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A Guide to DUEs for TAs

What?

A DUE (demonstrate, understand, experiment) session is an opporiunity for students to share out what they have accomplished over the course of a project.

In the demo section, students will see the result of their code.

In the understand section, students will articulate what they did and why.

In the experiment section, students will explain or work with edge cases they may or may not have handled in their project with the TA.

DUEs are meant to be casual! Your interactions with the students make them feel welcomed and encouraged to take ownership of their own curiosity and learning!

For CS 1

Some CS 1 projects do not have DUEs.

Why?

The following are some of the reasons why we do DUES:

  • The main reason: DUEs are opporitunities for students to take ownership of their own curiosity and learning.
  • The demo section ensures that students see results of their code: they see that their work is a tangible, cool, and useful creation, and more than just lines of code on a screen!
  • The understand section ensures that students demonstrate understanding of the code they already wrote; remember, teaching/explaining to another person is a form of learning!
  • The experiment section ensures that students explore and play around with cases they may have not considered. We hope to help them acquire additional insights and connect to the concepts they are learning in class.
  • DUEs sessions build supportive communities. Students interacting with each other and with TAs will hopefully make them feel encouraged to ask for help when they need it.
  • DUEs sessions provide extra one-on-one opporitunities for students to ask clarifying questions that they may not have otherwise asked.
  • DUES sessions help us identify students who may be struggling early on so that we can promptly provide them with the support they need to learn.

If you are interested in learning more about DUEs, please come talk to course leadership! We are more than happy to dive deeper into the reasons above.

When?

DUE sessions occur the following days after the deadline of a project.

For example, in a typical CS1 project due on Tuesday, DUE sessions happen the following Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Where?

DUE sessions are held in CS^2==ANB 106 unless otherwise stated by course leadership.

How?

This section provides a high level overview as well as the details for carrying out DUE sessions from a TA perspective. We will refer to a whole DUE session as a "DUE chunk" consisting of many singular DUEs.

Each TA will be responsible for at least one section of the DUE: one of demo, understand, or experiment. Most TAs will be responsible for exactly 1 section of the DUE. These roles will be assigned at pre-quarter meeting and will be consistent throughout the entire term.

All TAs will be provided with a script to follow for each DUE.

At every DUE, there will be a specific linear order that the students proceed in. For example, for project x, students must complete the sections in the following way: Demo -> Understand -> Experiment. While for project y, students must complete the sections in the following: Experiment -> Understand -> Demo. Students will move through the DUE chunk by enqueueing as if they were in office hours. Thus, TAs will use the office hour queue form to complete their section with students. TAs are responsible for stamping the students' DUE passport to log the completion of that section of the DUE. The TAs responsible for the last section of the DUE need to fill out the DUE completion form for the student.

There will always be at least one member of course leadership at every DUE chunk. If anything comes up during the DUEs, the TA should "hand-off" the student to the supervising member of course leadership and fill out the provided DUE form. If you find yourself spending too much time with the student, you should "hand-off" the student.

Before Your DUE Chunk...

There will be a DUE guide for each project, which will include a script to your part. As with office hours, please prep for your DUE chunk. The link and password to the TA DUE guides will be distributed in the course staff discord.

DUE Chunk Flow

When you come in for your DUE chunk, check in with the supervising member of course leadership and obtain your section stamp. Then open both the DUE guide and the OH queue form (and the DUE completion form if your section is the last one in the DUE).

The TAs responsible for the first section of the DUE should stand outside of CS^2. The TAs responsible for the other two sections of the DUE should sit at the tables on the perimeter of the room (such as Drove, Exaltation, etc).

After the students are done with the first section, they will enter CS^2 and enqueue for the next section. TAs should inform the student of where they are going next (what they are queue-ing up for) after they complete their section with the student.

Below is an example of a DUE flow for a standard Demo -> Understand -> Experiment.

  • Students arrive outside of CS^2.
  • Demo TA greets the students, introduces themselves, and instructs the students to begin setting up for the Demo section.
  • Demo TA completes the Demo section with a student.
  • Demo TA stamps the student's DUE passport with the Demo stamp and tells the student to proceed into CS^2 and enqueue for the Understand section.
  • Student enters CS^2 and enqueues for the Understand section of the DUE.
  • Understand TA dequeues the student and calls them over to their table.
  • Understand TA completes the Understand section with the student.
  • Understand TA stamps the student's DUE passport with the Understand stamp and tells the student to enqueue for the Experiment section.
  • Experiment TA waits until two students are enqueued for the Experiment section.
  • Experiment TA dequeues two students and calls them over to their table.
  • Experiment TA completes the Experiment section with the two students.
  • Experiment TA stamps the student's DUE passport with the Experiment stamp and fills out the DUE completetion form for both students.
  • Students exit CS^2.

