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:
Teaching Evaluations:
Number of Respondents: 42 / 84 (50%)
| The instructor(s) helped me to understand the course concepts. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree | No Basis for Rating |
| | 2 | 7 | 33 | |
| | 5% | 17% | 79% | |
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 |
| 1 | 1 | 8 | 32 | |
| 2% | 2% | 19% | 76% | |
| The instructor(s) stimulated my interest in this course. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree | No Basis for Rating |
| | 2 | 12 | 28 | |
| | 5% | 29% | 67% | |
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 |
| | 2 | 12 | 28 | |
| | 5% | 29% | 67% | |
| The course activities prepared me for the graded work. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree | No Basis for Rating |
| 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 26 | |
| 2% | 2% | 14% | 19% | 62% | |
| The intended learning outcomes were assessed through my graded work. |
| Strongly Disagree | Disagree | Neutral | Agree | Strongly Agree | No Basis for Rating |
| 1 | | 16 | 25 | |
| 2% | | 38% | 60% | |
| The course workload demands were... |
| Very Low | Low | Average | High | Very High | No Basis for Rating |
| 7 | 33 | 1 | 1 | |
| 17% | 79% | 2% | 2% | |
| The instructor(s) helped me to understand the course concepts. |
- [Strongly Agree] I found it easier to follow the lecture content when you walked through and explained the content
- [Strongly Agree] The analogies used in class to explain how things worked was really helpful and made them easier to remember.
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). |
- [Agree] I didn't really attend the office hours for the prof or the TA. I found the lab sessions really helpful
- [Strongly Agree] prof Dave was very unbiased and sweet and also god bless my TA Jenna (literally god send)
| The instructor(s) stimulated my interest in this course. |
- [Neutral] Some topics peaked my interest but I was already interested in the course overall.
- [Strongly Agree] I declared a computing minor because of this class. It sparked my interest in computers again.
- [Strongly Agree] I took it as an elective and mostly because I thought we would be taught excel (it was removed) but prof dave really made classes fun and interesting enough for me to actually enjoy the course.
| The course activities prepared me for the graded work. |
- [Agree] The lectures were great for this but I felt some weeks the labs didn't help to enforce the topics learned in class.
- [Strongly Agree] The lab content was really helpful in navigating the assignments.
- [Strongly Agree] The Labs were actually fun and again god bless my TA Jenna
| The course workload demands were... |
- [Average] Nothing too demanding.
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: |
- A greater understanding of how computers work
- basic of HTML and how to understand technology around me
- - basics of computers including the inner mechanisms, how to choose an appropriate computer and how to properly and efficiently do searching, as well as internet privacy.
- Binary, computer hardware, websites
- Computer organizations
- dr. Dave is a great guy, overall best teaching teacher ive had all my life, made university bareable, i genuinely believe that i understood and enjoyed this course a lot more because this prof taught it. Genuinely great. Something i actually learned from this course was about how google searches work because its just something i need in my everyday life.
- Everything! I learned about various new subjects that I normally wouldnt be exposed to in my field. I feel that even if I dont use them in my career, theyre good things to learn to understand the things that you use everyday.
- Honestly everything!!! This course was very informative and very addicting!
- How computers work and their organization
- How technology that we use everyday works
- How the internet and computers work and how to be more efficient with them. Also being aware of how things are being used and how I can better protect myself.
- How the technology I use every day can be better utilized and understood.
- How to code in HTML and how to style with CSS. This class was my first introduction to this language of coding and I found it very interesting
- How to make basic websites using HTML
- How to use HTML and make my ownpage.
- HTML
- HTML
- html
- HTML and basics of computing
- html and css
- HTML and CSS
- html and java
- HTML code
- I believe that the most important thing I learned in this course was building websites, along with computer operations like understanding what peripherals, primary and secondary memory, and the processor.
- I gained a basis for understanding how computers and the web works which is nice living in a very computer based world!
- Learning how to use HTML and CSS.
- Learning HTML as I truly believe that will come handy for me in the future.
- Lots of random internet facts and html was cool
- Making html and css, website cookies
- Take good notes during lecture
- The basics of how computers work in our everyday lives without us knowing (Very interesting things happen at 100x the speed of light per second)
- The basics of HTML coding
- The inner workings of day to day computer usage and basic coding skills.
- The way encryption works and how data travels across the internet to get to it destination. It was interesting to see such a complicated process that happens in a millisecond, while making sure that everything is as secure as it can be. It was also fascinating to see the negatives of advanced technology and how such actions are challenging the systems that have been put into place.
- This course taught me a lot about everyday computer related concepts such as how a computer works, how information is stored digitally, how websites work, and how internet communication functions.
- Using google search because it will help the most outside of this course.
| What helped me to learn in this course was: |
- Attending all the labs, as they are very helpful for assignments.
- Attending classes and the LAB
- Attending labs and properly focusing helped me the best.
- Attending lectures and tutorials
- Attending lectures, asking for clarification when needed, studying with my peers.
- Attending the labs and taking time outside of class to understand the labs and examples used in lectures.
- Coming to the lecture
- course setup was clean, consistent classes and coursework was understandable
- Dave
- dave's enthusiastic behaviour
- Dave's method of teaching by including humour, interesting stories, enthusiasm, and connecting topics together.
