Notes for Tutors This document is found at URL http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/COURSES/GENS4001/tutornotes.html
The course now runs from WebCT Vista, and as a tutor you will have access to the course web pages via http://vista.elearning.unsw.edu.au
Oral Presentations 20 marks
Students give 10 minute presentations, followed by 2 minutes of questions. You
need to keep time promptly - I suggest giving a 2 minute warning. Every
student is supposed to give a different talk, as chosen from the list
circulated in lectures. However you will find some students have not got around
to filling in the sheet, others provided only their student numbers and not
their names, and others have filled in the sheet for the wrong tutorial group!
This does not excuse them! Choose your own method for selecting the order talks
are given. If a student is not ready to give a talk the first week they may
do so the next week, but their marks are halved! Students who turn up
for the first week but not for the second should be told that they will only
receive half marks. However use you own judgement regarding how you apply this.
Allow, and indeed encourage, questions afterwards. Participation in the discussion
is part of the assessment, as is the handling of questions. If discussion dries
up ask appropriate questions of your own, as well as amplifying matters that
may arise. Students have been warned that reading from scripts will be marked
poorly! I suggest assessing, with 5 marks each, on (i) presentation, (ii) content,
(iii) handling of questions and (iv) participation in discussion of other students
talks.
Suggested marking scheme:
| Performance | Mark |
| No attendance | 0 |
| Abysmal | 1-5 |
| Poor | 6-9 |
| Average | 10-13 |
| Good | 14-16 |
| Very Good | 17-18 |
| Excellent | 19-20 |
Night Classes 20 marks
Meet outside the lecture room. Take the students to the Dome from there.
They cannot enter the dome by themselves. The worksheet
is an exercise that has to be handed back to you for marking at the end of the
second night class. I suggest spending the first 30 minutes of the first night
class on a mini-lecture. You might not be able to use the lecture room as its
often in use, but the nearby tutorial rooms are available. Describe how a telescope
works and how we point to objects in the night sky (i.e. the celestial sphere,
the ecliptic etc.), illustrating your points with one of the Meade 8's taken
down from the dome. In particular, show the students how to align and focus
a telescope, and what the different eyepieces are used for. I will provide star
maps for you to hand out.
If the weather is good go to the dome (key is kept in Jon Everett's office), and divide students into groups of 3 or 4. After initially demonstrating the rotation of the dome and the basics of the C14, give each group a Meade 8 telescope (Achernar, Betelgeuse, Canopus or Diphda) to take onto the roof for set-up and to start the exercises. You can then set the C14 on various astronomical objects that you can find (!) for the students to examine. Instructions on the C14's use can be found via the Astro web page. Note that you must keep the red safety lights on at all times while up there - this alerts University security to your presence. Remember to turn it off on departure! If you are ambitious you can also set up the CCD camera, but personally I have found that Gen Ed classes aren't particularly suitable for this.
We have set up The Sky software on the PC, to be used with the C14 and encoders to tell you where the telescope is pointing. It's great, but learn how to use it in advance. Note that you can also use the sky maps and images even without the telescope to point out to students features in the night sky, or to illustrate what might have been during bad weather.
If the weather is bad you have to improvise using the telescopes indoors. You can do this with the C14 by only opening the bottom shutter and panning around the horizon, focusing and aligning on buildings and discovering that telescopes invert images etc. You can also put on the CCD camera and demonstrate how it works and perhaps even take some pictures of the horizon. You will also find some pictures on the disk that can be shown as examples of what might have been possible...... If the weather is bad for the second class you need to have some short talk / slide show prepared on a general astronomical topic of interest. The class is not cancelled due to inclement weather, although you may decide to stop it early. You could show an astronomy video; I have a number you can choose from.
If you find specific faults please log them, and inform me, Jon Everett and whoever is using the telescope next. Leave a note before you leave that night! Please also complete the observatory log book so that we have a record of the use of the Observatory.
Suggested marking scheme:
| Performance | Mark |
| Attendance, per night | 2 |
| Level of Enthusiasm, per night | 1-3 |
| Worksheet, made up of | 0-10 |
| Poor | 1-4 |
| Average | 5-6 |
| Good | 7-8 |
| Very Good | 9 |
| Excellent | 10 |
Note: all night tutors also have to do some test marking as part of their tutorial duties.
Some additional notes on the Meade 8's
These are new, so please look after them. In particular, please remember to:
Portfolios 30 marks (for Oral Presentation tutors)
Remind the students they need to hand in their journal to you by the final class,
for marking (by you!). If they ask, remind them that a selection of articles
collected over the 14 weeks of session is what was required, together with a
1-3 paragraph analysis or interpretation on each article. The instructions to
the students are given on the Portfolio WebCT page. Articles should
be taken from a selection of sources and must be current over the duration
of the course. Discussion of matters raised in the lectures is also OK.
