Course Setup

This section breaks down precisely what must be done each semester to get a new instance running.

1 - Prepare Canvas

• Crosslist any additional sections: If you are teaching more than one section, we recommend you cross-list them so that you only need to be editing one course instance. Instructions are provided by Canvas.

• Import most recent version of canvas course: You can find the most recent version of the Sneks curriculum from here (you will need to contact the course developers for the password). Instructions are provided by Canvas.

• Fix LTI configurations (update visibility to be public, fix shared secret and key)

  • BlockPy: Consumer key and shared secret are here. No further configuration is necessary if you are leaving the assignments unchanged.

  • Web-CAT: You will need to contact the Web-CAT admins to get your course set up on the Web-CAT system. Instructions for pairing assignments are given here. If you have taught the course previously, you should be able to reuse the assignments from previous semesters; otherwise you will need to configure the assignments yourself with the provided unit tests.

• Setup Piazza: visit the Piazza tab and step through the options

• Update Syllabus: The syllabus is a Page, but is accessible through the left side navigation.

• Establish Open/Due/Lock Dates: If you have multiple sections, we recommend this tool (requires some very light command line expertise, Python). If you do not, then you can use this tool (all done via Google Sheets).

• Publish Canvas course

• Make an announcement to students: Introduce yourself and explain how to access the Canvas course.

2 - Organize Course Staff

• Send introductory email to staff: Introduce yourself to the TAs and let them know your expectations.

  • Arrange staff meeting: You should choose a common time period to meet with the TAs. We recommend weekly meetings. It can be difficult to schedule all the TAs for a single meeting, so you might want to schedule two time slots.

  • Arrange office hours: Solicit timeslots from the TAs for their office hours. Two strategies we have used: give them a spreadsheet and have the TAs sign up for times, or collect all the hours and assign timeslots yourself.

• Enroll TAs in Canvas course

• Update course staff page

• Enroll TAs in Staff Mailing List (e.g., through Google Groups)

3 - Visit Classroom

• Check out the physical room you’ll be teaching in, to make sure it will work for your purposes.