Database for Day in the Lab
Basic Information:
The Day in the Lab schedule looks something like this:
8:30 – 9:05 kids arrive: registration, games and snacks
9:05 – 9:15 welcome
9:20 – 10:20 Workshop 1
10:25 – 11:25 Workshop 2
11: 30 – 11:50 Lunch
11:55 – 12: 55 Workshop 3
12: 55 – 1:30 cake and awards (rooms 333 & 316)
There are 115-140 kids who come from participating schools to attend the event and experience hands-on, inquiry-based science, math and computer classes led by Hampshire students and faculty.
Scenario:
Students are sent a list of approximately 15 choices of labs and workshops that they can participate in at Day in the Lab. They select their top 5 choices based on lab titles and short descriptions. Once received, I have to place everyone into a total of 3 workshops.
I always give students their #1 choice. I try and give them their 2nd or 3rd choice, and generally am able to place them in at least one of their other top 5 choices.
Other challenges include:
Having a decent balance of boys to girls in any given workshop
Try to integrate kids from different schools by splitting up groups of students who already know each other into different time slots, so that there are not too many kids in any given workshops from any given school/class.
Not having more than 10-14 kids in any one lab
Some lab leaders request smaller classes (due to space or equipment constraints) meaning that some labs are inherently bigger/smaller to start with.
Some lab leaders choose to only run two labs instead of three, making the number of total available labs less during certain times of the day
Some workshops are very popular and get the majority of requests
Occasionally there are students with special needs (language or physical disabilities) that need to be placed into labs with someone else from their school/class.
What I do now:
I use excel to create a spread-sheet listing students names first. I then go through every “application,” giving everyone their first choice. Popular workshops fill up quickly. I then go through the applications a second and third time trying to accommodate everyone’s requests. As you can imagine, this takes hours and doesn’t allow me to easily split groups up to balance gender or try and avoid cliques.
What I need:
A database which enables me to easily and quickly sort workshop attendees, gives them their top 1-2 choices, and has criteria to balance gender and school affiliation.
I could ask teachers to do some of the work ahead of time.
Thanks!
Science Outreach Coordinator