Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2012 Winter :: CS 115

Dave Tompkins :: Teaching :: 2012 Winter :: CS 115 - 003

Course Description:

CS 115: Introduction to Computer Science 1

An introduction to the fundamentals of computer science through the application of elementary programming patterns in the functional style of programming. Function definition and application. Tracing via substitution. Design, testing, and documentation. Recursive data definitions. Lists and trees. Functional and data abstraction.

Dave's Comments:

Because I was teaching 115 for the second time, it was much easier to adjust my pacing and develop extended examples. I also had a much better sense for the material that the students would struggle with.

Note: Two evaluations for a different instructor (and course) were accidentally included in my evaluations. As a result the (corrected) results on this website differ from the "official" results posted elsewhere.

Teaching Evaluations:

Number of Respondents: 50 / 92 (54%)

Characteristics of the Instructor:

Evaluate the organization and coherence of the lectures.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
31	16	3
62%	32%	6%

At what level were the instructor's explanations aimed?
Too high	Somewhat too high	Just right	Somewhat too low	Too low	No opinion
4	3	39	3	1
8%	6%	78%	6%	2%

Evaluate the instructor's treatment of students' questions.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
34	10	5			1
68%	20%	10%			2%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's visual presentation (blackboard, overheads, etc.).
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
32	14	4
64%	28%	8%

Evaluate the effectiveness of the instructor's oral presentation.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
33	15	2
66%	30%	4%

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
13	12	12	2		10
27%	24%	24%	4%		20%

Did you find the course interesting?
Very Interesting	Interesting	Not interesting	No opinion
19	24	6	1
38%	48%	12%	2%

Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the instructor as a teacher.
Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory	Very poor	No opinion
36	11	3
72%	22%	6%

Characteristics of the Course:

What proportion of lectures did you attend in this course?
90-100%	75-90%	50-75%	25-50%	< 25%
39	10	1
78%	20%	2%

Was the assigned work (assignments, projects, etc.) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No work assigned	No opinion
24	24			1
49%	49%			2%

Were the printed notes (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No printed course notes	No opinion
21	26	2		1
42%	52%	4%		2%

Was the required textbook (if any) helpful in learning the course content?
Very helpful	Helpful	Not helpful	No text required	No opinion
3	15	10	8	13
6%	31%	20%	16%	27%

Did the course introduce an appropriate amount of new material?
Too much	Somewhat too much	Okay	Somewhat too little	Too little	No opinion
1	12	32	3	1	1
2%	24%	64%	6%	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
4	12	33	1
8%	24%	66%	2%

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
3	20	17	2	6
6%	42%	35%	4%	12%

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.

Careful and funny.
Dave provided great examples when explaining the course material. Showed lots of enthusiasm towards teaching. Made the course fun and interesting. Dave has a great sense of humour, and always tries to keep the course material interesting.
Efficiency.
Engaging the class. Excellent analogies and examples. Enthusiasm. Clarity, general sense of when to go deeper into an idea.
Everything! He was so easy to learn from because of his passion for the course. He was creative (very) in making the material interesting & easy to learn from. He really knew what he was talking about. He was easy to understand and he really tried to understand his students. He was so enthusiastic!
Excellent examples. Great enthusiasm. Funny jokes.
Good at explaining. Really interesting & enthusiastic!
Good examples.
Good expressions and enthusiastic teaching. Good use of jokes to teach, as examples.
Good oral and visual presentation. Clear explanations, repeated in a variety of manners.
Great explanation on course concepts. Made me enjoy CS and learning it. Actually understood what Dave was teaching. Used a lot of real life examples and related to real life. Overall great teacher.
Great explanations w/ real life examples. Made understanding the concepts easier (especially with the once upon a time reference). Very funny
He made the class an interactive one.
He made the class pretty interesting, especially for students who have no intention to pursue CS any further.
He makes CS a lot more interesting than I thought.
He provided helpful examples and visuals to explain the material.
He tried to make the course as interesting as he could. Very energetic in class.
He tries to explain everything simple.
I liked your analogies. The zombie and pac-man metaphors were very helpful. I also like how you used a mixture powerpoint, racket and whiteboard. Your jokes grew on me.
Interact with students and make the lecture funny and interesting.
Kept the class interested. He had entertaining examples which helped me stay interested and also helped me think of the material in a new way. Also really liked how if instructor got lost always found his way back.
Made the course interesting.
Passionate, helpful.
Really taken time to explain complex ideas / concepts.
Slides were really good, especially the examples.
Speak very clearly and class very interesting. Very patient and helpful to the questions.
The instructor is very interesting.
The style.
Tries to keep class interesting.
Very well done. Explain everything perfectly. CS becomes quite easy.
Your enthusiasm towards CS made the course much more interesting and enjoyable.

