Course Description:
CPSC 211: Introduction to Software Development
Software design and the development of robust abstractions; design practices, data abstractions, inheritance, testing, concurrency and distributed computing.
Dave's Comments:
Teaching Evaluations:
Number of Respondents: 50 / 67 (75%)
| The instructor made it clear what students were expected to learn. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 4 | 23 | 20 |
| 2% | 4% | 8% | 46% | 40% |
| The instructor communicated the subject matter effectively. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 10 | 14 | 23 |
| 2% | 4% | 20% | 28% | 46% |
| The instructor helped inspire interest in learning the subject matter. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 3 | 4 | 16 | 27 |
| 6% | 8% | 32% | 54% |
| Overall, evaluation of student learning (through exams, essays, presentations, etc.) was fair. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | | 3 | 25 | 21 |
| 2% | | 6% | 50% | 42% |
| The instructor showed concern for student learning. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| | 6 | 14 | 30 |
| | 12% | 28% | 60% |
| Overall, the instructor was an effective teacher. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 4 | 23 | 20 |
| 2% | 4% | 8% | 46% | 40% |
| My academic background provided sufficient preparation for this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 5 | 9 | 17 | 18 |
| 2% | 10% | 18% | 34% | 36% |
| This course promoted conceptual understanding. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | | 9 | 24 | 16 |
| 2% | | 18% | 48% | 32% |
| The learning activities helped me to succeed in this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 3 | 12 | 24 | 10 |
| 2% | 6% | 24% | 48% | 20% |
| The workload for this course was appropriate. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 7 | 7 | 27 | 8 |
| 2% | 14% | 14% | 54% | 16% |
| I received sufficient feedback on my progress during this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 2 | 19 | 19 | 10 |
| 4% | 38% | 38% | 20% |
Note: This is a complete list of comments I received, listed alphabetically to avoid bias
- although he was busy studying in his own research, project, he has shown so much concern for each student.
he tried to make the studying environment even more enjoyble. I am so glad that i could participated in his lecture.
- Course was effective and enjoyable. However, I would have liked to have seen Prof Tompkins do a bit more coding in class to show how certain things were done. This should be done on the overhead and NOT by hand on the whiteboard.
- Dave did a good job of presenting the necessary materials and was very clear as to what was expected of the student and was approachable and helpful. He was genuinely concerned with the students progress. A problem with the course however was that it went through materials really quite quickly and I think that some of the content could have been cut out, things that weren't involved in the labs or the assignments for example. A number of topics discussed in the class were only looked at for a single class. Also, I think that it would be even more helpful to see the instructor doing more coding in front of the class, or looking at actual code and seeing the program actually run. There were a lot of examples in class that showed incorrect code, why? Don't do this, it is much more useful to see correct code and not be confused by incorrect code.
- Dave was a very good teacher. He was always available to help outside of class, and if you went to see him, he made sure you understood all the material. He was respectful of students and took the time to help them.
- Dave was always helpful answering questions and presenting the materially effectively. He also gave great examples that showed the in an outs of Java and programming in general
- Dave was energetic and engaged with the students and made himself available at all hours to respond to questions and concerns. However, his in class presentation of the material may have assumed an existant familiarity or grasp of the subject which was not always there. I feel his lectures would benefit from reduced pace on non-review material whenever new topics are introduced.
- Dave was engaging, energetic, approachable, and understanding. He made a serious effort to engage the class, and took feedback seriously
- Did examples in eclipse to show what we had to do and to run the programs
- Doing examples together in class, and having examples prepared ahead of time is nice. Very hard to follow when explanations/examples are made up on the spot.
- For his first time teaching, Dr Tompkins did a good job.
- Good teacher, very student-focused
- Great enthusiasm, clearly possesses knowledge from a wide variety of fields in computer science - and does a great job of tying all the different areas together in lecture.
However, it was hard to be "prepared" for the lectures because notes only went up the day of - I had a hard time following along for many of the examples. The take home message here is that students (especially ones without programming experience) need prior exposure to the lecture material so that when they actually come to lecture, it's a "second pass" and they will be primed to ask good questions. Pre-reading the chapter material (or in the case where there is no corresponding textbook chapter, pre-reading the lecture slides) is key to making sure the lecture doesn't get bogged down with trivial "first-pass" questions.
Would have appreciated more in-class problems and take home questions. I really enjoyed the programming examples done in Eclipse towards the end of the term. Also, there seemed to be an increase in the number of take-home problems at the end of the term as well - this is a good thing!
With regards to the examples you use, it's important to get us to write the code. Syntax is a big deal for novice programmers and on the exams, we don't have the luxury of using the IDE as a syntactical crutch. For students to do well on exams that require written code, they need to practice writing code - problem solving is partly "modality" specific. Seeing an example exclusively on the whiteboard isn't sufficient for students to achieve "deep understanding".
