Dear all,

As you should be aware (I’ve announced it in lectures and workshops!) in this week’s lecture (Friday 30th October) we will be holding an assessment event.

I’ve referred to this event as an “in-class test” and more recently as a “quiz”. I think going forward I am simply going to call them “Orange Sessions”.

Basically, there will be no lecture content other than orange clicker slides. These count towards your module total and this Orange Session will form the bulk of your non-practical mark for Thinking Like A Programmer. The short version: this will be worth just under 10% of your module total (with the rest of the 10% made up of the odd orange slides you’ve had in the lectures so far).

The key points:

YOU MUST BRING YOUR CLICKER TO FRIDAY’S EVENT. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN YOU GETTING ZERO FOR THE EVENT. REMEMBER: ALWAYS GET YOUR “ARS” TO CLASS! 

YOU WILL ALSO BE ASKED TO SWIPE IN WITH YOUR ID CARD AT FRIDAY’S EVENT. ENSURE YOU BRING YOUR ID CARD! FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN YOU GETTING ZERO FOR THE EVENT (and in any case, you are supposed to have your ID card at all times anyway!)

YOU MUST BE ON TIME FOR FRIDAY’S EVENT. IF YOU ARE LATE YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED. I run a fairly informal ship on most occasions but when it comes to assessed events, it simply isn’t fair on other students who are trying to work and think for people to bowl in late and disrupt the session.

YOU MAY USE HANDWRITTEN (ON PAPER) AND PRINTED NOTES. YOU MAY *NOT* USE PHONES, TABLETS/iPADs, LAPTOPS OR ANY OTHER DIGITAL DEVICES.

Other things to know about the format of the event:

• There will be no finite time limit for the event – it will take as long as it takes (within the limitations of the two hour slot). It is not an exam or in-class test, after all.
• There will be between 10 and 12 questions in total (I still haven’t finalised this yet!)
  I will leave each slide on the screen for as long as is necessary for everyone in the room to answer. You will be able to change your answer (with your clicker) if you get it wrong the first time but once we move away from a question, your answer is final!
• No question should really take anyone more than a few minutes to figure out and answer. If you can’t answer it within that timescale, then you probably don’t know the answer.
• If you don’t know the answer – guess! There are no marks taken off for wrong (guessed!) answers.
• I will put the voting graphs up so you can see how the group answered. So, you will have an idea on the day how well you did – although it doesn’t necessarily mean you will have got it right if most people voted the same way!
• If you miss the event because of illness you must need to go through the formal mitigating circumstances procedure. I will not be able to help you with that – you will need to speak to the student office.

On a brighter note, on Friday I will also be looking to hand out the awards for Thinking Like A Programmer. Yes, I said “awards”. There will be awards in three categories:

• Top of the high score table
• First person to get maximum medals
• Hardest worker (who may not necessarily have all the medals!)

What the prizes will be for the awards I cannot say at this point

Finally, we will also be doing the Early Module Feedback. This is important because it gives you your opportunity to tell us what we need to change at an early point in the module before it becomes too late. So come armed with your views that your course reps can take away to make things better.

See you Friday!