ECE 371 -- TA Manual
William Jones:  August 9, 2000

You must provide your students with a syllabus which, among other common syllabus items, lists the grading breakdown for the lab.  The breakdown is provided in the ECE 371 Grading Policy page.

One of the most important things as a TA in this laboratory is consistent grading policy.  In this way, students who are in your section will, in theory, get the same grade as those in another TA's section.  You should not worry if you are giving grades that seem low, if every TA keeps to the same system then the professors who teach the lecture can easily adjust the laboratory grades as necessary.  I have made a web page which states the grading policy which you should follow, check it out here.

This lab is about more than just teaching microcomputer interfacing.  For many of these students this will be their first or second programming course.  Most of them will have had only Java programming experience as well, and so there may be questions about basic C language programming.  I have created a "C Short Course" for the purpose of getting students started with C programming as it applies to ECE L 371.  We are also interested in teaching students how to debug code.  Also, we are teaching the students how to document their code correctly and therefore have a web page dedicated to instructing them in this regard.  You should read the page yourself and then make sure your students read and follow it!  Check it out here.

I (William) will be in charge of maintaining this website. If you have any suggestions about changes or new material, please feel free to email me.

There is a course web page located here.  You and your students should check this web page often.  It has links to most of the labs in the lab manual.

The lab is structured as follows:
Students are generally expected to complete one lab assignment per week.  In addition to lab assignments, there will be a quiz given at least every 2 weeks.  You are REQUIRED to lecture on topics of the current lab at the beginning of class.  Near the end of class, I suggest that you cover topics regarding the next lab assignment.

Additional Responsibilities of the TA:

You will be required to submit your final grades for the laboratory for each student to the professor(s) at the end of the laboratory, after you have graded the final project.