Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2013 Spring :: CS 350

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2013 Spring :: CS 350 - 001

Course Description:

CS 350: Operating Systems

An introduction to the fundamentals of operating system function, design, and implementation. Topics include concurrency, synchronization, processes, threads, scheduling, memory management, file systems, device management, and security.

Dave's Comments:

This term I was primarily focused on redesigning CS 136, and so I made very few adjustments to CS 350. This was my third term teaching the course and I was very comfortable with the material. I did work on adding a lot of new metaphors and analogies, but I think I may have gone a bit overboard. It is worth noting that this is the first term that I appeared in profQUOTES.

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 26 / 53 (49%)

Characteristics of the Instructor:

Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
19	6	1
73%	23%	4%

At what level were the instructor's explanations aimed?
Too high	Somewhat too high	Just right	Somewhat too low	Too low	No opinion
	8	17		1
	31%	65%		4%

Evaluate the instructor's treatment of students' questions.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
18	8
69%	31%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's visual presentation (blackboard, overheads, etc.).
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
12	13	1
46%	50%	4%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's oral presentation.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
23	3
88%	12%

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
4	4	4	2		12
15%	15%	15%	8%		46%

Did you find the course interesting?
Very Interesting	Interesting	Not interesting	No opinion
12	10	3	1
46%	38%	12%	4%

Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
20	5	1
77%	19%	4%

Characteristics of the Course:

What proportion of lectures did you attend in this course?
90-100%	75-90%	50-75%	25-50%	< 25%
26
100%

Was the assigned work (assignments, projects, etc.) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No work assigned	No opinion
7	14	4		1
27%	54%	15%		4%

Were the printed notes (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No printed course notes	No opinion
11	13	1		1
42%	50%	4%		4%

Was the required textbook (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No text required	No opinion
1		3	11	10
4%		12%	44%	40%

Did the course introduce an appropriate amount of new material?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
5	10	10			1
19%	38%	38%			4%

Was the amount of assigned work required for the course appropriate?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
12	8	5			1
46%	31%	19%			4%

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
	4	4	13	5
	15%	15%	50%	19%

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.

Best prof I've had in my three years in university. He brings up interesting topics related to what we're learning, tells relevant jokes, and makes memorable analogies that help me remember things. He is also very energetic and passionate about what he does, and cares for his students as well.
Concept explanations are done well. Analogies are awesome.
Continually demonstrated knowledge beyond the scope of the course material.
Dave is one of the best profs I've had, he really understands the material thoroughly and puts in effort to make the class funny and interesting.
Dave was an awesome instructor. Friendly, welcoming and always willing to help. Also had kept the atmosphere positive and light.
Dave would use real life examples to explain certain concepts which helped a lot in learning.
Entertaining analogies and stories.
Everything you did in class is great! Thank you for teaching us.
Everything. It was a pleasure being in Dave's class; engages the class, makes all of the info. Interesting.
Excellent oral presentation. Very enthusiastic. Good use of metaphors to help clarify difficult concepts.
Explained otherwise difficult or confusing concepts in a clear, understandable manner.
Gives good analogies that help clarify complicated topics. Speaks clearly and is enthusiastic about the material.
Good explanations on the content in the course note.
Good Job! YouTube videos. Interesting examples that help me to learn the material better. Friendly. Has a smile all the time. His baby is so cute :) I told Dave's OS example (e.g., baker & bread) to my non-CS friend, and they want to take the course!
Good presentation, interesting, joking.
He can introduce points by using some good examples, and easy to understand.
He explained course concepts really well. He's pretty funny and entertaining which made the hour and a half lecture bearable.
I think he did well in explaining concepts with proper & interesting examples. Nice online videos (interesting). Make corrections asap when he makes mistakes.
Kept lectures engaging & interesting. Used great analogies to understand how things work. Interactive on piazza, many profs tend to ignore piazza.
Knowledgeable, influential. Gives really interesting lectures for the whole term. He makes difficult problems easy to understand.
Teach.
Used a lot of real life examples to explain lecture stuff.
Was really open to the class.

