Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2011 Fall :: CS 115

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2011 Fall :: CS 115 - 004

Course Description:

CS 115: Introduction to Computer Science 1

An introduction to the fundamentals of computer science through the application of elementary programming patterns in the functional style of programming. Function definition and application. Tracing via substitution. Design, testing, and documentation. Recursive data definitions. Lists and trees. Functional and data abstraction.

Dave's Comments:

While 135 went very well, 115 was a little more difficult "behind the scenes". The two courses had a very different culture and philosophy and I had a hard time adjusting between the two. There were also changes in the course content that was hard to keep track of.

In the classroom things went pretty smoothly, but because I was used to teaching 135 I did go through some of the material too quickly.

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 76 / 107 (71%)

Characteristics of the Instructor:

Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
48	25	2		1
63%	33%	3%		1%

At what level were the instructor's explanations aimed?
Too high	Somewhat too high	Just right	Somewhat too low	Too low	No opinion
5	9	56	4		1
7%	12%	75%	5%		1%

Evaluate the instructor's treatment of students' questions.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
51	21	4
67%	28%	5%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's visual presentation (blackboard, overheads, etc.).
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
45	26	3		1
60%	35%	4%		1%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's oral presentation.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
53	22			1
70%	29%			1%

Was the instructor available for help outside of class?
Always	Most of the time	Often enough	Not often enough	Never	I did not seek help
29	8	8	1		30
38%	11%	11%	1%		39%

Did you find the course interesting?
Very Interesting	Interesting	Not interesting	No opinion
32	31	5	7
43%	41%	7%	9%

Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
48	27			1
63%	36%			1%

Characteristics of the Course:

What proportion of lectures did you attend in this course?
90-100%	75-90%	50-75%	25-50%	< 25%
63	6	5		2
83%	8%	7%		3%

Was the assigned work (assignments, projects, etc.) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No work assigned	No opinion
42	30	3		1
55%	39%	4%		1%

Were the printed notes (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No printed course notes	No opinion
33	27	9	6	1
43%	36%	12%	8%	1%

Was the required textbook (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No text required	No opinion
12	13	20	15	16
16%	17%	26%	20%	21%

Did the course introduce an appropriate amount of new material?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
3	14	53	3	1	1
4%	19%	71%	4%	1%	1%

Was the amount of assigned work required for the course appropriate?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
7	18	47	3		1
9%	24%	62%	4%		1%

On average, how many hours per week did you spend on this course outside of lectures?
0-2 hours	3-6 hours	7-10 hours	11-15 hours	> 15 hours
6	37	25	4	3
8%	49%	33%	5%	4%

Comments:

Note: This is a complete list of comments I received, listed alphabetically to avoid bias.

Please mention anything that you feel the instructor has done well in this course.

Amazing examples.
As a new prof. he has taught the course very well and has ensured that all his students understood. Especially for those doing it for the first time like myself, he was always helpful.
Atmosphere
Awesome teacher. Very funny. Makes class interesting with his good humour.
Class interactions and speaking skills are excellent.
Dave has been very helpful and his lectures were always interesting and very clear.
Dave has been very helpful throughout the whole year and he is a funny and enjoyable teacher to have. I would recommend him to everyone.
Dave is hilarious. Class is interesting.
Dave was entertaining and kept the class engaged.
Dave was very enthusiastic and made class extremely entertaining. He genuinely enjoyed the class and made the learning environment much better. His high knowledge of material was very evident.
Did a good comparison between the lecture notes with real life examples.
Engaging lectures.
Entertaining and taught well.
Entertaining.
Everything
Everything.
Explained concepts very well using real-life situations to make it clear.
Explains the concepts clearly.
Explanations
Explanations are excellent. Makes the entire class attentive to lectures.
Funny & tries to make the classes interesting.
Funny guy, kept the class interested.
Good examples in scheme. Made jokes to lighten mood.
Good explanations for the knowledge, never feeling boring in the class. Funny guy.
Good jokes.
Good lectures. Humourous. Not boring.
Good that Dr. Racket is also used when explaining.
Great. Good pace.
He converted a normal course into an interesting one with funny examples, to retain the students interest.
He is awesome. Besides having rich knowledge, he also has a good sense of humour.
He is very humourous.
He's alright.
He's good at the introduction of new knowledge. His jokes are funny.
His talk is funny and easy to understand.
I loved his teaching methods. I am hoping to get him again next term.
Jokes. Practice review.
Keeps CS lectures interesting. Fresh approach to teaching with slides by creating simple examples that help further understanding.
Kept the class lively and interesting with jokes.
Made a course that had the potential to be dull exciting. I honestly would get excited to come to class. Dave gave good examples, was patient with student's questions and always maintained an interactive learning environment.
Nice guy.
Nothing.
Oral communication. Presentation. Exploration. Humour.
Presentation
Presentation was clear and somewhat spot on for most of the time. Treatment of questions was also dealt with very well.
Presentations, Explanations, Examples, basically everything was well done.
Pretty entertaining. Very smart. Likes what he does.
Prof. Tompkins is very good at making his lectures interesting and enjoyable.
Teaching.
The examples he gave out is excellent. Also, he gives more examples, other than the courseware, which is awesome!!!
The instructor is humourous and presents the material in an interesting manner.
The instructor was enthusiastic and engaging.
The prof did a good job with simplifying the abstract idea of scheme and explaining it an understandable way. His use of extra examples in scheme is also very helpful.
Very clear. Explains the material well and makes it fun and interesting.
Very entertaining lecturer. Engaging classes.
Very enthusiastic.
Very funny and answered questions well.
Very funny!
Very funny. Good examples.
Very good at making the class interesting. Good with analogies and connecting the course to real life examples. Kept me awake. Awesome at explanations.
Very interesting. Explain very clearly.
Vivid explanation.

