Looking for input on Classroom Idea

A repeated theme that I see on this board is always talking about documentation. Last year for the final for my class, the students paired up and created their own program for their own make believe machine. After writing and testing the logic, they fully documented all parts including: Hardware, Software, Ladder Logic, Rung Comments, General Operation, Basic Logic Troubleshooting and all tags used in both the PLC and Operator Interface if used. The papers were submitted with a code instead of names, shuffled and re-distributed around the classroom with a grading sheet. I laid out how the grading was to be marked and other classmates then read the documentation and tried to see if they were put in the position to have to put this together again, could they?!? Their grade was based on several parts of what I said above and they were graded by how well each section was put together.

What I'm looking for is do you (members of industry) think this is a valuable tool and I should continue the practice or do you think I should scrap it. Also if you're a teacher would you do this. If anybody wants any more information let me know, I'll pass it along.

Thanks much for your help!

John

Vote #1 in favor.

This is a superb lesson idea. Don't ever drop it.

Whenever you are faced with being a stranger to a piece of code, it takes a while to figure out what the <deleted> the programmer was thinking.

And that includes code you've written yourself - after 6 months (often less), your own code looks just as odd as someone else's.

The only hope you have is with the annotation. The hardest part is not to annotate what the logic does, but what it should do. I can read the code to determine what it does. But I have a harder time reading the programmers mind when he crafted the plate of spagetti staring before me.

And having your students see what it's like to try to follow someone else's annotation - BRILLIANT!

You can't get more real-world than that.

Re: Vote #1 in favor. NOT!!!!

Allen Nelson said:

And having your students see what it's like to try to follow someone else's annotation - BRILLIANT!

You can't get more real-world than that.

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I would hate to have a dummy grade my work. The dummywould never understand the concepts. Give me a jury of my peers and don't tell me one student is a peer of another. We all know better.

I think it is best that the teacher grade the work. At least the judgement will be more uniform and informed.

John
This is a great idea! The students will be able to learn and understand real-world circumstances. How I wish schools practical lessons were that interesting!
When I was in school, we were only given small group projects to start from scratch. NO help from tutors or instructors. And 5 months to complete the whole design, construction, troubleshooting, documentation and presentation. By the end of the time limit, your project has to work or at least in partial working order for it to be graded, or you'll fail or get maybe a D.
Peter, the aim of that assignment is to judge how well the student can read and understand a stranger's work. the teacher will grade the students ability to decipher.

regards
Sherine T.

Re: Re: Vote #1 in favor. NOT!!!!

Peter Nachtwey said:

I would hate to have a dummy grade my work. The dummywould never understand the concepts. Give me a jury of my peers and don't tell me one student is a peer of another. We all know better.]

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Sorry Peter, I have to disagree

Sometimes I am the dummy trying to get a machine going that has over complicated code written for it, that I have to decipher under pressure to restart the plant's production....

The simpler a code is written, the easier it is for the next guy...

I think it is best that the teacher grade the work. At least the judgement will be more uniform and informed.

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If you re-read the original post...The teacher outlined the marking scale.. I would assume (a dangerous word) that he would check the overall marking before awarding grades.

I vote in favour of the lesson concept!!

Ian

jolio ST said:

John
Peter, the aim of that assignment is to judge how well the student can read and understand a stranger's work. the teacher will grade the students ability to decipher.

regards
Sherine T.

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As long as the teacher is grading my work. The teacher should be able to grade the other students ability to decipher too. I am not even sure that teachers are qualfied to grade. I have yet to see a student do the traffic light problem the way I would do it. I would hate to be given an bad grade because the other student grading me didn't understand indirect or indexed addressing. In fact I would raise a fuss that you wouldn't believe.

Originally posted by Peter Nachtwey
In fact I would raise a fuss that you wouldn't believe.

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You must be one scary student.

