Blocks

[Zsolt Udvari]

Hi all!

I've some weird constraints (thanks to our educational system ), and I don't know how can I "implement" them in FET.
So, my constraints:
1. I should "block" some activites. E.g. act. A, B, C should be in one block (the order doesn't matter). It would be good A,B,C or B,C,A or.. This constraint is similar to "2 activites are consecutive", only 3 insted of 2. I think that the half-solution is that A cons. B and B cons. C, so the good solutions are ABC and CBA. But there are 4 solutions.
2. This is harder. These blocks must be in follower days (e.g. Monday and Tuesday). Maybe a "max days between activities" constraint would be the solution.

Any suggestions?

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hi all!

I've some weird constraints (thanks to our educational system ), and I don't know how can I "implement" them in FET.
So, my constraints:
1. I should "block" some activites. E.g. act. A, B, C should be in one block (the order doesn't matter). It would be good A,B,C or B,C,A or.. This constraint is similar to "2 activites are consecutive", only 3 insted of 2. I think that the half-solution is that A cons. B and B cons. C, so the good solutions are ABC and CBA. But there are 4 solutions.
2. This is harder. These blocks must be in follower days (e.g. Monday and Tuesday). Maybe a "max days between activities" constraint would be the solution.

Any suggestions?

For the point no. 1., I think you mean "grouped" (not ordered). Yes, adding it BA and BC allows only 2 solutions instead of 6. But you may be able to find a solution even in this way.

For point 2., maybe you can try to fix these activities to special days.

Yes, indeed, I think you need 2 new constraints:

1. Constraint 3 activities grouped. Are there always 3, or there can be more?
2) Constraint max days between activities.

I'll think about it, I am not sure I can do them. Maybe you or a larger organization could sponsor/support financially the development for these new constraints, as living out of free software is very difficult.

[Zsolt Udvari]

For point 2., maybe you can try to fix these activities to special days.

Yes, I've found this solution but it is difficult (I should very carefully) to choose two good days (because of teachers time-constraints).

1. Constraint 3 activities grouped. Are there always 3, or there can be more?

Only 2 or 3. Not more.

Maybe you or a larger organization could sponsor/support financially the development for these new constraints, as living out of free software is very difficult.

Our school won a "little" money to make this "special education form" (I'm very sceptic about it) and I hope (I'll say to director ) that should donate my work (and yours too ) because this method isn't easy (I'm working on this timetable without any additional money too).

[Volker Dirr]

E.g. act. A, B, C should be in one block (the order doesn't matter).

I am interested about that idea. Can you please explain what activities do you block and why?

[Zsolt Udvari]

E.g. act. A, B, C should be in one block (the order doesn't matter).

I am interested about that idea. Can you please explain what activities do you block and why?

I don't want and don't agree this.
In this case A, B and C are physics, chemistry and biology. Some man (without teaching experience) say that this would be good and hungarian pupils are again good I don't know what in other countries are, but here the "magic word" is the competence.
Exactly the "clever people" behind the desktops say that we should teaching in "blocks" (e.g. not 2 physics per week, 2 days), e.g. the students will have first week 6P 0B and 0C, second week 0P 6B and 0C, third week 0P 0B and 6C. And they say that this is the solution to all problems
I hope this was what you are asked.

[Volker Dirr]

yes, that was what i want to know. idea sound ok to me.

i am not sure if grouping is the correct way to add your feature.

doesn't mean your idea this:
you need an activity with duration 6 in all classes of one year at the same time with 3 teachers, so that guys can swap internaly.
it is very easy if you have only 3 classes.
you just need an activity with duration 6 (maybe 2+2+2, so you also have consecutive. maybe 2+1+1+1+1. i don't understand at the moment why your idea need it 3+3, but you can also do if you think that is better.) with your 3 teachers (bio, chm. and phy.) and as students set the whole year.

i am not sure how to do it with only 2 classes or 4 classes. i must think some more. it is maybe easy if the students timetable is not 100% filled. but sadly my students timetables are 100% filled and i can't see a solution for that at the moment. but let me think some more.

[Liviu Lalescu]

The constraint 3 activities grouped is working on my computer, I will do some tests now. Unfortunately, my ISP has problems again (and I am not home now, because of that). They might not fix the problem until Monday afternoon. So, I cannot let you test the snapshot.

Please tell me if this constraint is really needed, before I add this officially. Zsolt, does the suggestion from Volker remove the need for this constraint or not? Might also others use this constraint, or should we make a custom version?

