Learning is full of mistakes, and you should not be penalized because you are learning. For this reason, anything that we consider “formative”, you will have the ability to resubmit multiple times. This also means you technically will have the free to turn assignments in late without penalty, because everyone needs accommodation from time to time.
We want you to be competent in the information, and we all learn at slightly different rates. With that said, it is highly recommended you follow the due date, else you will fall behind - and end up not completing all assignments. However, if you need to take advantage of accommodations, you can find the hard deadline by clicking the assignment tab in canvas.
Please note it is impossible to progress in this class without submitting something due to module locking!
How to find the due dates + accommodations date
With every assignment, you will see two dates
Due Date:
This is the recommended due date, the one that will show up in the modules
Available Until:
This is how long you have to turn in the assignment for full credit
(no late penalty). However, once that deadline passes, it is a hard deadline.
We call this our accommodation/late window. This window includes accommodations, and is often more than
standard accommodations.
Ignore zybooks due dates. We had to put something in there, but all due dates follow canvas.
Grade Scale
You will notice most assignments are worth 4 points, with a few others scaled higher weighting those assignments are more important. In general, the points have the following meaning
4 - Exceeds Standards
3 - Meets Standards
2 - Partially Proficient
1 - Not Proficient
0 - Not submitted, not following directions, etc
The more important assignments are on a similar scale of 4 increments (8 points, 16 points, etc).
Formative Assignments
The following assignments are considered formative to your learning experience. Meaning, they are your chance to make mistakes and redo them.
Formative assignments intentionally make up the majority of your grade, which means anyone can at least earn pass the course as long as they are willing to commit to doing the work correctly no matter how many times it takes. The goal is for you to learn the content, so cheating, rushing through, or guessing doesn’t help you.
The formative assessments are as follows:
- Knowledge Checks
- Labs & Practical Projects / Longer Homework
- Reading Assignments
- Unit Exams 1-3
You will have both a coding exam/quiz and canvas exam. However, as these are meant to be formative, you should be able to retake them. However, research shows just allowing immediate retakes doesn’t help with your understanding, so in order to open exam retakes, you must first show 100% in knowledge checks, readings, and 80% in your lab score for that unit. Basically, demonstrate to us that you studied, and we will open up the exam for additional attempts. If you want further attempts, we will have you meet with a TA to go over what you missed before the next attempt.
Summative Assignments
Summative assignments are how you demonstrate what you really learned in the course, and sets up your final grade the most. You are not allowed to resubmit the Summative assignments, except for your Final Practical Project where you will be writing an entire program from scratch. The summative assignments are broken up as follows.
- Final Practical Project - your demonstration that you can write a fully working program with multiple parts
- Final Reflection - your demonstration to yourself what you learned (and an easy 4 points)
- Final Coding Exam - submission attempt of a small program, can you get it right on a single submit?
- Final Exam - your demonstration of what you can recall and solve in an exam environment.
Your grade on the summative assignments will often determine your final grade for the course. Take your time and do them correctly.