Collections of pretty articles from just one or two astronomy magazines, however,
are not what is wanted (though 1 or 2 such articles is fine), and will
score poorly. Typical articles include clippings from newspapers. Long articles
from Astronomy magazines can be used, but their number should be limited. The
internet and the web may be used to source articles, but their number should
comprise no more than one third the total number selected. The only exception
to this is newspaper articles collected from on-line issues of Australian newspapers
- these may be counted as equivalent to the printed edition of that article.
We are after articles where astronomy and space appear in the popular media,
in whatever context, with some intelligent discussion on that context (including
dismissal of the article if relevant). 1-2 articles per week, on average, over
the course of the session, is what is expected. Other forms of media, eg the
TV or a lecture the students might have heard, are also OK to use as the basis
of any commentary. This is the key aspect of your assessment, the quality
of the interpretation and analysis in the journal.
The journals are to be marked by tutors for the Oral Presentations. Marking these journals is an important aspect of your tutoring, and you should expect to spend as much time marking as you do in the oral classes. Write appropriate comments in the journals, and return them to me afterwards.
Suggested marking scheme:
| Performance | Mark |
| No Journal | 0 |
| Abysmal | 1-5 |
| Hopeless | 6-10 |
| Poor | 11-14 |
| Average | 15-19 |
| Good | 20-23 |
| Very Good | 24-27 |
| Excellent | 28-30 |
Heinz Harant Prize Remind the students that they can submit their journal for the Heinz Harant Challenge Prize. This is a $1000 awarded twice a year to a student in the UNSW General Education Program. It commemorates one of the University's earliest alumni and most devoted supporters, the late Heinz Harant, a long-serving member of the University Council and board member of University Union until his death in 1992. The prize recognises challenging and original thinking in work submitted for assessment in a General Education subject because, as the prize guidelines state, ''challenging orthodoxy was the driving spirit of Heinz Harant's life''. The first Heinz-Harant prize was won by Nicola Flint, a Commerce student, for her portfolio in the 1998 Session I Astronomy course. For further details look at URL http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/SCHOOL_INFORMATION/MEDIA_ROOM/flint.html. Students now self-nominate for this award. See the Portfolio page for details of where to get the application form.
Test Marking 60 (30) marks This is a multiple choice test. There are 5-8 different tests, and students have done one of these. For each test there will be a marker and a checker; you will probably find yourself assigned both these duties. The marker prepares an answer foil, and then marks the scripts for that test. The checker checks both the answer foil, and the marks for each script. There are a total of 60 questions. Mark out of 60, though in the final analysis these will be scaled out of 30 marks. Both the marker and the checker must sign off each script as they mark it.
There may be a supplementary test at the end of session (Monday of Week 14)
for those students who missed the test due to illness or misadventure. I may
be calling on you to mark these (few) scripts too as part of your tutorial duties.
Multiple-Choice Online Assignments (40 marks)
These are new this year and, with luck, you wont have to do anything! Basically
the students have 80 multiple choice questions they have to answer, chosen semi-randomly
from a database. It is up to the students to complete these by the end of week
2, and submit online. Marking is automatic, you'll be glad to know! However,
doutbless there will be teething problems. There may be errors in questions
in the database etc. If students let you know of these get the full details
(including some of the key expressions used inthe questions - so I can search
the database), and then I can try and rectify the problem. There is also a sample
online quiz the students can take as practice, where the answers are also given.
Encourage your class to try these first before tackling the assignment. Indeed,
try it yourself too!
Tutorials (30 marks)
Your jobs in the tutorials are as follows:
You will need to have read the tutorial questions for the day and have some idea on what the answers are! Its not necessary to go through every question, but instead use the questions as a guide to keeping a discussion going. You will have to mark the students on their performance in the tutorials (out of 30), so keep a roll and note. We will have a power-tute every day at 1:45pm to go over the questions for the day.
Doubtless there will be some changing of classes amongst students, and also of assignments etc. We have some (not much) flexibility, so try and minimise changes as they create real headaches when sorting out marks. Please document any changes you make!
You are also responsible for marking the essays for those students in your groups (out of 30). This should take a similar amount of time to the tutorials themselves - your payment for tutorials reflect this. You will need to chivvy the students into choosing their essay topic before the week is out and then getting them to tell you what it is. Record these on your tutors sheet. No more than 3 students in any one group can do the same essay. If they haven't chosen by the Friday class then warn them that you will be choosing for them!
