AY 300 - Fall 2012: Sixth Day Lesson Plan

Today's class will discuss ethics, the design-a-demo presentations, and (continue) board work exercises.

• Consider ethical issues that can arise as a GSI.
• Continue practicing good boardwork technique.

The person on call for this week will share their section experience. Some questions include:

• What did you do?
• How did you implement your activities?
• What worked?
• What didn't work?
• What would you do differently?
• How did you assess learning?
• Did you receive any unexpected questions/reactions/etc.?
• Did anything unexpected happen?
• What were you thinking about while you were running section? Any moments of panic?

During this (and after), open the floor up for general questions and sharing about how sections are going.

Each group receives ten minutes for their proposal. The proposal itself should be ~5 minutes, allowing 5 minutes for questions and critiques.

Make sure everyone has finished the online Ethics course.

Quickly touch on the main points from the Ethics course (extended blurbs below).

Finish up with a class discussion of several case studies of situations that have arisen in C10. These could include a subset of the following (perhaps put each on a power point slide and project it). Some comments from the author are given in parentheses at the end:

1. The final exam was this morning, and all the GSIs have just finished grading. You are back in your office when one of your students knocks on your door. They are very distressed about the final, and is standing next to you at your desk. The conversation goes something like this: “I think I am going to fail the class. I know the final is curved, but I don't know if that cuts it. How much does HW and lab count towards the grade again? *sigh* I don't know what happened, is there *pause* anything *pause* I can do?” You assure the person they probably are fine and quickly look at the final grades and see this person is getting a 'C'. (As the head GSI, I was able to access the final grades at this point. A normal GSI would not have been able to do that…)
2. You have decided that Facebook-friending your students is OK. This is the 21st century and social networking is here to stay. When you're on Facebook one day, one of your students opens up a chat window. It is friendly at first, and somehow gets into him asking for help on one of the homework problems. You take the time to help him. Once that is done, he starts to talk more freely and begins sharing personal stories, including how he came out to his parents recently, etc. (Friendship with students, establishing boundaries, etc)
3. You see that one of your students copied his homework directly from the solutions. You request a meeting with him, and need him to sign the academic misconduct form (which doesn't go on his permanent record, and only gives him a 0 on the assignment when the worst 3 grades are dropped). He shows up to your meeting with his mom, who flew in from LA, and insists that as she works at JPL, she has taught her children to be responsible citizens and wants an exception for her son's behavior (which he claimed happened while blackout drunk).
4. One of your students is DSP, and claims that even though she took the quiz during the DSP session, the room was too loud and distracting for her to complete the quiz. You let her take another GSI's quiz in a room by herself, which she does slightly worse on than the previous quiz. She claims that she is greatly confused by the math, but doesn't come to section/office hours, and fails the first exam.
5. One student accuses another student of cheating after the final exam. It is unclear exactly how the cheating occurred from her statement, but after analyzing the exams of that student, the accuser, and a girl sitting in between them, you realize all three have a statistically impossible percentage of answers in common (90% of wrong answers wrong in the same way on a multiple-choice final).
6. After the final exam is completed, one of proctoring GSIs note he thought two students were chatting with one another. Their GSI said they are good friends and frequently work together in section. Both students had the same version of the exam (even though four versions of the exam were randomly shuffled). One student got 15 questions wrong, the other 16. Of those incorrect answers, 13 of them were on the same question, and 12 of those had the same “wrong” answer. They are brought in to chat with the professor and head GSI, and they deny cheating. The professor continues to grill them over and over again, but they deny it. The Head GSI even calculates the probabilities that this occurrence was “by chance”, showing that the chances they would guess the same wrong answer on 12 questions is VERY IMPROBABLE. The professor dismisses the students, but they continue to argue they did not cheat. The professor allows them to re-take the final exam. They end up getting similar scores (within a few points), both do better on the second final exam than they did on the first one, but there is no correlation between their incorrect answers.

Ask the class to think about what should have been done and (if possible) how the situation could have been avoided.

• Some topics covered in the online course:
  • Diversity
    • Berkeley is a minority-majority school
    • Unlikely to be a major issue (especially in an intro astronomy course since the classes tend to be pretty diverse). However, be aware that we all have unconscious biases and try to make an effort to be open and inclusive. For example, try to equally call on males/females, different races, etc.
  • Disabled Students
    • Berkeley allows students with documented learning disabilities (or physical disabilities affecting their ability to learn) to have extra time (and occasionally a 'quiet' or private room, etc.) on quizzes and examinations. Students must have their disabilities diagnosed or approved by the Disabled Students' Program, or DSP.
      • For examinations, this is typically dealt with by the professor. If a student comes to you about a disability-related problem, tell them to contact the professor and/or Head GSI.
      • In Alex's class, students take quizzes in section twice during the semester. Alex usually lets DSP students know that taking the quiz normally has turned out successfully in most cases, since it is designed to last well under the allotted time. However, if students insist on it, then you must accommodate them. If possible, the exam may be extended in situ, or a small group can repair to another room. Otherwise DSP can help with arranging for a proctored exam with additional time (Most general solution: borrow another GSI's quiz and give it in your office during office hours.)
      • If a student in your section is having major difficulties with the course but seems intelligent and really is trying, consider talking to him/her about being diagnosed for a learning disability. Obviously this is something to be dealt with delicately.
      • FAQ for faculty and staff about DSP
  • Sexual Harassment
    • Should be common sense - don't get involved. Power difference → potential for serious problems.
    • Policies on Sexual Harassment - Title IX: Sex Discrimination and Harassment (UCB Equity Standards and Compliance)
    • If you see something between your students that you think might qualify as harassment, you're not required to do anything (as I read the policy), but keep in mind that you're the authority figure in the room. You can report instances of harassment, but that's a fairly severe step. A reasonable start might be talking to the parties involved informally and individually. You should probably find someone with experience in dealing with such situations.
      • One person we suggest is Colette Patt (colette@berkeley) who “works directly with the dean on issues associated with diversity in science” and is supposed to be an excellent resource for harassment-related issues as well diversity issues.
• Tons of information can be found on this list of resources (all of which are mentioned during the Ethics Course).
• It is very unlikely that a serious issue will come up as long as you use basic common sense. If it does, know where to turn for help!