from the beginning and assign each problem set a number - 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. where, for example, #1 is text homework problem set 5.63, 5.64, 5.73; #2 is text problem 5.74, 5.83; #3 is the pop quiz given on 9/9/05, etc. Each problem in the set will be worth 10 points, unless stated otherwise. Thus on 9/9/05 I may assign problems 5.62, 5.63, 5.68, 6.10 and 6.34. Then you would list them on the excel spreadsheet as assignment set 1 worth 50 points. The next class I might give a pop quiz. That then becomes assignment #2. Please list what numbers have been assigned to the problem set on the second sheet in the spreadsheet.

Please come by and pick up a solutions manual for the class. You should be able to work out the solution to any pop quizzes. Simply get several of the better student's solutions and compare them. If you have any problem working one out, come see me. I must have a copy of the solution you used to grade any homework, pop quizzes, or quizzes, including point deductions. Come by my office and ask the secretary to make a copy for me.

When grading any paper, please follow the following procedures:

1)  The homework problems are listed on the syllabus at http://lowery.tamu.edu and are worth 10 points each unless otherwise noted. On major exams, before you start grading a paper, check my solution carefully against several of the student's papers. Often I solve these things while giving the exam, and make stupid mistakes. For heavens sakes, if I say the answer is 20, and every student in the class says it is 30, realize that they are probably right. If you have any question about how much a problem is worth, or how to distribute those points in the problem, ask. I should have already made out a master solution for you to go by, along with point deductions noted for any and all possible errors. For mistakes that were impossible to make, ask me. On homework papers, do not take off more than 1/2 if the student at least tries.

2) IMPORTANT: When you take off any points, for any error, use a red pen and CIRCLE the error the student made. DO NOT put a big red X over the error, such that neither I nor the student can see what he originally wrote. DO NOT write over any of the the student's work on any paper. Circle the error. Then somewhere else on the paper write down how many points he lost, and circle it. Then draw an arrow from the points deducted to the error. This way the student knows exactly where he went wrong, what number is wrong, how many points he lost, and we can all still read what he wrote. You do not have to write down the correct solution on the student's paper, although you are certainly welcome to do so if you wish. I expect the student to be able to get the correct answer after you show him where he went wrong. However, they must be able read what they originally wrote down, and to tell where points were deducted without having to come see us and ask.

3) Immediately, make a matching note on your master copy of the problem, showing exactly what new error you just discovered, and how many points you deducted for that particular error. This will remind you exactly how many points to deduct when you see that same error on a later paper. It also will let me go into class and answer questions like "I got 4 points deducted for making the same mistake as my (unnamed) friend and you only took 2 points off his exam." I can then reply "Not so, buddy! Here is a detailed list of every error that anyone in the class made, and how many points were consistently deducted for that error."

4) BE NEAT! You will without a doubt be cursing the students for their illegible writing. Likewise, it is very difficult for me to yell at them for messy work when I cannot read your corrections or point deductions. If you are from France, please use English-looking 4's. Not English-looking 9's. Our fours look like this -----> 4. Our nines look like this -----> 9. For some reason the students from France are the hardest-working and most conscientious students I have ever met. I love working with them. But their fours invariably look like nines.

5) If you cannot follow the student's work, or cannot read it, simply mark it "Unacceptable by Engineering Standards" and return it with a zero. It is just as important that the students learn to present their work in an acceptable manner as it is to get the correct answer. Please bring such zeros to my attention to make sure we both agree it deserves a zero.

6) I always re-grade all major examinations and final exams after you make a first pass at them. Your first pass at grading cuts my time commitment to half of what it would be without your help. I use you to let me ignore large areas of correct work, and draw my attention to where the student went astray. Do not think that because I change your assigned grades that I disagree with your grading, or that you aren't doing a great job. Whenever I re-grade my own grading, I always end up adjusting the scores the second and third time around. Be assured that the quality and care with which you grade, and the dedication with which you tutor our students, is the only thing that will make it possible for us to teach this many classes. If you don't do your job carefully they will put me back to teaching half as many classes and make me do my own grading, and you will be unemployed. Heck, we may both be unemployed.

7) It is unlikely that you will have many students to tutor, but if they use up your 20 hours/week then back off of the homework grading. If you find there is simply no time left to grade one of the homework sets, simply give everyone a grade of :   OK = 10. The OK indicates to the student that his work has not been graded, but has been received and given full credit. I will be posting the solution to each problem over the web and they should be able to check their own work. We would much rather they get tutoring from you, than to catch everyone who missed a few points on a homework problem.

TUTORING AND STUDENT USE OF THE SOLUTION MANUAL <--- Click here

If you are unfamiliar with any material in this class, please make time to attend that class and I will show you how it works, right along with the other students.