Single DUE Flow

What a single DUE flow looks like for you depends on your role: whether you are handling the "demo," "understand," or "experiment" section. The sections below detail the general flow. It is very similar to what you will read on a DUE guide.

All TAs should be aware of the following: - The TAs responsible for the first section of the DUE will be greeting the student and getting them started with the DUE process. Thus, they will not be using the queue form. All other TAs will use the queue form to help students proceed through the DUE. - The TAs responsible for the last section of the DUE will need to fill out the DUE completion form (linked on every project's DUE guide) for the student.

If you are handling "demo":

Ask the student how the project went and specifically, which parts they finished. If they did not pass the lowest-level tests (e.g. D test), fill out the DUE form correctly and hand them off to the member of course leadership (hand-off procedures). Otherwise, if they did pass at least the lowest-level tests, proceed with the DUE.

For the first due only, you should briefly explain the reason why DUEs exist in your own words, and explain what each of the letters (D, U, E) stand for to the student.

Ask the student if they ran their demo: if they did not, make sure to let them know the importance of running the final product, as we will be checking it every DUE.

Then, run the "demo" of their project. If there are multiple students, you should have them all run their demos simultaneously. You can go around checking the student(s)'s demos.

For students whose demos run perfectly, stamp their DUE passport with your Demo stamp and ask them to enqueue for the next section. If this is the last section, fill out the DUE completion form for the student and let the student know that they are done! For students whose demos do not run perfectly for the tests that they passed, fill out the DUE form correctly and hand them off to the member of course leadership (hand-off procedures).

If you are handling "understand":

Proceed to the "understand" section of the DUEs guide. If it becomes clear that the student is unable to explain their own code or you find yourself spending too much time with the student, fill out the DUE form correctly and hand them off to the member of course leadership (hand-off procedures).

If the student hits both "Aha" moment of this section, stamp their DUE passport with your Understand stamp and congratulate them. Then ask them to enqueue for the next section. If this is the last section, fill out the DUE completion form for the student and let the student know that they are done!

If you are handling "experiment":

Wait for two students before dequeueing them for the experiment section. If one student has been waiting for a while, dequeue them for the experiment section instead of waiting for another student.

Proceed to the "experiment" section of the DUEs guide. If it becomes clear that the students do not understand their code or you find yourself spending too much time with the student, fill out the DUE form correctly and hand them off to the member of course leadership (hand-off procedures).

If you are carrying out the section with two students, ensure that both students feel welcomed and are respectful to each other's learning. Please let the member of course leadership on duty know immediately if this is not the case.

If the students hit the "Aha" moment of this section, stamp their DUE passport with your Experiment stamp and congratulate them. Then ask them to enqueue for the next section. If this is the last section, fill out the DUE completion form for the student and let the student know that they are done!

If you ever have any questions, please contact course leadership!

General Things to be Aware Of

These apply to all TAs (demo, understand, experiment, as well as supervising) when interacting with students during DUEs.

Student Scores and FERPA

DUEs take place in a public environment with many students in the room. If a student asks you what their result is during the DUE, do not tell them out loud; instead, write their score down on the table. Student scores must be treated with care due to FERPA.

Hand-offs

Whenever you hand-off a student to the supervising member of course leadership, make sure it does NOT seem like a negative, bad, or scary thing. The student should NOT be made to feel like they have “failed” the section of the DUE. A good strategy here is to feign ignorance. For example, if a DUE section requires that the student describes their code and their description doesn’t match their code, you can say: “I’m not sure I understand the code you wrote. I will send you to (insert course leadership name here). This will make sure you get the most out of this DUE.” When you hand-off, you must fill out the airtable form (it will linked be on the DUE guide) with the correct tags and the member of course leadership you are handing the student off to.

DUE Swaps

Create a post in the oh-swaps channel in the discord (see oh page on how to do this). You can only swap your DUE time with another TA who is responsible for the same letter unless otherwise stated by course leadership. This means that a TA responsible for the E section of the DUE can only swap with another TA who that responsible for the E section. We understand that schedules change, but be aware that swaps are exceptions not the rule.