Course Description:
CPSC 121: Models of Computation
Physical and mathematical structures of computation. Boolean algebra and combinations logic circuits; proof techniques; functions and sequential circuits; sets and relations; finite state machines; sequential instruction execution.
Dave's Comments:
Teaching Evaluations:
Number of Respondents: 40 / 63 (63%)
| The instructor made it clear what students were expected to learn. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 3 | 5 | 9 | 15 | 8 |
| 8% | 12% | 22% | 38% | 20% |
| The instructor communicated the subject matter effectively. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 2 | 9 | 7 | 17 | 5 |
| 5% | 22% | 18% | 42% | 12% |
| The instructor helped inspire interest in learning the subject matter. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 4 | 6 | 12 | 18 |
| 10% | 15% | 30% | 45% |
| Overall, evaluation of student learning (through exams, essays, presentations, etc.) was fair. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 2 | 7 | 12 | 17 | 2 |
| 5% | 18% | 30% | 42% | 5% |
| The instructor showed concern for student learning. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 3 | | 4 | 19 | 14 |
| 8% | | 10% | 48% | 35% |
| Overall, the instructor was an effective teacher. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 2 | 5 | 9 | 17 | 6 |
| 5% | 13% | 23% | 44% | 15% |
| My academic background provided sufficient preparation for this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 7 | 21 | 9 |
| 2% | 5% | 18% | 52% | 22% |
| This course promoted conceptual understanding. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 6 | 21 | 12 |
| 2% | 15% | 52% | 30% |
| The learning activities helped me to succeed in this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 2 | | 10 | 20 | 8 |
| 5% | | 25% | 50% | 20% |
| The workload for this course was appropriate. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 2 | 11 | 21 | 5 |
| 2% | 5% | 28% | 52% | 12% |
| I received sufficient feedback on my progress during this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree |
| 1 | 6 | 14 | 16 | 3 |
| 2% | 15% | 35% | 40% | 8% |
Note: This is a complete list of comments I received, listed alphabetically to avoid bias
- Although I will admit there were some areas where Dave could use improvements, he excelled in every other one. In lectures Dave was engaging and informative as well as showing a genuine interest in the subject matter. He also had no problem slowing down to explain the more difficult concepts in detail which I really appreciated.
My biggest criticism is that whiteboard notes tended to be extremely disorganized and hard to follow. A little more structure would have been nice, but it's not a big deal. Both midterms were of above average difficulty, but I found the questions themselves reasonable. I hope for the future Dave's exams are either longer or have fewer questions, as my biggest issue was with the time allotted.
Overall I found Dave to be a great and effective instructor who gave me an even greater interest in Computer Science and exposed me to areas of it I never knew existed.
- can tell that he cares for student learning
- Class voting on what would be best. We could schedule exams and how many midterms as a group!
- Dave Tompkins was very effective in keeping the course interesting as well as in promoting active learning from the students. However, this sometimes led him off-track in getting to the main point of the material which was sometimes frustrating (especially in a fast-paced summer course). But all in all, Dave went above and beyond to ensure we had fun in the course and that our learning was not just restricted to the learning outcomes of the course.
- Dave Tompkins worked very hard on making the class interesting! It's a lot of pressure to make a class sound fun especially in summer and he did a great job!! He was always enthusiastic and full of energy. Although our first midterm exam was quite hard and a lot of people got discouraged after getting a low score, that actually helped Dave get a feel for our class and after that he really stepped it up and prepared us well for the second midterm + final. I really enjoyed his class although it was challenging!
- Dave was a funny and entertaining teacher, who usually got his points across when it came to the subject material. Initially the exam expectations were a bit too high relative to the assignment material, which got better over the term.
- Dave was a good teacher when he took the time to properly prepare for the lectures. Some lectures were excellent while others were very difficult to sit through. The first midterm didn't represent the material learned in class, tutorials or labs while the second was pretty fair. Overall, ok. Could be a great professor with practice and if he put more care into his preperations.
- Dave was very keen on the learning goals, and made it very apparent to us the structure and pace of the course. This was very helpful in organizing the course material, which allowed us to know exactly what we are supposed to learn.
- Dr Tompkins had a tough task in teaching this course in 6 weeks - I believe it used to be two courses, and it felt like enough content to be spread out over 26 weeks. The final exam was appropriately styled to the pacing of the course, highlighting the areas that we focused on. His class was fun and open, and he was very approachable and easy to talk to.
- Fun and engaging lectures which made him easily approachable. Sometimes will vary away from course content but everything he said was to try to interest students in content. Not too experienced in teaching this course and seemed uncertain about some content at times. If he fixed these issues, I believe he could be a very effective instructor. But overall he was helpful and made the course more interesting than it probably would have otherwise.
- going over each learning goal and making sure it was clear what was important in lecture and labs
- He definitely did a great job of making the subject interesting, and taught fairly well, but his first midterm wasn't a fair test of the material I found. His other tests were fair though and that midterm, as well as some ambiguous descriptions of the course learning goals, are my only complaints regarding the course.
- He took a boring course ( as said by previous students that took the course) and made it so that it was interesting as well as fun.
An interactive environment was created by Dr. Tompkins where not just the students that sit in the front would answer ( the usual ) but everyone would understand what he was teaching and be able to answer the question well.
- He was really into teaching this subject and really cared that we understood the material and were doing well. As a suggestion - I noticed that he tended to talk a little excessively about administrative decisions (like when we would have assignments due, how many midterms did we want, how did we find the last assignment, etc.) After about twenty minutes I really just wanted to start learning the material.
- Humour always kept course interesting.
- I appreciate how he always tries to make the course interesting for the students. Also, it can be seen that he really cares for the success of his students. However, I believe the pacing for this course was a bit unbalanced. Too much time was spent on "administrative" discussions.