You must, YOU MUST! look at the class syllabus at http://lowery.tamu.edu, and carefully note the dates of the major exams. Those dates are critical, since YOU MUST return all homework and pop quizzes to the students several classes before this date, so they will have a chance to see what mistakes they made. If you fail to return all assignments that are to be covered on the exam, I will be unable to give the exam. They will say (truthfully) that they didn't have their corrected homework to study by, and that is why they failed the exam. This is CRITICAL!

If you would like to practice teaching this class, you are welcome to do so. Just let me know what material you are comfortable with, and I will hand it over to you on that date. I will still come to class, and will be glad to discuss your teaching skills with you, if you like. You must tell me if you would like to do this, since I never even think about it. I just wander off to class and teach them all.

I must have all of the following information from you to give to the students. I need it NOW, or as soon as humanly possible. It will include the following (these are just example names from previous semesters):

Teaching Associate's Name: Joe Johns
Office: Old Civil Engineering Building, Room number 010
Desk: #6  (Or put a sign over the desk with the class and your name. I need an exact location so the students can find you.)
Map to get to your desk (see for example http://lowery.tamu.edu/Photos/Maps/room%20010a.pdf )
Office Hours: (20 hours if you are paid half time) MTWF 1:00 - 5:00 p.m., TR 9:00 a.m. - 11:00. (These are the times you agree to be available to assist the students, unless you email them or leave a note on your door. If you get called away for something simply hang a note on your door that says "Please see Lowery or other professor for assistance" This is perfectly acceptable since you may have to go somewhere unexpectedly.)
Office Phone: 845-0000
Email address: abc1234@acs.tamu.edu

Please put a sign over your desk on the wall with your name and the class number so the students can find you. I will also need your home phone number (not to be given to the students) so that I can contact you in an emergency. If you are working half time (20 hours per week) please pick 20 fixed hours that you agree to be available in your office, to tutor the students. Note that you are welcome to do your own personal course studying, or grade papers during these hours if no student comes by for help. You are simply telling them that they can drop in during those hours and that you will be there. It is important that you are indeed available during those times if at all possible. One of the most common student complaints is that they come by for help during scheduled office hours and no one is there. However, students don't really come by that often, so be prepared to work on other things much of this time. If you are doing research you are also welcome to go to your lab during these hours, as long as you leave detailed instructions so the students can find you, and can break free to help them with their problems.

Finally, I need for you to come by and let me take a picture of you so the students will recognize you.

Please fill in below and return:

Name__________________________________________  

Office address __________________________________________

Desk number ___________________________________    Attach a sketch of location of desk

Office hours______________________________________________________________________________________   

Office phone ________________________    Home Phone ______________________

Email: __________________________

Come by my office after each class, at any time - Room 139C in the Old CE Building, to see if there are papers to be graded. Your papers are on the left wall shelves, second shelf from top, against the far wall. You will see your course number listed on the shelf, with a place for you to pick up and return papers after grading. Please place the graded papers in the return folder, alphabetically.

SUPPLIES

Anything you need like grading pens, blank paper, sticky notes, etc. can be obtained from D'Anne in room 139. You can ask either D'Anne or Susan to make any copies you need for the course.

LIST SERVER

Please sign up for the list server for this class. Go to http://cenotes.tamu.edu, and sign up for the class, just like you were a student. This will get you copies of the email I send to our students, so you will know what they have been instructed to do. If you wish to contact them by email, simply send me your email and I will forward it to the list server so they will all get it.

COMMON SENSE AND CARE IN GRADING

Please. Grade carefully. On the following problem, the only error made was that the student miscopied the length of the horizontal member from D to F. He lost 6 out of 10 points because all of the resulting forces shown were then incorrect. It should be have been graded by deducting perhaps 1 point for copying the length wrong, then the remainder of the problem should have been considered correct unless additional errors were made. Now I understand that simply deducting a point for every wrong answer on the page is quick and easy. However, during class, when the student questioned the validity and fairness of a 60% loss in his grade, and when 90 other students realized that their papers had been graded just as carelessly, it started a riot and required that the entire exam be re-graded.

NOT NECESSARY THIS SEMESTER - ABET COPIES - For every assignment, major exam, pop quiz, and homework problem, make a Xerox copy of a good student's work, a mediocre student's work, and a poor student's work. NO EXCEPTIONS! THIS IS AN ABET REQUIREMENT THIS SEMESTER (SPRING 2004)!!! You may come to my office and make these Xerox copies, then return them to me. If I'm not here, tell D'Anne what it is for, and ask her to copy them for you. Keep these copies in a notebook in your office. NOT NECESSARY THIS SEMESTER