WAGS and the Honorarium Program - Manage Microlabs and Measure Student Progress

1. WAGS and the Honorarium Program In this session you will: • Learn how to use the Web Automated Grading System (WAGS) • Register your students • Assign microlabs and monitor student progress • Learn about our Honorarium Program • Use microlabs with your students • Measure long term retention on exams • Have students complete an online attitude survey • Honorarium will vary depending on level of participation; in the past $1000 was typical

2. Web Automated Grading System • WAGS (Web Automated Grading System) is an administrative tool that allows you manage the use of microlabs for your students • WAGS enables you to • Enroll students into the system • Activate or deactivate each lab session • Monitor completion of lab activities; this can be done on a real-time basis during class • View the number of attempts made by each student • Download student performance in a CSV format

3. The Initial Screen

4. An Introduction to WAGS • There are two types of accounts: administrator and student • Selecting an administrator task

5. Managing Logical Microlabs • Select Logical Management; click on the appropriate Subject and Group. Check desired exercises and then assign them. Your labs should be visible.

6. Now You Try It • Your task is to make visible the two logical microlabs you liked the most when using microlabs during session one; try to select two labs from different topic domains • Select Logical Management from the admin pull down menu • Clear any existing assigned exercises • Select the subject and group for your first lab, check the exercise, and add to selected • Go to the group for the second lab using the subject and group and add it to selected • Now click add to assigned and exit admin mode • Go to the problems tab on the main page, select logical labs and verify the labs you just assigned are visible

7. Managing Code Magnet Labs • Select Magnet Management; click on the appropriate Group. Check desired exercises and then assign them. Your labs should be visible.

8. Now You Try It • Your task is to make visible the two code magnet microlabs you liked the most when using microlabs during session one; try to select two labs from different topic domains • Select Magnet Management from the admin pull down menu • Clear any existing assigned exercises • Select the topic and check the desire exercise, and add to selected • Go to the topic for the second lab and assign it • Exit admin mode • Go to the problems tab on the main page, select magnet labs and verify the labs you just assigned are visible

9. Student Management • Register students by uploading a CVS file (e.g., Excel) with Last Name, First Name and Email • You can also reset student passwords • By clicking on an individual student name, you can view the progress on various labs for that student.

10. Review Problems • By selecting Review Problems, you will get a list of logical labs and code magnet labs that have been assigned • You can monitor performance in real time • This is useful in lecture. You may decide to go back to lecture mode once most students have completed the lab; the remaining students can complete the lab after class. • You can download a CSV file giving student results for a particular lab; this can be pasted into a spreadsheet program

11. Honorarium Program – 1 • Appalachian State University, Stony Brook University, and UNC Greensboro have financial resources to support use of microlabs in courses • We have committed a minimum of $40,000 to be shared by all workshop participants who qualify • Workshops in Fall 2014 were taught in New York City (November 15) and Atlanta (November 22) • Workshops in 2015 were at the SIGCSE and ICER conferences and at North Carolina Central • This is the final workshop for this project

12. Honorarium Program – 2 • To be eligible for this honorarium, you must: • register your students through the Web Automated Grading System (WAGS) at the start of the semester and indicate what labs you anticipate using; our technical staff leader, Scott Shuffler, can help (shuffleres@appstate.edu) • use a reasonable number of distinct microlabs (10 or more) • require microlabs to be part of course activities for all students • put some problems on your exams to measure knowledge retention • have your students complete an attitude survey (administered online by our external evaluator) near the end of the semester • We anticipate the average honorarium will be $1000 or more depending on the level of activity

13. Discussion • What questions do you have concerning the WAGS management system? • You have seen a list of many available labs. Are you currently teaching a class or be teaching a class next academic year that could benefit from using microlabs? • Code magnet labs are also available for Prolog and Python in addition to Java • Do you have questions about the honorarium program?