Mass Scheduling Teams with the Scheduling Optimizer

Translating Teams from Mass Scheduling to Schedule Pro

The Mass Scheduling and Schedule Pro components of SASIxp both include support for cross-disciplinary teams, but through different coding structures. Schedule Pro defines teaming constraints through the use of "same teacher group" rules linking teamed course pairs while Mass Scheduling uses the "Team Number" field in the Scheduling Sections atom to specify which sections belong to the same team.

Procedure

This procedure sets up teaming specifications in Schedule Pro as recognized by the Scheduling Optimizer based on a section team structure defined in Mass Scheduling.

• Open the Tables atom and select the table TEA - Team. Note or print the list of entries in this table. A sample TEA - Team table is shown in the screen snap below.

• Still in the Tables atom, for each entry in the TEA - Team table, create a corresponding entry in the TGP - Teacher Groups table. You may choose to use different (but related) codes for the Teacher Groups. These codes may be composed of up to three characters; they are not restricted to be numeric digits as are the Team number codes and it is recommended that you include one or more alphabetic characters to avoid creating a Teacher Group code that duplicates a teacher ID. The following screen snap shows the TGP - Teacher Group table derived from the above TEA - Team table.

• When all Teacher Group entries are defined, click Save, then click OK to confirm the data entry and finally, click Close to close the Tables atom.

• Use the Query atom to enter and run the following DISPLAY Query. This Query displays teamed teachers and the team(s) to which they belong based on team numbers defined for sections they teach.
  
  DISPLAY ATCH ASMS Unique LastName TchNum Tchr_Group[0] TeamNum IF TeamNum <> 0

• Open the Teacher Atom and select the Schedule Pro page. Navigate to each teamed teacher in turn, using the list generated by the Query in the previous step. Using the information listed for the teacher in the generated Query data, enter the appropriate teacher group code(s) for the selected teacher. (Note: Some teachers may be members of more than one teacher group.) Enter the teacher group codes by selecting the appropriate entry from the pulldown list in the Group 1 through Group 4 fields. Click Save, then OK to confirm the changes for each teacher.

• The above data entry process can be partly automated by running a CHANGE Query for each team. The CHANGE Query is as follows, with changes for the assigned Teacher Group (Tchr_Group[0]) code and the Team Number (TeamNum) value in the "IF" clause used to select the teachers in the current team:

CHANGE ATCH ASMS LastName TchNum Tchr_Group[0]= "09A" TeamNum IF TeamNum = 101

• Verify that teachers are correctly teamed by rerunning the DISPLAY Query above and verifying that the teacher groups in teacher records correspond to the original team numbers. Make corrections if needed using the Teacher atom.

• When all Teacher Groups have been entered, close both the Teacher atom and the Query atom by clicking Close in each.

Define a set of links which connects each group of courses to which teaming is to apply. Each link defines a relationship between sections in a selected pair of courses. To join a list of courses for teaming purposes, do the following steps:

• For each related group of courses (e.g. Grade 9 core courses) to which teaming applies, select one course (the "anchor") which all students to be teamed request. If necessary, create a course with one section per team with all sections meeting outside the normal school day and use this "Team" course as the anchor, adding it to the request list of all students who are to be teamed.
• Once the anchor course is decided, open the Course atom, select the "Schedule Pro" page and click the "Link" button.
• For each course in the group other than the anchor course, repeat the following steps:
  • With the Course Link atom active, click the Data menu and select "Add Course Link".
  • Enter the course ID for the course to be included in the teaming group in the "A Course" position and the course ID for the "anchor course" in the "B Course" position (the choice of "A" and "B" course does not affect the Scheduling Optimizer, but may make a difference if you are also using Schedule Pro's loader; see Notes section below). Click Save and OK to confirm you wish to add the link record. The link record is created.
  • With the Course Link form still open, click the "CL Rules" button. A form with the list of available Class Loader rules appears; none of the rules show as active.
  • Click in the Priority column on line 15 to display rule options for the "Assign A with same teacher group as B" loader rule. Activate this rule by selecting "Must" (if you want to allow the Scheduling Optimizer to drop this rule to attempt to resolve conflicts, select "Try to" instead).
  • Click Save for the Class Loader Rules form, then click Save for the Course Link form and click OK to confirm the change.

• When all required links have been defined, click Close to close the Course Link form, and click Close again to close the Course atom.

With the above setup, simulations run with the Scheduling Optimizer will observe teaming restrictions in student schedules. The "Team" field defined in the Scheduling Sections atom does not affect the Scheduling Optimizer but can be used to verify that teamed courses have been correctly scheduled for individual students.

 

Notes

• The "Team" field in the Scheduling Sections atom is not automatically maintained if sections are added or changes affecting the teacher group of the teacher assigned to a section are made. For example, if the teacher assigned to a section is changed the "Team" field is not automatically updated to reflect a different teacher group to which the new teacher belongs. Teaming will still work correctly, but if the "Team" field for a changed section is not manually updated, individual students may appear to be cross-teamed.
• When you open atoms for the first time in this procedure, you may see one or more messages indicating that referenced files do not exist; click Create in response to each such message.
• The order of the two courses in a "same teacher group" link ("A" course and "B" course) does not affect the Scheduling Optimizer. However, in some cases, the order can make a difference to the Schedule Pro loader. If you may be using the Schedule Pro loader (including its Interactive Student Scheduler feature) with teaming defined by use of "same teacher group" rules as described in this document, it is recommended that you enter the anchor course as the second, or "B" course of the course link to avoid a potential problem.

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