Organizing the assignment notebook

SPU 26: Organizing the Assignment Notebook

Explorers, navigators on sailing vessels, naturalists, and many others relied on notebooks to document their experiences.   We will use a notebook to document assignments in SPU 26.  I urge students to take class notes (lectures, sections) in an independent notebook, and use the assignment notebook for notes and answers germane to the assignments.   These will serve as the primary medium for assessing the students’ progress in the course.

In order to create uniformity in the course, we will all be using the same notebook – A “National Brand Computation Notebook” 43-648, which has a 4x4 quad scheme, with 4 units to the inch.  This should be available at the Coop along with other materials for the course.  This is also available online, and at stationery stores, like the one in Harvard Square.

As a general rule – the contents of the notebook should be orderly and legible.  You can have scratch work in it, but the main contents should be something you can look at five years hence and understand what was entered.

In order to make it easier to grade and establish uniformity, I want students to adhere to the same format with the assignment notebook. In some cases, write in pen (e.g. front cover), in other places where you may have to make erasures, use a pencil.

Front Cover

Under “Department”, write SPU 26: Primitive Navigation

Under “Subject” – leave this blank until you have a TF assigned – once the TF is assigned, write in that name.

Under “Name” – write your name  First Last

Under “Address” – write an e-mail address that is best to reach you

First page

Include any other identifying information.   Imagine that you accidentally left the notebook somewhere – put in information that would help a person finding the notebook to reach you and/or return it promptly and efficiently.

So – for example, at the top,  “If found, please contact __________” at the following address

You can put in phone numbers, a dorm address.

Or…”If found, please return to…”  at the following address.

If you want anonymity, you can use Professor Huth’s address:

Return to Professor Huth – mailbox in Lyman Jefferson Laboratory, or

Prof. John Huth

236 Lyman Laboratory, Harvard University

17 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138

617 495 8144

Use your judgement.   This is to help get a lost notebook back to you.

Next set of 12 pages

Reserve these as a table of contents for the rest of the notebook.  You can call out pages of scratch work/random notes, and then the actual assignments.   For example:

1     1.)   Scratch work for Assignment 1: pp. 20-22

2     2.)   Answers for Assignment 1: pp. 23-27

And so forth

Entries for assignments and scratch work

Entry headings

Any time you make entries, try to start on a fresh page, and put the date and time at the top.  As we get more sophisticated with time, (or even at the beginning) – you might want to note the time zone.   At the start of the semester, we are in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), but on Sunday, November 6^th at 02:00, we switch to Eastern Standard Time (EST).   If you use a 12 hour clock, include AM or PM:

1 Oct. 2016 2:30 PM EDT

If you want to become more sophisticated, use a 24 hour time designation:  00:00 through 23:59.

For example, 2:30 PM on October 1 2016 would have an entry:

1 Oct. 2016 14:30 EDT

Finally – if you want to hit the high point, express time in Universal Time (UT).  For the purposes of this course, UT is the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).   UT is used in making ship log entries, as 1.) ships cross multiple time zones, so this will work anywhere in the world, and 2.) UT is employed to find longitude.    EDT is 4 hours after UT, so the above entry could be expressed as:

1 Oct. 2016 14:30 EDT (UT-4)

EST is 5 hours after UT, so an equivalent entry in November might be

21 Nov. 2016 14:30 EST (UT-5)

Finally you could include both EDT and UT (most preferred)

1 Oct. 2016 14:30 EDT, 18:30 UT 

Description

Make the description of the entry something legible so that the TF (or you five years hence) can understand what is going on.  

For a scratch entry, you might say:

Assignment 4 – scratch notes on walk to CfA – angles and paces along path.

Track 1 – 20 paces at 180 degrees magnetic.

Track 2 – 43 paces at 273 degrees magnetic.

For answers to assignments, make clear that this is where the TF should be reading your answers, perhaps referring back to scratch notes.   Make clear what it is you are referring to in writing.

For example, if Assignment 4, part 1a asks you to make a map of the walk from the Chapel to the CfA, label it:

Assignment 4 – 1a: map of walk from Chapel to CfA

It’s a good idea to add some blank pages after an assignment to allow for more material to be added. 

Appendices

Reserve space at the end of the notebook for a set of Appendices. These should not have date/time stamps on them, but should have a clear description.   With a 154 pages total in the notebook, you might want to start the appendices around page 100 to 120 or so.

Have a clear heading at the top – examples:

Appendix 1: summary of pace lengths

Appendix 2: angular widths of configurations of hands and fingers

Appendix 5: Master map of stars

And so forth.