Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2016 Spring :: CS 100

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2016 Spring :: CS 100 - 081

Course Description:

CS 100: Introduction to Computing through Applications

Using personal computers as effective problem solving tools for the present and the future. Effective use of spreadsheets to process, manipulate, and visualize numeric and textual information. Introduction to the Internet, World Wide Web, HTML, and XML. Algorithms underlying the functional components of web search engines and their influence on data access. Using wikis to publish, reshape, and organize data collaboratively.

Dave's Comments:

This term was the first term that I produced new videos for the course.

Producing the vidoes was time consuming, and not quite the quality that I was hoping for, but still a great step in the right direction.

For some reason, this term they switched to use same Math Faculty evaluations that they use for in-class courses. Some of the responses below are nonsensical for online courses.

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 47 / 234 (20%)

Characteristics of the Instructor:

Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
14	21	9	2		1
30%	45%	19%	4%		2%

At what level were the instructor's explanations aimed?
Too high	Somewhat too high	Just right	Somewhat too low	Too low	No opinion
1	2	42	2
2%	4%	89%	4%

Evaluate the instructor's treatment of students' questions.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
8	20	6	1		9
18%	45%	14%	2%		20%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's visual presentation (blackboard, overheads, etc.).
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
10	20	9	4		2
22%	44%	20%	9%		4%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's oral presentation.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
12	17	11			6
26%	37%	24%			13%

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
7	6	6	2		26
15%	13%	13%	4%		55%

Did you find the course interesting?
Very Interesting	Interesting	Not interesting	No opinion
14	30	2	1
30%	64%	4%	2%

Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
10	27	7	1		2
21%	57%	15%	2%		4%

Characteristics of the Course:

What proportion of lectures did you attend in this course?
90-100%	75-90%	50-75%	25-50%	< 25%
36	4	1		2
84%	9%	2%		5%

Was the assigned work (assignments, projects, etc.) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No work assigned	No opinion
15	30	1	1
32%	64%	2%	2%

Were the printed notes (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No printed course notes	No opinion
11	18	3	11	4
23%	38%	6%	23%	9%

Was the required textbook (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No text required	No opinion
2	4	1	31	6
5%	9%	2%	70%	14%

Did the course introduce an appropriate amount of new material?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
	5	38	2	1	1
	11%	81%	4%	2%	2%

Was the amount of assigned work required for the course appropriate?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
	6	41
	13%	87%

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
17	26	3
37%	57%	7%

Question-Specific Comments:

Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures.

[Satisfactory] The ISAs were late in posting lecture notes/video guides throughout the term giving us less time to complete the applicable assignments.

Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher.

[Excellent] Dr. Tompkins is a very engaging and informative teacher.

What proportion of lectures did you attend in this course?

[90-100%] it was online. I completed all assignments.
[90-100%] online course so I wouldn't say i attended any lectures, but I did go through every module, if that counts.
[90-100%] why is this question even in here? ._.
[No Answer] No lectures to attend, this was an online course.
[No Answer] This is an online course.

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.

Constantly kept students updated with due dates.
Generally quick responses on the discussion boards!
good
Good content. Easy to follow.
His lectures were excellent.
I enjoyed the casual use of memes in the video lectures in the latter portion of the course. Humour is always welcome.
I really enjoy the video presentations with the humour that was added and the instructor's attempts to relate to the students!
I really enjoyed taking CS! I had very little background on this and found the course very interesting and not too easy nor hard. The posted notes are very helpful online and the assignments were not too hard to do. I really liked the last few modules where we learned from videos since I'm more of a visual learner. I think making videos would help students to learn.
I thought the written modules were well done. I found when it was just videos that I would watch the videos and then feel lost at the end of the video because I could not go back and review without watching the whole video. I also say a lot of value in the assignments.
Organization of modules, and order they were learned in
reasonable quiz questions. Fairly quick email response time. Detailed slides
The module notes/videos were thorough
There were efforts to add humour into the notes/videos
The organization of the course notes.
The videos were a helpful way to learn
The videos were much better than the written content at the beginning of the class. However some of the questions required a lot of extra research outside of the lectures. The questions asked entailed information we did not learn. I don't think that is fair nor do I think it is worth the amount of money I had to pay for the course.
Very interesting course!
Very organized material and well explained.
Video lectures were good