- I liked how the he showed the real life application of the concepts we learned as an extension of the material. This makes the course more interesting and meaningful.
- I liked many real life examples that Dave gave in class that related to what we were learning.
- I thought that Dave was a superb lecturer--his style of teaching really got us into the material at the beginning of the term. Sometimes, though, when you have a good lecturer, it can lull us, as students, into a false sense of security regarding the difficulty of our first exam. While I agree that our first midterm was quite challenging, Dave quickly corrected any mistakes he may have made in the first part of the course by making it very clear what we were supposed to learn, and adjusting the difficulty of various assignments and practice problems to suit us better. Overall, Dave was a great instructor--although assignment 4 could have been returned earlier, the due date was pushed later arguably because it gave us more time to work on the problems.
- It is clear that you care about your students and their grades, but you need to take a little more initiative when students bring up issues with the classroom setting. The use of whiteboards was very effective, though those notes did not end up transferred to posted lecture slides; for the times when students missed a class or even just missed a step in the work, it would have been nice to go back and take a look at the work posted on the whiteboards.
- It would be helpful if the notes/slides were more organized and had more examples with answers. Also, if less time was spent going through old quizzes and assignments, unless there was a specific one that caused a lot of trouble. Also, updates to website were slow. Overall, I felt the teacher was concerned for our learning. He cared about our opinions though at took too long sometimes. Anyways, with more practice he probably will be a great teacher. Can be funny and interesting.
- more time for problem sets, easier questions, tutorials that help with questions, allows questions ask and gives questions, maybe even review a quiz that was done preclass
- Okay so I will say it how it is. Dave is a nice and funny guy and he brings his humor to the class. But that is all he was effective at. In terms of teaching, lectures notes and material to aid in preparing for exams dave was grossly inadequate. Dave said it was his first time teaching. Well it really shows as he was one of the worst profs I have had at UBC.
- Overall, he was very interesting instructor and interesting course, but the material was rushed too much and exam was too long for give amount of time
- Professor spends too much time trying to please students and put students into consideration. Although this is a great trait and probably one found most in professors new to teaching, it is too time consuming and diminishes effective learning.
Too much time was spent in the beginning of the course asking students what they wanted and how they felt about x and y being this way or that in the course. Professors can and should come up with the answers to these questions themselves.
The pacing and focuses in the course were not parallel with the difficulty and size of the content, nor the first midterm. For example, too much time was spent on teaching something worth very little, while we were expected to read the textbook for material that was more important. Time spent in the class should be directly proportional to examination content.
Finally, notes were a problem at times in the class. Slides were posted, but usually the majority of notes were written on the whiteboard and inaccessible without notes. Would be nice if the slides contained more of the class content.
Despite flaws, teacher clearly cares for learning and wants to improve. A very effective teacher when teaching. Will definitely improve with experience and planning.
- The instructor showed concerns of how students are learning in the course and the general class progress and made several adjustments throughout the year. He also provided clear instructions on course materials and do reviews of labs and lectures.
- The instructor talked abut active computer science research areas, ands stimulated my interests in computer science.
- The organization of the course could use some improvement. I don't think this was Dr.Tompkins' fault as an instructor as this was his first time teaching a full course (or first time teaching a summer course). He mentioned at several points during the course that he was still learning and trying to figure out how the course worked. I really think UBC should appoint first time instructors as "co-instructors" rather than hand over the responsibility of an entire course right away. There was an issue with the first midterm (which he promised he would scale) and an assignment which was put out really late and made due in 2 days from the day it was assigned (which he apologized for but this shouldn't happen during the summer due to the pace of the course). Overall he did realize during the course where he could improve and this is a good sign for a new instructor.
- The summer session definitely made everything faster paced. I would rather blame the format of the summer session rather than you personally Dave, for the difficulty of trying absorb all the material. There definitely wasn't enough time for certain things to 'settle in'.
In terms of just content, I really enjoyed this course. I firmly believe that this course has taught me to be a better mathmagician. A lot of times when problems simply seemed to hard I would just say "ahh screw it" and move on. I actively seekout harder questions to do and a high understanding of the proofs given to us. I'm really happy that I learned a lot just by the proofs and what it taught me about certain sets.
In terms of you Dave, you were an excellent teacher. I don't believe it would be fair to give you the blame on how things went. Summer went by fast, and there was certainly a lot to teach us. I really appreciated the last lecture and your tangents that seemed to bring the content together. I have such a higher understanding now software interacts with hardware, and how things, like hash functions, data compression, work. I'd like to say you did a good job because you tied a lot this content together. Would I like to drop out of my program to pursue Electrical Engineering? No, but now I at least know how computers work.
The candy was much appreciated.
The midterms, yeah they were hard. The second one was really decent.
Thx for bein' an OG. Dun forget to rep the west coast when u on tha east. U a straight up balla. West coast \/\/ 4eva.
- This instructor didn't seem like he was paying as much attention to the students as he should have. Frequent mistakes in lectures made learning harder for students. Also, there were frequent delay of online solution posts and assignments.
- This was a very interesting course for me, and it covered many important topics. However, I felt that I wasn't getting enough feedback in the second half of the course. Still, the instructors were always available when I had questions.
The course could have been more organized to enhance the learning experience.
Overall, the instructor was very helpful, and the course was very rewarding.
- While going through questions of quizzes and assignments is great, I think we don't have to go through all of them, we could spend more time on group discussions and activities.
- You made class very interesting with all your awesome stories! The whiteboard lectures were helpful. Sometimes I felt the slides were run through very quickly and there was a huge gap between the difficulty levels of the first midterm and the first assignments. However, the other exams and assignments were well balanced. Overall I feel like I learned a lot from this course and from Dave! Thanks!