How the week works

A week in this course runs Wednesday through the following Monday, across the weekend. The Schedule has the same thing as a table; this page is the longer version, with the reasons.

The two class meetings do different jobs

Wednesday opens the week. Nothing is assumed: the reading has not been assigned yet and no assignment on this week’s material has gone out. Wednesday is designed so you can follow it having done nothing in advance.

Monday closes it. By then you have had the reading and the weekend, so Monday is where the quiz goes and where the harder material lands.

That is the whole reason for the odd shape. A Monday-to-Friday week would put the two meetings back to back with the weekend after them, which is the wrong way round: the weekend is when there is time to read.

Readings

Due before the Monday class. Read ahead if you like — Wednesday does not depend on them.

The quiz is the enforcement. If you did the reading it should be quick; if you did not, Monday will be harder than it needed to be.

Assignments

An assignment may go out on Wednesday, and when one does it is due Tuesday — the day after the Monday class, so you get both meetings before the deadline.

Not every week issues one. Some weeks a later assignment picks up that week’s material instead, which is why the Schedule is the place to check rather than assuming a weekly rhythm.

Quizzes

In the weeks that have one, at the start of the Monday class. You get two attempts and the higher score counts, so the second attempt can only help you.

Presentations

On the Wednesday after an assignment was due, one or more students are picked at random to walk the class through their solution and take questions — on correctness and on style. See Assessment in the syllabus for how it is graded.

Picked at random means every solution should be one you can explain.

It is a few minutes at the projector, not a talk. You open your own code, say what you did and why, and answer what is asked. There is nothing to prepare in advance and nothing to hand in.

A solution that does not fully work is still worth presenting. Explaining what you wrote, what it does instead, and where you think it goes wrong is a real presentation and is graded as one. The pick is made from the solutions that were submitted, so the thing to avoid is not an imperfect answer — it is having nothing pushed at all.

The Journal

One ungraded Brightspace assignment, reused all term. Most classes open and close with a prompt in it — two or three minutes, no notes, nothing to prepare. It has unlimited attempts, so each prompt is another attempt on that same assignment rather than a new one to go and find. An optional part of an assignment sometimes asks you to leave something there too, usually a link.

Ungraded means unmarked, not unread. Anonymous excerpts come back to the room often enough that it is worth writing something real.

Weeks with only one class

When a holiday takes out the Monday, the week meets once, on the Wednesday. Two things follow.

There is no quiz. A quiz runs at the start of the Monday class, and there is no Monday class.

The reading loses its anchor and gets a new one. Normally it is due before Monday because Monday assumes it. With no Monday, it is instead due before the thing it actually supports — in practice the assignment — and the Schedule says which reading and by when. The Wednesday still opens the week the way any Wednesday does: you can walk into it having read nothing.

What does not change is the assignment. It still goes out Wednesday and is still due the following Tuesday — except that this time there is no class in the middle of it, which is worth knowing before the weekend rather than during it.