Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2023 Spring :: CS 100

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2023 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:

Coming soon...

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 28 / 181 (15%)

Instructor Stats

The instructor(s) helped me to understand the course concepts.
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
1	1	3	6	15	2
4%	4%	11%	21%	54%	7%

The instructor(s) created a supportive environment that helped me learn (Supportive environments enable students to feel included and valued regardless of any aspect of their identity).
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
		6	7	12	2
		22%	26%	44%	7%

The instructor(s) stimulated my interest in this course.
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
	2	3	11	10	1
	7%	11%	41%	37%	4%

Course Stats

The intended learning outcomes were identified (Learning outcomes/objectives articulate what students should be able to know, do, and/or value by the end of a course).
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
		3	13	11
		11%	48%	41%

The course activities prepared me for the graded work.
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
	1	1	13	12
	4%	4%	48%	44%

The intended learning outcomes were assessed through my graded work.
Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	No Basis for Rating
		3	12	12
		11%	44%	44%

Workload

The course workload demands were...
Very Low	Low	Average	High	Very High	No Basis for Rating
	3	19	2	3
	11%	70%	7%	11%

Question-Specific Comments:

The instructor(s) helped me to understand the course concepts.

[Strongly Disagree] Not sure how UWaterloo could actually justify charging for this mess of a course. Many of the lessons don't have videos even. The definition of phoning it in. If it wasn't manditory I would have dropped the course.

The course activities prepared me for the graded work.

[Disagree] Some of the "lessons", which in actual fact were cut and pasted content created nearly 10 years back (with items redacted that were no longer in context), could be read in 10 minutes to prepare for an assignment that often took 4-5 hours to complete correctly. The modules on CSS and HTML were embarrassingly poor, and did basically nothing to teach useful skills. As an online course this should be disbanded.

Comments:

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

The most important thing I learned in this course was:

all concepts were relatively new; also interesting to enhance excel skills
All the excel functions shown in the course
Basic concepts of programming.
Basics of how to use Excel, HTML, and how computer hardware and software work together.
Better understanding of web sites and how they are created
excel functions
General information about excel and html.
I will definitely use this knowledge at some point in my life and its cool to understand server requests and reasons <em>why</em> things are as they appear on websites!
How to build basic web pages. How HTML and CSS work and how to integrate them together.
Learning how to write in HTML and make webpages.
learning HTML
Online courses can be made fun
Probably how to use Excel effectively (to some degree). HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are used together. However, the JavaScript portion of the course was very confusing even for a student like me who had taken a JavaScript-specific course like CS 105.
the basics behind computers.
The excel spreadsheet work we covered, since I am going into Business, I think this will be very helpful in the future.
The methods to solve internet problems.
This course served as a very good introduction to the possible problems you can solve with computer science.
Time management
To read UWFlow more carefully prior to signing up for a course

What helped me to learn in this course was:

Clear content and graded work that related to the content
course content was detailed and helped me understand different concepts. examples of assignments (ex. good and bad websites, excel spreadsheets, etc.) helped me with the completion of assignments.
Doing the assignments forcing you to use the information covered in the lesson materials
Emailing the T.A.'s and going to office hours.
I was initially interested in computer science. And the format of the quizzes is quite helpful as it was easy to get into a routine to complete it weekly.
Independent study
Office hours
The detailed notes are very interested.
The Excel and HTML assignments where we were able to apply the concepts we learned in the modules to an assignment about a subject of our interest. It helped me learn how to apply the concepts as opposed to simply reading the code in the course materials.
The interactive assignments.
The module lessons.
The quizes after each module and the videos included in the modules
The videos
The weekly assignments and your great youtube videos.
The weekly course notes and videos were good.
The weekly modules were simple and pretty easy. They were informative and had some banter in them which kept it engaging and somewhat funny.
video modules and relating computer topics to things we see in the real world (ex cooper and his desk).
YouTube, actual videos from other schools not remotely associated with Waterloo

What changes, if any, would I suggest for this course?

Change the estimated time to complete a weekly assignment to way higher. For a lot of the assignments that had extra work other than just the MC questions, it took way longer than the estimated time. I'm not sure if it was just me but some of the weekly assignments took me multiple days to understand and comprehend a topic/subject.

The amount of information needed to be remembered also seems quite high. Only the Excel portions of the course already have my brain confused about it. The different functions and formulas needed to be remembered, the syntax of all those formulas and such.

As a course with a final exam, it is a little more harsh than an intro course since all the topics are so broad. I understand that with it being broader, it is way more surface-level in terms of info, but still, it is a lot.
Everything was nice!
Find a way to update late days in learn so its easier to know how many you have left.
I would make the exam worth 20 or 25% instead, maybe split the 50% with a midterm, or assignments that are worth more. There could also be a group project to take a chunk of the 50% exam.
If anything, I would object changes. The class is planning on moving from online to in-person, however, I would say that the content and formatting works very well online. If anything, I think having options for in-person classes would be ok, but definitely not mandatory given the nature of the course.
More programming!
More video lessons for all modules rather than readings.
more video modules rather than readings.
No.
None, its great with the assignments and the flex late days as things can pile up in other courses.
nothing
offer both written and video lessons instead of just the video with a written transcript
Provide more content for each week. Add more instructor videos and/or synchronous content and give external resources for students who do not understand the small content in the readings.
Since it was already do on your own, all the assignments should have opened at the same time but close in a timely manner.
The course was overall very well-organized, but it would have been nice to have more engagement with the prof.

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