- Dr. Tompkins examples in class that complimented the lecture slides, as well as his enthusiasm!
- Focus on understanding what is happening instead of taking notes. Note taking was still important but if you could understand the general principles of how various processes work it was much easier to apply them on the go during evaluations.
- going to class and the labs
- HTML demonstrations
- I believe that the labs were very informative and helpful to my leanring in this course, and I spent a considerable amount of time re-reading the slides and writing the content down.
- I tried to keep up with lectures, going to and doing the labs.
- ISA and labs
- Keeping the lecture engaging was great, the labs also helped to practice concepts.
- labs lecture assignments
- lectures
- Lectures were helpful in breaking down the content into understandable content.
- Mr.Thompkin's in-class lectures were very well explained and fun.
- Paying attention in lecture and attending labs
- Professor dave tompkins singlehandedly helped me learn in this course. Seeing the term "CS" gave me a shock but coming into this class i genuinely enjoyed professor daves classes and the way he taught.
- Professor Dave was a very engaging instructor who made complex topics easier to understand. Assignments and labs throughout the course were great for checking progress and to make sure I was keeping up with the material.
- showing up to class, taking notes, asking questions, attending tutorials
- Showing up to lectures and having an engaging prof. Some topics I found a little boring but Dave managed to still make it worth it to listen with stories or animated slides.
- The lab sessions.
- The labs and how visual the course is
- The labs helped to refresh the content and make sure you understood it
- The labs hosted by the ISAs Jenna and Callum. They were both EXTREMELY helpful and I got lots of work done because of them.
- The labs were especially helpful in visualizing the process of what we learnt in class, and was definitely a helpful resource while preparing for exams. The instructor’s engaging slides and overall classroom environment kept me present in class content.
- The labs which provided good and relevant practice questions
- The professor showed immense passion for his work which intrigued me and motivated me to learn more
- The professor was very enthusiastic and explained every concept in a simple, easy to understand manner. Being a visual learner, it was helpful when his slides effectively showed the content.
- The way the professor taught the course, it was engaging and interesting
| What changes, if any, would I suggest for this course? |
- Altering some of the lecture notes to have clear summary/concept points. While it does encourage note taking and ensuring attention during class, when I missed important concepts or needed a summary, I found bit difficult to navigate.
- Honestly everything was really great, a little more coding would've been fun but maybe that would make the workload too heavy. in general really great course and instructor!
- Honestly, nothing. This course was very fun and very informative, and Dave was outstanding. I highly encourage the course to continue as an in-person lecture instead of online. Having a human explain the concepts and dive into side tangents on related material was vital in understanding what we were discussing. I could see problems with engagement and comprehension if the course returns to an online only/primarily format
- I can't think of one
- I don't have any, I thoroughly enjoyed this course
- I don't think I have any next steps for this course.
- I liked the pacing of the course and especially the labs, I don't have any suggestions.
- I think time management because it felt very rushed near the end.
- I wish Excel was covered, because it is so versatile.
- I would include some introductions to excel and focus less on things like network and the additional topics. Excel is very valuable for a variety of fields so I would have liked to be more well versed in that.
- I would like to learn excel and think that should be in the course again
- I would suggest more online interaction on the labs.
- I would've like the first half of the course to include google search and encryption so the second half can be solely based on HTML and CSS.
- incorporate excel again since it's useful. or incorporate more html and java. provide some more clarity on lecture slides so just in case students cant come in on some days, they can refer to the slides to have some idea of what goes on. otherwise dave was a great prof
- Less math.
- Make HTML more longer lessons because I needed more time to learn it
- Make sure to write everything you explain in class on the slides. Sometimes the slides did not contain what you said, especially in the units about digital information, which often got confusing because i would be unsure of where to write my notes
- make the presentations more thorough
- midterm was very strange, Dave swears a lot and talks about adult websites a lot
- N/A
- No change
- no suggestions!
- none
- none
- None. I would not like this course to be changed into an online course or and Excel course.
- Not to get rid of it
- nothing much, it seems good to me
- Nothing, overall great course, great balance, everything here is helpful/\.
- Some topics could be taught for longer or less. Computer and network organization could be slightly shorter, etc. I also wanted to thank Dave and the ISAs for keeping the course interesting and engaging! Thank you for a great semester.
- the eglish comprehension required for some questions seems unfair in testing the general understanding of students CS knowledge. the context required behind some hypothetical questions is more work the understand than the CS problem itself. e.g writing abt a foreign planets currency and counting in different denominations - it was less confusing to understand the denominations compared to understanding the context of the alien civilization (confusing)
- There isn't anything I would really change as it was an amazing course overall, it really was intersting.
- To post the lectures but with definitions and notes - for the days I was absent and unable to take notes I had no clue just by looking at the images what they meant.
- Was told there was no coding at the beginning of the course and ended up having to do a good amount of code, a heads up saying there will be coding would have been nice.
- While I think that the course was sufficient in the way it was taught, I think adding few more detailed lecture slides would be helpful in relating back to content, especially when studying for exams. Sometimes recalling the detailed information about certain topics is difficult and so a few detailed slides sounds like a good idea.