Notes for Teaching Assistants — Lab 3

Topics covered are:

• Presentations of Assignment 1 prototype and walkthrough summaries by students.
• Final questions on the write up of Assignment 1.

Assignment 1 Presentations

• Tell students exactly what you want them to do and when. (See the schedule in the class booklet!)
• Tell students what is required for the next tutorial.
  • You will lead a discussion when students do their prototype/walkthrough presentations of one of their core tasks (steps 3 - 4 of the assignment).
  • Students will informally present their prototype as well as walkthrough summary of one or two task-scenarios in tutorial (indicate that they will have to do more walk-throughs ~ 5 - 7 in their portfolio).
  • Also indicate that they should be writing up the portfolio, particularly Section 1.  Stress to students that you will *not* be evaluating (at least not in a big way) the quality of the interface, although you may make some comments about it because I have not yet taught them much about actual interface design! I am more interested in how they use the prototyping methods and the insights gained in the walkthroughs. Tell them that they will have a chance to reflect on their designs and that they can change them when they begin the project. 
  • The amount of time that you should allow for each presentation will vary depending upon the number of groups.  For example:

	110 minute tutorial
minus	5 minutes for groups to set up before each presentation
	105 minutes
divide by	6 groups
	17 minutes per group (make sure that you leave at least 5 minutes for feedback so that will leave only 10 - 12 minutes for each presentation)

In the presentations:

• The most important thing for you to do is to catch students who are far off base, and set them onto the right track. If you are unsure, send them to me (but not too many, please).
• They should be using either storyboards or Pictive techniques or some variation not only so they can brainstorm and later evaluate different ideas but also so they can learn the strengths and weaknesses of each technique.
• In particular,
  • Does the prototype show the main interface style/representation?
  • Did their walk through show how the interface progresses through at least one of the core tasks?
  • Does it give you a good feel of the interface style?
  • Have they indicated other interface representations (ask them what other interface representations they considered, if any)?
• For the task walkthrough summaries
  • Were you convinced that they objectively completed the walkthrough?  Were they really willing to find and specify the weaknesses of their system (again stress that the first assignment is focusing more on their ability to demonstrate to us their skill as evaluating a system rather than their ability to produce a 'good' system).
  • Are they concentrating on minor or major problems (they should be considering only major ones now...)
• Ask them if they have any questions on the write-up for Assignment 1
• Remind them that late assignments will not be accepted, that they must be well written, etc., etc.
• Tell them to look at the grading sheet for an indication of some of what we expect.  (As be sure to give them an idea of how groups can do poorly or do well for each of the major sections of the first assignment).
• Remind them that there are examples of projects from previous terms if they want to look through them.