1st year Electronic and Electrical Control Technicians have an introductory
one semester course in BASIC programming consisting of 2 hrs a week lecture
and two hours a week assisted lab. Our Chair has mandated that this course
shall now have 50% of the assignment mark evaluated during the lab based on
work done during the lab. An analogy would be an art class where a student
might be evaluated on composition, effective application of of a given
technique. Or a typing class.
Faculty are opposed to this approach as we feel that this kind of evaluation is unfair to the students and that writing a program is more akin to writing
an essay. However the Chair will save money using this approach since there
is less ascribed (if not actual) evaluation time outside the labs.
I'm looking for opinions both in favour and against this approach as
well as suggestions as to what would be appropriate to evaluate in the
lab? Does anyone else have in-lab evaluations? hhh
