Teams

Responsibilities

For each week (except for project proposal and presentation weeks), one team will be responsible for Leading the class, one team for writing a Blog post on the class topic, and one team for arranging food. See the Schedule for team responsibilities.

Leading Team. The team responsible for leading a class should:

  • Two weeks before the scheduled class, meet briefly with me (Dave) to discuss plan for the class. You should decide on a team leader for this class, who will be the one responsible for making sure everyone on the team knows what they are doing and coordinating the team’s efforts.

  • The Monday the week of the class, at least a few representatives from the team should come to my office hours to discuss the plan for the class. You should come prepared to this meeting with suggested papers and ideas about how to present them.

  • No later than the Monday before class, send out to the class Slack group the preparation materials for the class. This can include links to papers to read, but could also include exercises to do or software to install and experiment with, etc.

  • Day of class: lead an interesting, engaging, and illuminating class! This is a 2.5 hour class, so it can’t just be a series of unconnected, dull presentations. You need to think of things to do in class to make it more worthwhile and engaging.

  • After class: help the Blogging team by providing them with your materials, answering their questions, and reviewing their write-up.

Blogging Team. The team responsible for blogging a class should:

  • The week before the scheduled class, develop a team plan for how to manage the blogging. One team member should be designated the team leader for the blogging, and post on slack so we know who is responsible. The blogging leader is responsible for making sure the team is well coordinated and everyone knows what they are doing and follows through on this.

  • During class, participate actively in the class, and take detailed notes (this can be distributed among the team).

  • By the Tuesday following class, have a draft of the blog post ready, and share it with the rest of the class (including the leading team and coordinators) for comments. Details on how to prepare the blog post are on the Blogging Mechanics page.

  • By the next Friday (one week after the class), have a final version of the blog post ready to add to the course site.

Feeding Team. The team responsible for food should:

  • Plan among yourselves what food to bring and who is responsible. If you want to use my credit card to buy food, borrow it. You can stop by Thursday afternoon to pick it up from me.

  • Bring something yummy and something with caffiene, but not too messy or disruptive, to class. A simple choice is to get a coffee container and bagels from the bagel shop in Rice Hall (but make sure to get the order in early enough to be ready before class). More adventurous choices are encouraged.

  • Make sure to clean up the room at the end of class. If we get caught leaving a mess, we probably will not be allowed to have food anymore.

  • Save the receipts to get reimbursed, and take care of the reimbursement. This is easiest if you just borrow my credit card and then all you need to do is send me an image of the receipt (or hand me a physical receipt).