Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2016 Winter :: CS 100

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2016 Winter :: 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:

In this term, I continued the rollout of new content (readings) started in Fall 2015. The course still contained some of the old material.

As stated before, these evaluations are really more of an evaluation of the course, and not me.

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 124 / 344 (36%)

Responses:

Course materials were presented in an organised manner.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
38	64	14	5	3
31%	52%	11%	4%	2%

Expectations for learning were clearly communicated.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
29	64	22	5	4
23%	52%	18%	4%	3%

The assignments, activities, and content helped me achieve the stated learning objectives.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
28	67	21	7	1
23%	54%	17%	6%	1%

The assignments contributed to my learning.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
37	72	13	1	1
30%	58%	10%	1%	1%

Feedback on course assignments contributed to my learning.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
14	52	33	21	3
11%	42%	27%	17%	2%

Technology was used effectively for learning in the course.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
43	61	13	4	3
35%	49%	10%	3%	2%

The general climate in the course was good for learning.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
24	66	23	6	2
20%	55%	19%	5%	2%

The instructor related to students in a way that promoted mutual respect.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
18	54	30	3	3
17%	50%	28%	3%	3%

The instructor's explanations were clear and understandable.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
16	63	28	8	3
14%	53%	24%	7%	3%

The instructor was helpful to students seeking assistance.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
20	48	30	1	1
20%	48%	30%	1%	1%

Overall, I learned a great deal from this course.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
38	65	12	7	1
31%	53%	10%	6%	1%

Overall, I learned a great deal from the instructor.
Strongly agree	Agree	Neutral	Disagree	Strongly disagree
15	48	30	12	4
14%	44%	28%	11%	4%

What grade do you expect in this course?
Above 90	80-90	70-80	60-70	50-60	Below 50
24	62	29	5	1
20%	51%	24%	4%	1%

This course is:
required	elective
30	94
24%	76%

On average, I spent x hours per week working on this course.
Significantly less than 10 hours	Less than 10 hours	Around 10 hours	More than 10 hours	Significantly more than 10 hours
62	29	5	1
64%	30%	5%	1%

Comments:

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

In your opinion the strengths of this course are:

A lot of assignment
a wide variety of help opportunities when needed
As a science major, I found these basic CS concepts to be very practical especially the excel formulas that were taught.
Assignments
Assignments put learning objectives into perspective. Well laid out course.
Assignments that reflected the material being taught.
Assignments to enhance the material Pictures to relate to the material
Assignments were relevant, multiple assistants available to help answer questions.
basic CS - good introductory
Basic understandings of computer functions.
Being able to learn HTML and CSS.
Being online
coding instructing
Content was presented in an easy to understand manner. Assignments were fair and helped me learn the content as I went along. Use of LEARN discussion boards was helpful.
Course presentation was good
Easy to follow and assignments were very helpful in both practical and theoretical.
