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| 1 | +Students and Teams |
| 2 | +======== |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +Introduce yourself via a `USERNAME.md` file, and submit via pull request. |
| 5 | +Please provide at least one sentence on your background and one sentence on your interests. For example, |
| 6 | +> I am Audris Mockus and I am a professor at the EECS department. I have worked at ATT Bell Labs and |
| 7 | +> and other industry labs for over 20 years. I like coding and data analysis and would like to share my |
| 8 | +> passion with you teaching this course. |
| 9 | +
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| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Follow instructions in [initial tasks](https://github.com/fdac18/students/blob/master/Preliminary.md) |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +Information on forming teams |
| 15 | +=================================== |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +As you’ll see in the Team Policy Statement below, you |
| 18 | +will have assigned roles in your teams (coordinator, recorder, checker, etc.) |
| 19 | +that rotate among the members. You may be inclined to ignore these role |
| 20 | +assignments and just do the work in any way that |
| 21 | +comes to mind, or maybe one team member will |
| 22 | +actually do the coordinating all semester no matter who is supposed |
| 23 | +to be doing it for a given |
| 24 | +assignment. That’s a mistake. I strongly advise you |
| 25 | +to take the roles seriously --— your work will go more |
| 26 | +smoothly and turn out better if you do. Also, the |
| 27 | +roles each involve different skills, all of which you’ll |
| 28 | +need to function effectively as professionals. Now |
| 29 | +is the time to start picking up those skills—and you |
| 30 | +can’t do it if you never take on the roles. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +Some teams like to divide and conquer, parceling |
| 33 | +out different parts of the assignment, completing |
| 34 | +them individually, and stapling the different parts |
| 35 | +together and handing them in (perhaps after first |
| 36 | +recopying them in a single handwriting to make it |
| 37 | +look more like a unified effort). Don’t do it! On |
| 38 | +tests and/or when you report on your work, you |
| 39 | +will be examined individually on every aspect of |
| 40 | +the assignment, and your grade will depend in part |
| 41 | +on how well you understand both the part that you |
| 42 | +mainly did and all the other parts. Before you hand |
| 43 | +anything in, go over it in detail and make sure |
| 44 | +you’re ready for that examination. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +A common mistake is for teams to sit around a table |
| 47 | +and solve all problems together. What usually happens is that someone on the team is faster than the |
| 48 | +others, and that one will begin every problem solution. If you happen to be in the slower category, |
| 49 | +you may have to figure out how to approach such |
| 50 | +problems for the first time on the tests, which is |
| 51 | +not when you want to do it. A better approach is |
| 52 | +for every team member to outline the solutions individually, and then get together to work out the |
| 53 | +details. |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +#Team Policies |
| 57 | +Your team will have a number of responsibilities as it completes |
| 58 | +problem and project assignments. |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +* Designate a coordinator, recorder and checker for each |
| 61 | +assignment. Add a monitor for 4-person teams. Rotate these roles |
| 62 | +for every assignment. Designate one member to be ready to present |
| 63 | +the work in front of the class. |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +* Agree on a common meeting time and what each member should have |
| 66 | +done before the meeting (readings, taking the first cut at some or |
| 67 | +all of the assigned work, etc.) There will be at least two classes |
| 68 | +per project reserved exclusively for this purpose, but don't expect |
| 69 | +that to be sufficient time for your joint work. Therefore, |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +* Do the required individual preparation. That means editing and |
| 72 | +pushing the code, charts, presentations, or text to the teams' |
| 73 | +repository before the meeting. |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +* Coordinator checks with other team members before the meeting to |
| 76 | +remind them of when and where they will meet and what they are |
| 77 | +supposed to do. |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +* Meet and work. Coordinator keeps everyone on task and makes sure |
| 80 | +everyone is involved, recorder prepares the final solution and |
| 81 | +creates the pull request to submit it, monitor checks to makes sure |
| 82 | +everyone understands both the solution and the strategy used to get |
| 83 | +it, and checker double-checks it before it is handed in. Agree on |
| 84 | +next the meeting time and roles for next assignment. For teams of |
| 85 | +three, the same person should cover the monitor and checker roles. |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +* Review returned assignments, read any comments made in the pull |
| 88 | + request. Correct if corrections are needed. |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +* Consult with your instructor if a conflict arises that can’t be worked through by the team. |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +* Dealing with non-cooperative team members. If a team member refuses to cooperate on an assignment, his/ |
| 93 | +her name should not be included on the completed work. If the problem persists, the team should meet with |
| 94 | +the instructor so that the problem can be resolved, if possible. If the problem still continues, the cooperating |
| 95 | +team members may notify the uncooperative member in writing that he/she is in danger of being fired, |
| 96 | +sending a copy of the memo to the instructor. If there is no subsequent improvement, they should notify the |
| 97 | +individual in writing (copy to the instructor) that he/she is no longer with the team. The fired student should |
| 98 | +meet with his/her instructor to discuss options. Similarly, students who are consistently doing all the work |
| 99 | +for their team may issue a warning memo that they will quit unless they start getting cooperation, and a |
| 100 | +second memo quitting the team if the cooperation is not forthcoming. Students who get fired or quit must |
| 101 | +either find another team willing to add them as a member or get zeroes for the remaining assignments. |
| 102 | +As you will find out, group work isn’t always easy—team members sometimes cannot prepare for or attend |
| 103 | +group sessions because of other responsibilities, and conflicts often result from differing skill levels and work |
| 104 | +ethics. When teams work and communicate well, however, the benefits more than compensate for the difficulties. |
| 105 | +One way to improve the chances that a team will work well is to agree beforehand on what everyone on the team |
| 106 | +expects from everyone else. Reaching this understanding is the goal of the assignment on the Team Expectations |
| 107 | +Agreement handout. |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | +### Adapted from: |
| 111 | +Oakley, B., R.M. Felder, R. Brent, and I. Elhajj, "Turning Student Groups into Effective Teams," The Journal of Student Centered |
| 112 | +Learning, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2004, pp. 9-34, www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ |
| 113 | +Papers/Oakley-paper(JSCL).pdf |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | +###Read at least the appendix on coping with Hichikers and Couch Potatoes on teams. |
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