This constraint is supposed to be much more difficult to add than the max days between activities. So, the difficult part is done.

[Zsolt Udvari]

i don't understand at the moment why your idea need it 3+3, but you can also do if you think that is better.) with your 3 teachers (bio, chm. and phy.) and as students set the whole year.

I didn't said everything.
The contract say exactly what we MUST do. We should create blocks, one of them is min. 3h long, the other is min. 2h long. This is the reason
I don't want that the subjects rotate. And imho the most of our teachers. And this was my idea: we group ph, ch and bi. And we will say that this is the "natural science" block. And the contract says that these similar blocks must be follower days (point 2.)

Liviu: works for me too. Imho this 3 grouping doesn't important.
I'm making point 2 step-by-step (I fix these activites on a special day, as you said and I thought) and it seems it works. Fet is a good scheduling program

[Volker Dirr]

sorry, looks like i missunderstood your request.
you wrote:

Exactly the "clever people" behind the desktops say that we should teaching in "blocks" (e.g. not 2 physics per week, 2 days), e.g. the students will have first week 6P 0B and 0C, second week 0P 6B and 0C, third week 0P 0B and 6C.

so i thought you mean you want to rotate the subjects.
maybe you can please explain me one more time this sentences, because i don't understand what you want to say if you didn't mean rotating the subjects.

(in my opinion that is a usefull idea. But i am not sure after your last mail.)

we just do a similar thing by swapping after a half year.
example:
a class has 2 hours physics, 1 hour chemestrie and 1 hour biology per week.

just teaching 1 hour per week is pretty bad.
that is why we try do do this:
1. half of the year: 2 hours physics, 2 hours chemestry and 0 hours biology.
2. half of the year: 2 hours physics, 0 hours chemestry and 2 hours biology.
such swaps are pretty easy if you have a second class in that year. it is a little bit more difficult if you don't have a second class, it's not a problem because of the students, it is a problem because of the teachers if the teacher biology and chemestry teacher is not the same.
but you can also try to do swaps with other years.



so your idea is just the subjects must be grouped? if liviu doesn't add the 3 gorups groups constraint you can also do this (or do i missunderstand again?):
so you have for example:
A1 (physics 1 hour)
A2 (physics 1 hour)
A3 (chemestry 1 hour)
A4 (chemestry 1 hour)
A5 (biology 1 hour)
A6 (biology 1 hour)

so you only want to group A1, A3, A5.
and group A2, A4, A6.

instead of that you can maybe do this:
A7 (physics with 2 hours)
A8 (chemestry with 2 hours)
A9 (biology with 1 hour)
A10 (biology with 1 hour)

then group A7 with A9.
and group A8 with A10.



my personal opinion is that grouping that activities doesn't make much sence if the content isn't also grouped.
we try to connect/group the content of subjects (but we don't group that activities.)
For example year 10:
content: radioactivity.
so the physis teacher talk about the physcal background of radioactivity.
the math teacher explain how to calculte the radioactivity.
the biology teacher talk about biologic impact of radioactivtiy.
the history teacher talk about discovery and historical mishap.
the politics teacher talk about ....
so in optimal case all subject talk about radioactivity at the same time.

of course that is not possible to all subjects and all contents, but some can be connected/grouped pretty nice and easy. (we call it subject overlap teaching.) but like i told we didn't group the activities in the timetable for that.

[Volker Dirr]

hmm... maybe instead of grouping 3 activities it is more flexible if there is a constraint like:
"activity tag must be continiously at a day".
so it is more flexible which activities are at the same day, because if i understood correct it doesn't matter to you.
and with the constraint "activityy tag max hours per day" (already exist) at the same time you can limit it down to 3 hours per day.

[Zsolt Udvari]

sorry, looks like i missunderstood your request.

OK, I'll try it again My english isn't perfect.
So, our school won a little money on a competition. This competition is a competition of a "modern educational form". This "form" says that we should block the activities. Not only that on some subjects learn same contents (as you said the radioactivity). They think that when the activities are in blocks it's very-very good. The one block-criteria that one block is min. 3 hours the other is min. 2 hours (or more ). The other thing is that these blocks should be on follower day (and I don't understand, why it's good, because of homework). Hm, I hope that "follower day" is a good term and you understand (the days between these two blocks is exactly 1, in FET-like term ).
The first (the directors) idea was the rotating of subjects per 2-3 week (depends on number of hours of subject) as see above.
I think that this is a very-very bad solution (e.g. the director wanted that the first week on a day will be continuisly 3 maths... I know that the 2 maths continuisly is lot for an average 14-18 years old student). This is similar that you said but not per half-year but per week. And we have a math-physic class (they learn math and physics more hours per week), and imho it would be dead of these class when they'll learn physics on one week, the other week not.

just teaching 1 hour per week is pretty bad.
that is why we try do do this:
1. half of the year: 2 hours physics, 2 hours chemestry and 0 hours biology.
2. half of the year: 2 hours physics, 0 hours chemestry and 2 hours biology.