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

Audio quality for the videos were not good at all. Excel marking scheme did not seem fair to me personally.
Could have combined video and text, however I understand based on lecture what needed to be done.
Did not receive teaching from instructor's. Relied solely on online resources.
good
I found the java module very hard. Perhaps the lecture could have been more thorough.
I would add lecture notes to accompany the videos.
I would just change that alongside with the videos, include a few notes so that one wouldn't have to go back to the video and try to find the portion where something corresponds to.
Instructor was great
It would be very helpful if transcripts of the videos were also provided. Generally, I preferred the written content lectures over the video lectures because it was easier to go over material, however the video lectures were very engaging.
Please have videos AND text notes available at the same time
The Excel videos did not go into enough depth on the subject matter to complete the assignment. Perhaps providing additional links to external websites could help this void. I felt like I was caught in a wild goose chase looking for how to properly complete the assignment. This is not what I expect in a course I pay for. I expect to be taught the content. Instead I had to rely on Google.
The video lectures were great but have a hard copy of notes like we did in the beginning of the course was much better.
Though the video format was more engaging in the latter part of the course, it would be great to still also have a reading version, for the sake of taking notes.
Tutorial videos should be slower paced and more detailed.
Videos used towards the end of the term were not as helpful as the learn modules used in the earlier two thirds of the class. Videos are hard to go back and find specific notes and ideas, whereas text modules are much easier.
Why can we not see all the modules and assignments at once? This would be a lot more helpful.

What were the strong points of the course?

Assignments were not difficult.
Content was straight forward, all the information needed for the assignments was readily available in the notes/videos
Course is organized clearly.
Course was easy and straight forward before it was switched over to videos.
covered a lot of material across different topics
CSS and HTML.
good
Great notes, fair assignments.
Interesting and well designed.
interesting course material
It teaches very practical information.
Learning about excel and html programming.
Lots of new things to learn, valuable information about software and computers
not very interesting topics, but presentations are good for maintaining interest
Quizzes and assignments were well crafted.
Really interesting and applicable assignments.
The videos were easy to understand
this course is very nice to take and we learned very useful things as a university students for data management for science labs for excel
very broad

What were the weak points of the course?

Ambiguity in some HTML assignments.
Coding assignments can be really hard for someone who only has a casual interest in CS.
Could also post text version of notes as well as videos
Excel was too basic
felt no connection with the prof at all
good
Got a bit repetitive
Just having a video format at the end made it a bit difficult to take notes.
Lessons were taught through videos halfway through the course and it really put me off since I can read much faster and understand things easier and listening/watching the videos took way longer than necessary. The videos are great for students who need step-by-step help with visuals, but it would be nice to have a powerpoint or note version of the modules as well.
N/A
no comment.
not much help on website building modules
sometimes very slow on posting the weeks content on learn holding people up. (maybe post all the weeks at the beginning of the course like some online courses do)
The lecture videos used starting with Module 7 were not as effective as they could have been in teaching required material. They would have been more effective in conjunction with written notes. As a result, it would not be recommended to turn CS 100 into a video-only lecture course for the on-going future.
the modules prior to the video modules were quite boring to read through. some of the content wasn't new to me.
Tutorial videos sometimes difficult to understand.
Very difficult assignment questions on content that was not taught in the modules.
You could not see the modules or assignments until a certain date, and that was frustrating.

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.

good
I was not affected by any students because I had zero communication online with anyone.
(it's online)
Mostly worked independently.
N/A
N/A (Online Class)
N/A - online class
no comment.
No idea, as it was an online course.
No.
online course. No opinion
The ISA were really nice!

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

good
I really enjoyed this course!
I thought Danielle, the TA, was very helpful.
just check the content before posting to make sure it is correct for the current semester. (dates and such)
Liking the new video modules.
N/A
N/A - online class
No comment.
No.
online course. No opinion
overall, good course for people who don't have much background knowledge about computers and the Internet in general. Again, the video modules were pretty good.
Please make all modules available asap instead of just 1 week before it's due.
(still online course)

All of the data for this page is available in the github repository: https://github.com/dtompkins/teacheval