I'm sure teachers are well qualified to grade a student's work, at an educational level. Of course, real-world situations will be a lot harsher, but students are learning, one can't pit a student with a real professional. That would sound like bullying.

regards
Sherine T.

John,

This is an excellent exercise.

Not being a programmer, I would consider it safe to say that many of the programmers, including our own programmer has to deal with other people's code. Without any form of commenting, you basically have nothing.

Whenever we develop a program for a customer, we make certain to comment each rung of the program, so that they will have an understanding of what we did for them.

I would hope that the grading by your students is a percentage of the overall grade for the project. The reason I say this, is that a student following the methods of the program, does not have nearly the experience as someone who has been doing it for a number of years. As the instructor, you have far more experience in what to look for.

I also hope that when you grade their projects, you are providing feed back as to their commenting skills. Someone can be an excellent programmer but poor at commenting code. As with programming, commenting is a skill that needs to be developed.

All in all, having the students deal with another persons work is an excellent exercise in that they will be doing it many times in the "real world". I would most certainly continue this exercise.

Hope this helps.

God Bless,

I have to agree with Peter, teacher--YOU grade my work. The students grading the work is way too subjective, where if you grade the work, the baseline is always the same. Having said that, you can grade the work based on the ability of students to follow a particular program, as long as you give it the final once-over yourself

how about a 50/50 split? 50% of the final grade coming from "peers" and 50 % from the instructor. I've used that method before with decent results.

And depending on the instructor, his/her grading, especially of project-type work, can be very subjective too. Seen it too many times.

As long as the student's input to the final grade is limited to that aspect of the project which he/she is qualified to evaluate, it's an excellent exercise.

As Peter rightly points out, asking one student to pass judgement on another's choice of programming technique is unfair to both. However, asking one student to judge the clarity and thoroughness of another's documentatation is both fair and worthwhile.

It's fair because if the documentation is unclear to another student, it will probably be unclear to anyone else who has to deal with it. It's worthwhile because it exposes the student doing the evaluation to alternative methods of approaching the same task.

As a further safeguard against a lazy or clueless student assigning a bad grade simply because he/she didn't understand the programming technique, the student doing the grading should be required to to write a justification of his/her choice of grade.

overall a great idea including having the students look studying the other persons documentation this will help show them the importants of documentation as well as show them that there is indeed multiple ways to accomplish the same thing

Good idea. It is always good to make the documentation as complete as possible. One method of discovery is to allow their peers(fellow students) see if they can understand the work through the accompanying documentation. I assume all of the students had different problems.

GREAT IDEA! I think it should be project with three parts to it...

Part 1) The prof grades the work, keeps it seperate from the work, then turns it over to a student who grades the work (without ever seeing the prof's grade) and writes a justification as to why.

Part 2) The prof grades the grader (yes, another grade) and adjusts his original grade for the work (ONLY IF HE THIKS HE SHOULD).

Part 3) The prof turns over the original work, the original grade he gave it, the grade given by the student (along with the justification), and his final grade to the original student to review.

If I am repeating something that has been posted, I apologize, even with new glasses , I don't see so great.

Anyway, documentation. Great Idea.

In the real world, documentation I have to gather, and some or all is supplied imcludes:

PLC Program
Input drawing(s)
Output Drawing(s)
Overall schematic
Composite drawing (shows input device, input, across from output(s) controlled, and output device
Parts List / Bill of Material
Suppliers
FAX of parts requests or price requests,
Operating Instruction, Service Data
MMI, or Display (Marque) programming

When possible, I like to put troubleshooting programming in, which would be shouwn on a display, or on an unused output LED

I see so many people new to the field, they can't read a schematic, little alone draw one. don't have a clue the difference between a BOM / LOM (for those who may not know, in house terminology Bill vs List). While they often won't be sourcing parts, or pricing them, why not.

Anyway, at least some educators are doing their best to do it right.

So, any new requests for a flip flop or traffic program tonight?

regards.....casey