Your solution is good for you because one subjects you teached only once per week. But we teach all natural science two hours per week and we don't need this solution.

So I've had these idea that we will grouping some subjects and we say that this is "natural science"-block. And we will grouping other subjects too. Our director called the leader of competition and (s)he said that we can do this.

so your idea is so you only want to group A1, A3, A5.
and group A2, A4, A6.

Yes.

instead of that you can maybe do this:
A7 (physics with 2 hours)
A8 (chemestry with 2 hours)
A9 (biology with 1 hour)
A10 (biology with 1 hour)

then group A7 with A9.
and group A8 with A10.

Imho it isn't a good solution that e.g. physics is once double-long time instead twice single-long time. I (we) don't want this.

we didn't group the activities in the timetable for that.

I understand this. And imho this is the normally. But you live and teach in Germany and I live and teach in Hungary and "our" wiseguys say that this is the best way.

[Chafik Graiguer]

Hello
I think FET can care about that in a easy elegant way:
There is feature in FET called Buildings
we could use dummy buildings to set many usefull constraints

So here come the solution:
set the boilogy activity to room X
set the physics activity to room Y
set the chemistry activity to room Z
assign the the tree rooms to the same dummy building
In space constraints ---> students space constraints ---->  Maximum building changes per day for a student set
choose the student group, then set the value to 0
This way, once FET schedule a physics or biloby or chemistry  activity, it will be forced to schedule the two other activity immediately after it !!!    
Edited to add: (NB: you have to set rooms of all activties that dont need to be grouped in blocks to another SAME SINGLE dummy building)

Another solution would be to add a new constraint
We already have:
Time constraints ---> activity time constraints ---> Min gaps (hours) between a set of activties

The new constraint would be the opposite:
Time constraints ---> activity time constraints ---> Max gaps (hours) between a set of activties

But I dont know, how easy or difficult it will be
Only Liviu can speak about it

[Liviu Lalescu]

Yes, alfaromeo's solution might work for part 1. of initial request of Zsolt, if you also add constraints activities same starting day and other buildings to the rest of activities. But it may be hard. I am not sure.

I am ready with the new constraints, 3 activities grouped and max days between activities. I still think about that - I think that for the moment I'll make a custom version, because I am afraid of bugs in official version, and also I think that these constraints are not quite useful/good for others. What do you think?

Unfortunately, my cable ISP has problems and I think that they will only solve that on Monday afternoon. I am not at my computer now, so please wait until then.

[Zsolt Udvari]

Yes, alfaromeo's solution might work for part 1. of initial request of Zsolt

Excellent idea

I am ready with the new constraints, 3 activities grouped and max days between activities. I still think about that - I think that for the moment I'll make a custom version, because I am afraid of bugs in official version, and also I think that these constraints are not quite useful/good for others. What do you think?

I don't know about others but imho this (second) constraint is very strange. But if it will works imho you can include the official version. Maybe later other man will need this feature, who knows?

[Chafik Graiguer]

"max days between activities" is surely usefull

I think that for the moment I'll make a custom version, because I am afraid of bugs in official version, and also I think that these constraints are not quite useful/good for others. What do you think?

It may be usefull !! many new trends in  modern pedagogy advocate for grouping some activities/subjects into blocks

We have a simlar requirement for prepartory schools (not secondary schools where I am currentely working)
in preparatiry school, arabic and french activities should be scheduled in the first half day (monday)
Maths, Geography and Islamic Education should be sheduled in the second half day (monday)
In thuesday, Maths, Geography and Islamic Education activities should be scheduled in the first half day
arabic and french should be sheduled in the second half day
and so on..
THe remaining subjects dont matter, it can be sheduled in any half day
But sincce in Custom morrocan vesion, each day is a half real day, one can easily meet  this requirement by
Time constraints ---- > activities time constraints, a set of activities has a set of prefered time slots

Finally, maybe we will need N activities grouped, so what about changing these new constraint to be tag activity controlled?