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

A bit too bored sometimes. Should teach [illegible] harder because the point is the assignments are somewhat too hard.
Could have more board work.
Could tone down the rambling a little.
Everything is good.
He should engage the class in more in-class practical work.
He's already good; no need for improvement!
I really think the class should have more tracing exercises involved.
I think the instructor is excellent :)
I think we need more practice which related to the exams.
Less pop culture jokes from the 70s and 80s, we're 90s kids.
Make assignments easier plz! Hate spending one whole day finishing that!
Make it easier to make notes during examples. More interactive.
Nothing
Nothing. I think Dave did a fantastic job teaching the course.
Slow down sometimes. It's really fast sometimes.
Sometimes because of time certain material was explained with little detail.
Sometimes examples in lectures hard to follow.
Sometimes you will go over something a bit too fast.
Ummmm I'm so happy he's got passion - unlike other profs - that I can't see anything to improve upon.
Would go through the example a tiny bit slower.
Your use of rainbow markers really helped me to visualize codes with multiple steps.

What were the strong points of the course?

Constructive, nice exercise for brain.
CS 115 made learning the basics of computer science much more simply than the visual basics course I took in high school.
Dave's lecture
Excellent availability of learning resources.
Good pace.
Interesting.
Introduced lots of interesting material.
It included real world examples, making it easier to understand this was another technique Dave used in extra examples.
It's a nice introduction to CS. It made me want to study CS in depth, even though I never intended to study CS.
Learning to logically and abstractly program.
New info.
Pretty cool. Instructors are helpful
Simplified teaching language.
Structures, lists.
The assignments were challenging but ultimately very helpful. Examples in class helped me grasp the basics.
The content before midterm
The course helps in building a mindset for this type of thinking.
The course made me learn the world of basic programming.
The first couple of modules are pretty straightforward. Not too complicated once the assignments are finished.
The instructor - I finally passed the course.
Very interesting and very helpful to the person who firstly learn CS.
Very interesting, well-rounded intro to comp sci.
Well organized.

What were the weak points of the course?

Assignments took forever
Concepts came a little fast, especially near the end of the course.
Difficult
Don't think the notes cover enough for assignments.
Easy lecture content. Very hard assignments.
First 3 assignments were time consuming, and took 5 hours a week to complete (since it's my 1st CS course other than cs100)
High amount of required assignments (though that's just me personally)
I don't find any.
I think it really doesn't start well for a student with no CS background. It tends to be a bit difficult.
Mutual recursion, trees.
Overly simplistic.
[racist comment removed] No class participation. Sad to see when an instructor tries so hard.
Solutions for lab questions should be posted for extra practice.
Sometimes a little difficult.
Sometimes I fell asleep, the lecture can be more interesting.
The last 2 modules went far too fast. A lot of important material was packed in a small space.
The modules after the midterm become a lot more complicated.
The textbook seemed different from the course notes.
The trees.
The workload is a bit much; especially the assignments.
Too hard! Never learn it before!

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.

Always positive!
Amazing class atmosphere.
Class atmosphere is good overall.
Great positive atmosphere.
It's good.
n/a
No
No comment.
No comment.
Nope
Nope
positive
Positive
Positive, definitely :) [racist comment removed]
Positive, light-hearted atmosphere.
Positive, provided an interesting somewhat dull and lively atmosphere.
positively
Positively. You interacted very well.
The atmosphere was good, classmates asked questions all the time.
The atmosphere was positive.
The class atmosphere was positively affected by the professor making it more captivating over the 80 minutes.

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

Class size, sometimes if the class was too full & you had to sit in the back, you can hardly see the overhead.
Crazy, crazy man! but? (swap-parts "someawe") !
Dave is so far my favourite prof in Waterloo. I would for sure take cs116 if Dave was the prof. Dave is hilarious, and definitely makes learning about CS very interesting. Thanks for everything Dave!
Everything good!
Good all around.
Good class size, not loud, able to focus.
I have been a student here for three years. You are by far the best prof I have had. They better renew your contract! UW needs more profs like you.
I liked the size this term as opposed to last term (I took the class again). There's some sort of ventilation noise that Dave always had to talk over but he was never hard to hear.
I think CS class should be like less students. Class size should be smaller.
I think other language rather than English should not be allowed in class. To be honest it was my second time taking this course and both times I had you as the instructor. You did improve a lot. Best of luck, hope to see you again in Waterloo in the future.
just right
Just right.
n/a
n/a
Nice small class size.
No
No comment.
pretty good

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