Remind students that plagiarism is a serious issue, and is regarded by the University as academic misconduct.
The mark for tutorials is based on attendance and contribution - perhaps weighted 30/70% each. You need to keep the roll to do this. For the schedule see the tutorial timetable. You job is to mediate the discussion, but not to lead it unless it is drifting off on the wrong track. You need to involve all the students from the group, and explain to them that their mark does depend on participation. After a couple of days if there are students who have not said anything, ask them direct questions to get them to say something. I suggest getting everyone to say their name the first few times they say something. A good threat is to tell students if you haven't learnt their name that probably means they aren't contributing, and therefore will not be scoring well on the contribution. The contribution mark is not just based on how often the respond, but also on the quality of the responses.
Suggested tutorial marking scheme:
| Performance | Mark |
| No attendance | 0 |
| Abysmal | 1-8 |
| Poor | 9-14 |
| Average | 15-19 |
| Good | 20-23 |
| Very Good | 24-26 |
| Excellent | 27-28 |
| Simply Wonderful | 29-30 |
Duty Tutor and E-tutor
In week 2 there is no formal class time, but we have tutors on hand to deal
with queries and to provide guidance (but not the answers!). A duty tutor
will be available from 12-2 each day, and an electronic-tutor answering queries
by e-mail. I'm assigning one tutor per day to each of these duties, but
with a second tutor on standby for duty-tutor. I expect it will likely
all be quiet until the last day, when all hell will break loose! Don't
give the multiple choice assignment answers - just guide the students in the
right way of thinking! I will make the course text books available for
the duty tutor so that students can come in and consult these when doing research.
You are responsible for returning these books to me each day! Beware of students who might walk off with some of them!
Duty Tutor Room 5, OMB from 12-2 each day of week 2.
E-tutor watches Discussion Forum from midnight to midnight each day.
E-tutor responds to email sent to the Discussion Forum (accessible via WebCT). Remember most students are probably like yourself and like to access the web in the wee small hours! Please send your response directly to the Discussion Forum (unless you think it should be private - however copy it to me), so that everyone (students and tutors) is aware of the kinds of query that are coming up. For internal communication between ourselves please just save the email header to my group message as a distribution list - and please make sure any such items are copied all tutors (and me!) so we all keep on top of issues.
I can delete inappropriate postings, so let me know if there are any.
| Day | Duty Tutor | Reserve | E-Tutor |
| 20 Feb | Andrew Mynott | Nadio Lo | Martin Saul |
| 21 Feb | Martin Saul | Andrew Mynott | Tracey Hill |
| 22 Feb | Nadia Lo | Jessie Christiansen | Andrew Mynott |
| 23 Feb | Tracey Hill | Nadia Lo | Jessie Christiansen |
| 24 Feb | Martin Saul | Jessie Christiansen | Nadia Lo |
For the last two days the reserve tutor will almost certainly be needed. The first three days are less likely, but make sure you check in with the duty tutor and are nearby in case they need you.
Daily Report:
Can both duty tutor and e-tutor send me a (brief) daily report (by email)
on their classes. I would like to know how many people you dealt with
and some indication of how the students are faring and what they want help with.
Essays (30 marks)
No more than 3 students per class to have the same essay. Take essay choices
on a first-come first-served basis, but every one must have chosen by the last
tutorial class or you choose an essay topic for them (threat!). Watch
carefully for signs of copying from texts - its usually obvious by the level
of the English, or the fact its on a different topic to the essay title. Typing
in a few words from the essay into google often will catch examples of plagiarism.
See me if you are unsure, for plagiarism is a serious issue that we have to
deal with. Please bring print-outs from webpage showing where the text has been
obtained from (including the URL). Because of the ease of finding material on
the web it is not possible to let students choose their own essay topics.
Suggested marking scheme:
| Performance | Mark |
| No Essay | 0 |
| Abysmal | 1-3 |
| Hopeless | 4-6 |
| Poor | 7-9 |
| Average | 10-13 |
| Good | 14-16 |
| Very Good | 17-18 |
| Excellent | 19-20 |
Marking Duties
We will have a meeting at 11:30am on Monday February 27 in the Astro coffee area (ie just after Astro Monday morning cake!) in order to divide up marking duties. You do need to come to this meeting! You can collect essays from the box outside my office from Friday 25. Marking duties here count as part of your duty and e-tutoring workload.
Marking needs to be complete by March 3 - i.e. 1 week after course finishes! A number of students need to complete this course in order to graduate, so there is particular pressure to complete marking duties fast.
There is no excuse for the students for late work for this course - it is compressed mode which means everything *must* be completed by the end of the second week.
Michael Burton
February 10, 2006