This semester we have the privilege of teaching several excellent classes to a brilliant group of 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 that many classes with that many students, without some top notch graduate student assistance. Hence, your employment.

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

• Setting aside 10 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.
  • Work on your own research and classes if no one shows up, which is often the case.
  • Teach some evening review sessions, if possible.
• 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 if, and 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 at some time 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 should come straight into my office at any time, for instance to pick up or return the homework, or to ask any questions. Please do not stand outside my office waiting for your turn. 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

Please see the spreadsheet I will send you from last year, for an example of how to number the homework and pop quizzes.  Assign a unique, ascending identification number to each homework set and pop quiz. 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. Note that the pop quizzes should be entered right along with the homework problems, not a separate set. 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, worth 10 points. Please identify what numbers have been assigned to which problems on the second tab in the spreadsheet.

Please come by and pick up a solutions manual for the class. You should be able to work out the solution for 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.

When grading any paper, please follow the following procedures:

1)  The homework problems are listed on the syllabus at http://lowery.tamu.edu . Each problem is worth 10 points each unless otherwise noted. Thus if a set of homework problems includes 6 problems, that set is worth 60 points. On major exams, before you start grading a paper, check my solution carefully against several of the better 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 point deductions for 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, don't take off more than 1/2 of the value if the student at least tries.  Lat homework should not be graded.  Simply mark it Late and give them 1/2 credit.

2) IMPORTANT: On the exams, 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 they 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:  When grading the exams 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) On the exams, please do not total up the points lost on each page, nor total up points for the whole exam. Just write the points deducted for each error in a circle and point to the error. I will total the points per page and the overall grade when I grade it.

5) 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.

6) 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.

7) 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 to draw my attention to where the student went astray. Do not think that because I change your assigned grade that I disagree with your grading, or that you aren't doing a great job. Even when I re-grade my own grading, I always end up adjusting the scores. Be assured that the quality and care with which you grade, and the dedication with which you tutor our students, are the only things 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.

8) When you are finished grading all major quizzes and the final exam, please make me a clear, correct, neat copy of the solution for each problem.  There will usually be two versions of each exam. Whether you get that from what I gave you, from your careful correction of what I gave you, from working out the solution yourself, or from copying a good student's solution - all are acceptable. But I need one neat correct solution to publish so the students have something to refer to after they get their papers back.

9) 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. 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 ******

SUPPLIES

Anything you need like grading pens, blank paper, sticky notes, etc. can be obtained from D'Anne in room 139. You can ask D'Anne 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