easy to understand
Easy, interesting, and applicable.
Educational and clearly laid out for tech-idiots.
Gives a good intro to CS.
gives great background information for common applications like excel and html.
good communication and deadline extensions from TA's I liked the 7 late days allowed
good course
Good molecules. Clear to follow.
Good notes, strong emphasis on the important points
Great explanation. Follows material in logical order which students can follow.
great skills to learn for everyday living
Highly organized, professor makes good analogies using everyday objects/situations to explain complicated technological processes
I found the material very interesting
I learned so many new things about Microsoft Excel, and html, and just stuff to do with computers. It was a good and knowledgeable course to take.
Information is presented in a clear manner, and somewhat interesting to read
Instructor help and availability.
Interesting and relatable topic.
Interesting material
it helped me understand more about computers
It is a good intro course for students interested in learning about CS
It is interesting and I got to learn a lot more about computers as I do have an interest in them
Learning programs and functions in the assignments
Little bit of humour in the modules.
Lots of great information, enjoyed learning about computers
N/A
No textbook, all info is available on learn - one location for everything.
online quizzes
Online version- self-taught
organization
organization TA assistance
Real world application of CS, applicable skills for those not looking to code.
relevant material i assume it is difficult to explain, so considering, it was explained fairly well
Self paced, practical applications
teach useful basics of computer applications
Teaching excel and coding in a way that gets students to think about the course
that you have a week to complete assignments
The ability to explain and teach the material
The amount of information that is taught. I really learned a lot and it was quite interesting throughout.
The assignments
The assignments that were not quizzes were extremely helpful
The assignments were fun and I learned a lot
The clear instructions provided for the assignments and some of the examples were a great help
The course content is organized effectively week by week, and feedback and assistance were timely and responsive.
The excel portion.
The explanations for assignments were clear and the content was clearly explained.
The fact that there are weekly assignments and deadlines helps me keep on top of my work
The format of the assignments
The html was fun
The material was explained very well.
the modules are well written and they contain great examples
the modules, having office/ chat hours, and fast response to email and having excellent ISAs
The pace, and the way the content is introduced.
The practical assignments with Excel and HTML/CSS, which were actually quite fun.
The practicality of concepts like Excel, especially for future employment opportunities
The strength of this course is to help handle the excel which helps data management. Also give general ideas of basic computing techniques.
The web design section
The website and wyiz building because they are most usable
Things are explained really well and the assignments work perfectly with the course material.
usefullness
Very applicable
Very clear and helpful for students with little to no prior computing knowledge.
Very easy to follow
You are well aware of your deadlines and have one week to complete each module. This is a direct reflection of how well you are able to manage your time and are able to work around scheduling.

