Homework

Students are responsible for submitting (to completion of minimum tasks) 80% or more of their homework by the end of each associated course unit.

The goal in grading as complete/incomplete is to check that students are working hard and making at least the minimum progress in order to build and present a viable project and be prepared for the subsequent unit.

Instructors may assign earlier deadlines for assignments to support students in completing assignments in a timely and phased manner.

After a unit has been completed, students cannot make up past assignments unless specifically outlined as part of a student success plan.

If a student does not complete an assignment by the assigned due date, the instructional team will check in and discuss plan to complete by the end of the unit

If a student does not complete at least 80% of assignments by the end of the unit: Initiate student success plan with 72-hour extension to complete missing homework assignments.

If a student completes the assignments, continue in the remainder of course.

If a student does not complete the assignments, no longer on track to graduate. Will need to be counseled to withdraw or audit the course.

Homework

Homework will take more time for some, and less time for others. It is up to you how you want to plan your time for a given exercise. That said, we expect homework to take around four (4) hours per week, most weeks.

Turn in something. Turning in an incomplete assignment is infinitely better than turning in nothing at all. We can’t get you the help you need unless we see what you’re working on. That said, unexcused late homework will not be accepted. If you have issues submitting homework please let us know.

Grade updates will be sent out weekly, and please feel free to message the instructors about any specific assignment.

Each assignment will ask you to learn or research something that has explicitly not been covered in class. Learning how to learn is fundamental to becoming a successful developer.

Due Dates and Grading

You will generally be assigned homework after every class. Homework is due before the next class starts.

So if an exercise is assigned on Monday, it is due Thursday (the day of the next class) before class starts at 6:30pm. If an exercise is assigned on Thursday, it is due Monday before class starts.

Each assignment contains instructions on how to submit it. Generally, you will fork and clone the repository and make your submission with a pull request.

Plagiarized homework will not be accepted. Concerned about what is considered plagiarism? Consult an instructor.

In order to receive a “Complete” grade on an assignment, your submission must contain functional code that goes towards solving the assignment prompt.

If you are unable to provide any code that goes towards solving the assignment prompt, you should, at the least, provide the following:

• Provide a pseudocode solution of how you would logically approach the prompt
• Indicate what specific concepts and tasks you are struggling with
• Include specific questions you would like an instructor to answer
• Indicate at least two resources you have found via Google that you think could be useful towards addressing the prompt

You will still receive an “Incomplete” for this submission, which counts for 0% of the assignment. However, it’s very much to your advantage to get this done at a minimum so instructors can address your concerns before the unit continues and keep you from falling behind.

If you do not turn in an assignment by the due date or don’t meet the requisites for an “Incomplete,” it will be marked as “Missing.” A missing counts for 0% of the assignment.

If you would like to make up an assignment marked as “Incomplete”, you may do so by turning it in late, up to one week from the original deadline.

Missing assignments may not be made up, so always turn something in!

While this policy may seem strict, it is very much designed for your benefit. In the past, we’ve experimented with more relaxed submission policies and students end up in a situation where they haven’t submitted enough homework to graduate and there isn’t enough time to make up missing assignments.

What to include with your submission

On every submission – that is, on every pull request (or, sometimes, issue) – please include:

• Comfort score, out of 5
• Completeness score, out of 5

Feedback will not be given on assignments by an instructor or TA unless you specifically request it. Requests for feedback, however, are highly encouraged. In order to get feedback on your assignment, when submitting your pull request or issue, please ask specific questions, ending them with a question mark. We receive lots of assignments, and we rely on questions marks to provide a visual cue that we should stop and address something! Be sure to point us to the lines of code where you encountered issues and what you’ve already tried to solve your problems.

For example:

Any thoughts as to why the function on line 49 kept returning ‘NaN’? I Googled the error and found that I need to convert my inputs to integers but I’m not sure where to apply the method.

The Submission Process

All homework assignments will have their own Github repository with specific instructions on how to submit your assignment. Generally, you will be asked to follow this process:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Then, clone your fork to your computer.
3. Complete your work inside it the repository.
4. Push your completed work to your forked repository.
5. Finally, make a pull request to the upstream repository (i.e. the original repository).

If you run in to errors or any hiccups with this process start by researching the issue. If you’re still stuck after 20 minutes, ask an instructor for help!