In my experience, leaving blank "fill in the code" slides in the lecture notes is useful because it forces the student to write code and to engage with the problem at hand. Don't go overboard with this, and make sure that in your written example you provide us with the code that you want us to fill in. This way, the students are never left with pock-marked notes. Formatting your online notes like this also gives an added incentive for students to attend lecture.
Finally, don't let laptops on in class. I STRONGLY suggest that you spend a few classes sitting in the back and observing what students are doing on their laptops. Even though its a programming class, you don't ever actually need to use a computer in class.
All in all, your lectures were really engaging. If you tighten up some of the teaching practices (tough, I know, given that this is your first course), you will be an amazing lecturer.
- He brought an enthusiasm that's really rare to see in professors which was awesome. My only complaint is that he let certain students ([NAME REMOVED]) monopolize class time with their own questions.
- He kept the class extremely engaged and interesting to come to. It was extremely clear what was expected and also was able to clarify any question asked or at least find the answer. The class felt a little behind the other class. It would be hard to keep up with labs as we were taught the material an hour before (having the lab right after lecture). That could just be due to the course structure.
- He made the course interesting.
- He would always make the class interesting with his enthusiasm for the course even though some of the topics were boring.
- He's a potential teacher. i have no input on how the teaching can be improved. But i think sometimes the explanation is not so clear, especially the theoretical part
- His office hours were very flexible.
He was very friendly and helpful when answering questions.
I enjoyed all his lectures.
I enjoyed CPSC 211 almost as much as I enjoyed CPSC 111 despite CPSC 211 being more difficult.
He should keep up the good work.
- I think that the method he (you?) adopted to with regards to promoting questions worked rather well, even if not everyone took advantage of it. The atmosphere in the classroom was very easy going, and took the edge out of it being a university course. Even though the course wasn't very challenging to me, the easy going atmosphere made the course enjoyable to be there at all the lectures.
I think the lecture slides could have been simplified a bit, or updated with clearer examples in some cases, but, as they were elaborated on in class, they didn't detract at all from it. All in all, I rather enjoyed this course, even if I'm technically a first year student.
- It is very clear that Dave cares about his teaching and his students. He tries to make improvements if he can, by changing the ways he does some things. He tries to be aware of the needs of the students.
I however think that the course itself is the problem. I dont feel that I learned from Dave as much as I was hoping... but i don't think it is really his fault. If he is adhering to the course outline... then i think the course is the problem. I have taken cpsc 111 before this and i did very well in it (97%). That is the ONLY programming experience I have ever had. I find i sit in lectures for this course and feel that there is too much info too fast and there is no way i can grasp it. I can pay attention and understand the main idea... but i always think..."I hope they dont expect me to understand how to program with these constructs". We will be showed a huuuge amount of methods and new classes/interfaces in a single course... and I cannot take all of that in. I preferred 111 much more. Maybe 211 would be easier for people who have more experience than just a single cpsc course. It is too early for me to have a slough of info thrown at me. It doesnt help me. I still need instruction. With 97% in cpsc111 I clearly understood and learned what I was supposed to learn. I felt like I had a good handle on the 111 material. I feel that 211 is not an extension of 111... its just a whole lot of information getting thrown at me that doesnt really instruct me.
I feel that is mostly the fault of the course and not Dave.
I think he will become a better instructor with time as well. He is trying his best and he will improve the more he does it.
- Lectures were somewhat unstructured. Assignments and labs involved exercises that were obviously artificial and/or inappropriate to solve using the expected techniques.
- more code writtings in the front please!
- Prof Dave has been great considering this is his first time teaching. He is genuinely interested in helping his students in learning the material. However, he needs to develop a stable teaching structure that is effective. I feel like he is experimenting too many ways of teaching and can be confusing. Course load in general is heavy. Feels like we are rushing through a lot of the material.
- Professor Tompkins was a very creative and fun instructor. He brought applications of Computer Science and code to the classroom and beyond and showed us how one can utilize Computer Science as a very efficient tool on one side and a very fun toy on the other.
- The instructor was a good lecturer and kept a good pace through the material in each lecture with time for questions and examples. Often, he would demonstrate with code or create code on the fly which I found quite effective. He also would give examples beyond the scope of the class to encourage further thought on the topics; this helped make the material more relevant and interesting. I look forward to taking courses from him in the future.
- very entertaining, kept me awake. I just dont like the course...
- Very funny and effective at generating interest in the class and related subjects.
- Very laid back instructor, taught in a way that could relate to students. Sometimes examples given were not clear, that should be improved.
- You were great! Nice having you for the semester!
This was the first time I was teaching a predominately programming course, and while I was moderately happy with the term, there were many aspects I wish I could have improved upon. I struggled with my pacing and examples and I generally overestimated the programming skills of the students. In the later half of the course I realized the advantage of live coding in front of the students. I also underestimated the complexity of the swing component of the course.
This semester was a little stressful for me as I finished and defended my PhD thesis, and I hosted a visiting researcher for several weeks.