Please make constructive comments about anything in the instructor's technique or style that could, in your opinion, be improved.

A few prepared examples ready for class but that's nit-picking.
Do more questions like assignment ones where we get time to think how to do it.
Fine
Give a short break in-between. Just one!
Give more examples to get ideas on assignment.
Go through more examples.
He could go more slowly through the slides and explain it more slowly.
He teaches too ahead of material required for assignments and doesn't explain anything to achieve this.
I think Dr. Tompkins should work out the examples he will do fully before class so he is able to go through them quickly with emphasis instead of having to come up with them on the spot.
It makes CS more interesting.
Listen to students' questions better rather than cutting them off. Be a little more serious at times.
Maybe more in-class examples.
More examples and harder examples will be appreciated.
No comment, since I come to this class to make up for my regular class that I missed b/c I went to the gym during that time, but he's a lot more engaging than my normal prof.
No complaints.
None.
None.
Nothing
Perhaps slowing down a bit on some explanations and a few more examples on the harder concepts.
Prof. Tompkins should continue teaching the way he does. His style has no flaws.
Sometimes goes too fast.
Sometimes teach a little too fast.
Sometimes variable names and function names can be too similar and confusing.
Sometimes went through content a bit too fast.
Spelling / coding mistakes.
Spelling?
Stop being so ambiguous when I ask for help via email. You just make me avoid you and go straight to the tutors.
Talked too much about interesting things & then blasts through material.
Too much explanation? Faster speed can be recommended.
Very good.
We can possibly get a 5 minute break in-between. Do more examples with respect to the assignments.
Went through slides fast. Could provide more examples.
Wish to know more about how the things we're learning apply to the real world or a bigger concept.

What were the strong points of the course?

All were quite strong.
Atmosphere
Detailed explanation.
Gave good intro to CS.
Gives a sense of accomplishment.
Good course notes and assignments.
Good pace, interesting material.
Hard at times, somewhat manageable.
He can explain students' questions clearly.
His teaching and energy was great.
I really like the labs, they were very helpful.
Interesting and relevant to other courses. Improves abstract thinking.
Introduced concepts in a gradual manner, fun assignments (relative to maths).
Introduction to computer science was informative and friendly to those with no background.
Learn how to write scheme.
Learned a lot.
Learned a lot. Pretty fun. Interesting.
Logical thinking.
Made the course very funny with his attempts of being funny.
Many.
New material to me.
Recursion.
Scheme programming is fun!
The assignments, labs, tutorials and tutors.
The assignments, professor, labs, and extremely helpful TAs.
This course is ? useful, well ? somewhat useful. Hope to see more applications.
Understandable. Interesting
Very informative and extremely interesting.
Very interesting. Excellent professor!
Was well structured & methodical.

What were the weak points of the course?

A bit tricky at time, special for student w/o CS background.
Assignments are too difficult.
Assignments are way too hard. For TA's office hour, too many people are there, difficult to seek help.
Assignments in some cases were significantly harder than material learned.
Assignments were a bit too hard and tedious.
Assignments were a much higher difficulty than the examples in the module.
Course notes (examples are too easy).
Course notes! They're terrible and do not explain functions clearly.
Few to none.
Gets lengthy of some concepts unnecessarily.
Lab exercises w/ slides. Could make lab exercises more step by step (procedural).
Lectures infrequent. 3x a week better.
Might have oversimplified some concepts letting students to think it's easy.
Not my strong suite.
Nothing
Solutions to lab questions not provided.
Sometimes boring. Heavy workload.
TA's more helpful.
Textbook not really required.
Too much design recipe.
Too much homework.
Too much tests, for assignments :( Design recipe and tests make the assignments much more tedious than they should be.
Trees (they're pretty stupid)
Weekly assignments sometimes too hard.
Wish to have more tips for the assignments.

Was the class atmosphere affected either positively or negatively by attitudes of the instructor or students, e.g., with respect to gender, race, ability, appearance? Please explain.

Always affected positively. Prof. Tompkins' attitude, disposition and jokes made this easily my favourite class.
Best class.
Fun and interesting: Like!
Fun atmosphere, very easy to talk to prof.
Good atmosphere.
Good.
Great.
Instructor maintained fairness.
It's excellent.
Not bad.
Positive
Positive
Positive atmosphere.
Positive atmosphere.
Positive! Very good :)
Positive.
Positive; noticed no negativity.
Positively
Positively
Positively by humour.
Positively.
Positively.
Positively.
Positively. He respects each individual and able to help all of them outside of class.
Very good class atmosphere. Everyone was attentive and respectful of each other. Dave (professor) kept things fun and interesting.
Very positive and enjoyable environment.
Yes! Prof. friendly.

Any other comments, e.g., class size, suitability of room, noise level, etc.

Class size is good.
Class size is too big.
Class size too big, may be because of the room is flat. People sit at back is hard to see board.
Dave is awesome !!!
Excellent job Dave.
Good size.
Good size.
Great class. Glad I was in it!
Great. If I had 1.5 hours to live I would spend it in this class because it feels like an eternity.
Has a good control of the class.
I enjoyed the class material and atmosphere.
Just right.
Take all classes with Tompkins!

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