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

Give more hints for assignments.
He's an awesome prof!
I guess more charts or examples for similar concepts will help students to understand confusing contents more effectively.
If anything do more demos and tell more stories.
In the first month and half I had no idea how everything taught in class is related to each other. They seemed like random knowledge here and there. Doing some assignment related examples would be helpful.
Keep up the good work.
make more clear what is important to know, and possibly have a review as summary at the end of each major section (or every few topics).
Make the midterm easier dude. I like you, but I would rather not see you again in this same course next term.
Please use more graphs on the board to explain the memory stuff.
Spend a bit more time relating concepts in the notes back to the OS/161 code.
Too few concrete examples of abstract concepts or processes.
Write more notes on the board.

What were the strong points of the course?

Basic course that everybody should learn.
Gave valuable information about computers that would otherwise be googled & learned from shady sources. Provides opportunities to apply the theory-heavy concepts learned in early years.
Helps me to understand how synchronization and OS works. New & interesting concepts.
Interesting content.
Interesting subject. OS/161 is a great piece of instructional code.
Interesting.
Lots of information on the big picture of computer science.
Provides a basic understanding of how OSes work.
Provides a good overview of what goes on behind the scenes of an OS.
Really makes me think about the OS all the time. It's an interesting topic that I discuss with my friends.
The concepts explained in the course were interesting until I had to figure out how to apply them in assignments.
The course helps to get an overall understanding of the OS.
Very interesting. I learned a lot.
Very interesting. Very different from all CS courses up until now.
Very useful in the real world (helped in interviews and in understanding how computers work), very interesting, and challenging enough to test my abilities.
Whole new thing compared to courses in front.

What were the weak points of the course?

A lot of material covered on the assignments was not covered or too briefly covered in class. Explanations (i.e., in class notes) could be difficult to understand when reviewed some time after the lecture.
An absurd amount of work, relative to other CS courses.
Assignments and exams are too hard.
Assignments were a bit hard: the instructions and hints could have been better. Also, course notes weren't as useful for assignments.
Assignments were often a guessing game to see who can find the built-in function that fits our purpose. Mildly annoying.
Assignments were way too long and even though we worked in groups, the workload was difficult to split up. Need to explain more details about the OS/161 system (tutorials perhaps?).
Does not teach you every aspect of an operating system, e.g., bootstrapping.
Hard.
I found working in a group to be stressful, but the assigned work was too heavy to be done on one's own. Often I felt my mark was going to be heavily dragged down by my partner's performance, and ended up doing far more effort. I do not think it is fair to have so much of one's mark predicated on being lucky enough to have chosen an effective partner: there's no way to be totally sure beforehand.
Intensive assignments but that's the way to learn.
It's damn hard. I wouldn't suggest making this course easier as much as I'd say make everything up until now harder.
Sometimes, it's confusing. Takes time to understand.
The assignments were not well explained and really vague.
The course has too much new material so that each of them is less determined.
The lectures are not really related to assignments and midterms.
The lectures diverge from the assignments: feels like two separate courses.
The prof is really nice but I just hate the course very much.
The workload is too high. I spent more time on this course than my others combined. The lecture material doesn't provide enough information for the assignments.
Too much material here and there. Could break the course into two courses to discuss each topic in detail.
Too much new material and too much work.
Too much work, too little guidance on the work.
Too much work.

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.

Dave kept the atmosphere friendly. I was happy that there was one student who kept speaking out loud, and Dave strictly told him to raise his hand to speak -- and it worked.
Excellent. Lots of good discussion.
I found it uncomfortable when the prof made degrading jokes about his weight. As someone who is recovering from an eating disorder, it hits me personally when I hear things like that, and it makes it difficult to focus on the lecture because I became anxious! I do not think I'm alone in feeling hurt when overweight people are devalued, even in a self-deprecating manner.
It's morning class but still it works fine.
Positive, taught the course with humour and kept it interesting.
Positive.
Positively improves the quality of the classes. Open to ask questions.
Positively.
Very positive atmosphere, especially at 8:30 considering he has a young child.

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

8:30 class is my favourite class!
Class is too damn early.
Good class size, smaller class made it easier to communicate with instructor.
Good.
I don't know why every time at around 9:30 when we are in the middle of our class there are people talking loudly. Seems some class finishes earlier, but students should keep quieter.
It was fine.
Thanks for doing a great job! I wish I could've come to office hours for a chat!
Too early.

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