In your opinion the weaknesses of this course are:

Assignments could be a little vague sometimes.
Being an online course can be a positive or a negative thing depending on the person, but for me I think I would be more motivated if the material was taught in class, especially the first few units, even if it is one class per week.
Covered too many topics in one week - did not get in depth Some topics were unnecessary like TCP/IP
Difficulty of later modules. I had no prior knowledge, and was extreamly confused as modules got more complicated after module 7
Does not properly explain the basics of html need to google most things
Don't offer so many late days without penalty.
excel
Harder concepts (such as networks, modems, etc) more difficult to understand
I took this course for a basic understanding in computer technology, and though I have learnt a lot, I think that a lot of the information provided in the modules assumes that students already have some understanding for the computer programs. I found especially with the excel modules, that this was true. I have a decent background with excel, however, some of the assignments and practice questions left unclear explanations and sometimes I didn't have any idea of what formula to use or what steps to take to figure it out. Not all the formulas were provided to us and it was extremely difficult to figure it out on my own. Some assignments (HTML) were not given feedback, and it would have been really helpful for the following assignments to know where you went wrong before so you can actually correct for your mistakes. Linking the .css and .html was very unclear.
In terms of course content, I found most things to be useful, so not much weakness n the course.
instructions needs to be clear
Instructor availability on campus
Its online so it isn't the most engaging course and it requires you to be willing to put in the effort and teach yourself
Lack of feedback on quizzes.
materials are disorganized and incomplete. Trying to achieve too much in too little time. HTML and CSS should be a course of its own.
more detailed examples
Much of the assignments are left to the student to interpret how the instructor wants it done. Any further clarification would have been done via e-mail and the rate of responsiveness depends on the availability of the instructor/IA's. In addition, because this course is online, it requires those unable to "study" effectively from a screen to hand write, or print out the notes.
N/A
N/A
no in-person tutorial/ office hours
No videos, learning content only through short/brief readings
None
none
None to mention...
Not able to connect through on-campus study groups
Not all content for quizzes is found in the content section. Excel unit was challenging and parts of it seemed purposeless or just challenging for no reason. (horizontal Vlookups)
Not much. A few changes needed but this course is in flux.
Nothing.
Online course is not very engaging, difficult to stay motivated and get questions answered.
Since its online, it becomes a hassle compared to the day courses
Some content could be explained in more simpler terms
some content was unclear
Some excel questions were hard to understand what I was supposed to do
Some material could have been explained more in depth and more examples could have been provided (i.e. html and css)
Some modules (like module 10) are very long and dull
Some of the analogies used to explain concepts. Too confusing and convoluted!
Some of the assignments were repetitive (ie. making a webpage twice, making one would have sufficed)
Some of the assignments were very time-consuming and when doing it with a full course load, it can be overwhelming.
Some of the content was quite boring (first few weeks).
Some of the explanations were not helpful and were confusing to understand.
some of the modules could have been explained a little more clearly
Some of the modules were not very effective in my opinion, they need a little more hands components while you are going through them.
Some of the quiz questions were a little too tricky.
some of the web page stuffs were a little bit too intense
some parts were fairly confusing, i especially struggled with the excel functions
Sometimes being unable to reach the TA on time
Sometimes concepts were a bit difficult, but I did use the ISA's a lot
Sometimes does not provide enough information/instruction for students to complete the assignments
sometimes some of the modules can be hard to understand, and can be clearer but overall excellent course
Sometimes the T.A take longer to reply back to certain messages.
Specifically the excel as well as html units, they weren't very well taught and could have more detail to avoid confusion and such difficulty with the assignments.
Still some grammatical errors in the slides.
Terminology was confusing
That assignments are multiple choice and also practical. Sometimes there are too many aspects in an assignment.
The assignments included questions and work that was never taught. The last few assignments were far too difficult compared to what was outlined in the lecture. I had to get a friend who is in 4th software engineering to help because nothing was explained well previously.
The computer section, the quizzes, the delayed marking
The excel wasn't helpful
The first few modules on excel etc
The lack of video tutorials.
the quizzes vary in difficulty a lot.
The quizzes.
The TA's don't specify when they give extensions until which day at an earlier time.
The webdesign practical assignments for modules 8 and 9 required a lot of self-taught learning from sources outside of the modules/given course content. I understand that this is good in encouraging students to research and learn more on their own but this made completing the assignments on my own more difficult as not all the information was given in the course notes.
The whole course is text based. It's like reading a text book.
There were too many delays in uploading the modules. The instructions for assignments were really vague
This course is showing the techniques a lot and also theories but when they introduce technique on the lecture note, hard to understand techniques by words and paragraphs.
This course was very repetitive and the material was disappointing. From a computer course I was under the impression I would learn more about computers than be forced to do useless things with excel and create websites. Most of the content was useless.
very unorganized.. TAs and instructor did not respective the deadline the assignments should be posted on multiple occasions which was annoying
way too many unnecessary definitions
weekly assignments

The instructor would like to know what specific things you believe might be done to improve the teaching of this course:

