Responsibilities of the Intro COS Lab Head Team
Once a semester:
- interview Lab TAs
- hire interviewers
- schedule interviews
- go through TigerUHR applications and select students to interview; students can list if 126 Lab TA or 226/217 Lab TA is one of their most preferred
- note that for returning Lab TAs, we don’t reinterview; just check their attendance from last semester and make a decision
- create interview questions
- usually use an assignment and add some bugs to it
- for 126, there is just a 126 debugging; takes about 30 minutes
- for 226/217, there is a 226 debugging, 217 debugging, 226 conceptual, 217 conceptual question; takes about 45 minutes, probably give 1 hour to be safe
- use rubric
- hire lab TAs
- hire on TigerUHR
- 126: probably need around 25 full time
- 226/217: probably need around 30-35 full time
- a few subs for each is good
- schedule shifts
- use scheduling tool; some manual adjustment may be necessary afterwards
- things to keep in mind: 126 assignments are due Sunday, 226 assignments are due Monday, 217 assignments are due Tuesday/Thursday (check course website for exact schedule)
- train new Intro Lab TAs
- add new Intro Lab TAs to the Slack
During the semester:
- Create a direct channel of communication between the Head Team and the COS Introductory teaching faculty on Slack to ask questions pertaining to course specifics
- make announcements to students and Intro Lab TAs
- when is the lab closed for breaks
- when the lab closes for the term (Dean’s Date)
- when running a satisfaction survey
- when job applications open up
- check attendance
- create an absence form that TAs fill out whenever they miss a shift, regardless of if they get a sub/swap; this way TAs can declare ahead of time if they are going to miss, and it’s in our records
- QTrack is a nice tool for looking at the students each TA has helped
- these scripts are useful for attendance and related statistics
- compile report to determine Lab TA job assiduity
Once a year:
- hire next Intro COS Lab Head Team
- transition checklist
- add to the #lab-management channel in Slack
- TigerUHR access for viewing and hiring applicants for 126 and 2xx Lab TAs
- add to the PrincetonCS-UCA Github org so can update website
- get labqueue API key
- make sure hired as Undergraduate Manager on TimesheetX