can teach how to code in C
change some of the content to make it more clear
explain some of the modules a little better on how to do certain things.
Focus more on excel/word
Get rid of the computer section. If I want to take a computer course, I would have signed up for CS 115. I wanted to learn more about Excel, and web page management.... you know, things that would be useful for getting a job. Not sure why this is a difficult concept.
Have a concrete schedule and stick to it. Give assignments 2 weeks in advance but have them overlap (so people who have a busy week can still work on the assignments and get them all done)
Have questions that are easier to understand.
I don't know. I just do not think this course is for me. Thanks.
i hope there is more examples and videos to help understand techniques.
I never really heard from the instructor. I understand there are TAs, but even with my previous online courses the instructors definitely made more of an appearance.
I really like how the class is set up, with the late days, time to do each assignment, and assignments aren't too long or hard either. So personally, I think the course is fine as it is.
I think the only thing that could improve the teaching would be include more examples, for example the videos
I wish there were another excel module and we could have learned other things like pivot tables.
I would like a mixture of lectures and notes. Reading text off of a page is boring and makes it difficult to learn sometimes. I'd also like to see more examples in the excel section.
I'm not sure that Module 9 was useful for me. I spent more time on worrying about the var weights for my web page than anything else. There was some confusion towards the end because some things had to be shifted around.Sometimes uploading to the student.cs website didn't work properly. I'm not sure if that was us or the program. I think there should be more about responsive design and accessibility requirements for websites.
Improve everything in weaknesses
In my opinion this course might be better as a physical course rather than an online course
in-person office hours
Instructional videos for excel or html formulae and code so the assignments aren't as confusing (as they were)
It might potentially help to have an online final assignment rather than a written exam to best suit this course's content.
Keep the module on security. I think that topic is very important
less excel
Less memes and internet trends. Such cringe.
Make assignments more simple. Two two to three different parts.
Maybe use more live videos/tutorials on how to do apply concepts (like what was done with the Excel modules). - Try to make the modules flow better - Maybe record videos of the modules being lectured; just reading slides felt at times as if I was read
Modules for the "excel" unit weren't as well put or helpful as I wanted to be. I was more dependent on videos on the internet for my learning.
More focus on html, Css and java. I do not think that excel needed to be focused on as much
More practical assignments, doing more with Excel if possible, as well as possibly teaching how to use database software (MS Access?), as that is sometimes a requirement or qualification for jobs.
More readings regarding html and more examples to help with assignments
More specific in requirements for activities and clearer on particular elements we are required to replicate. The assignments were redundant and very time consuming becaue of the level of difficulty.
More videos need to be provided as supplementary material.
More videos to demonstrate how things are done
N/A
N/A
None
None
Nothing I can think of. Well done!
Nothing more than what is already being done.
Nothing, did an amazing job!
Nothing. Great as is!
Offer an optional tutorial time within class schedules. I would have been more inclined to attend this than office hours.
One thing that this course can be improved on is probably make the assignments more concise because some of the assignments were kind of tedious to perform.
Online how to tutorials
open up the quiz answers so i can review them, use as study notes still unsure how i should/can prepare for the final exam
Overall, I think it is very well done.
Personalized videos
Please cover basic Python, even the most rudimentary stuff. I have been self teaching it to myself on the side through the free course that Waterloo just put out and am loving it. I wish that CS 100 would cut out the basic computer module (ie. "What is hardware", "What is software") and put a module about Python.
please explain the module 7 and 8 a little bit more because they are relatively hard to understand
Provide a more in-depth video of the INDIRECT function.
Provide more specific instructions in the Dynamic Web Pages module regarding how to apply Javascript to the assignment
Reduce the number of lectures/modules on
Since it is a CS course, I think some tutorials would have been very helpful with learning how to code. With tutorials, the teacher can point out the important syntax errors/ key points so that there is more benefit as opposed to when the student, who has little to no experience with HTML and JavaScript, has to look for these things.
Some assignments took much longer than others. Warning ahead of time about the length could have helped to time manage better. Some of the heavier assignments overlapped with midterms, would be better placed at beginning of course.
Some assignments were excessive. More structure could be given for coding and formatting it.
Some instructions for assignments were vague
Some instructions or things in the quiz weren't directly taught in the modules
Some more information should have been given on how to specifically do the assignements. If there's no text book, all the needed information to do the The assignments should be available in the modules.
Students may be more involved if the course could be related to social media more since it is such a big part of today's culture
TAs need to be more professional when addressing questions
The instructions for assignments were unclear, lots of unnecessary information. Would have liked to see more in depth learning about excel graphs, as they have been a big part of lab components of my courses and they are not always as simple as the ones that are presented in this course.
There is no teaching, it's all online modules.
To explain concepts better, I had to look up a lot of things to understand what was trying to be explained. Also, to
To have more office hours/ chat hours. especially in person
too take out the pointless definitions and try not to overcomplicate the content
Update the information slides to encompass more relevant and current technologies.
Videos or audio would be more interesting than simply reading material every week.

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