1/25 lecture feedback 7 bonus points awarded for asking questions in lecture 1 1KnowMemoryModel: 2) bad 10 1KnowMemoryModel: 3) ok 26 1KnowMemoryModel: 4) good 9 1KnowMemoryModel: 5) very good 7 1LecMemoryModel: 3) ok 34 1LecMemoryModel: 4) good 5 1LecMemoryModel: 5) very good 10 2KnowTabularTrace: 3) ok 25 2KnowTabularTrace: 4) good 11 2KnowTabularTrace: 5) very good 6 2LecTabularTrace: 3) ok 32 2LecTabularTrace: 4) good 8 2LecTabularTrace: 5) very good 2 3KnowQuizCore: 2) bad 16 3KnowQuizCore: 3) ok 15 3KnowQuizCore: 4) good 13 3KnowQuizCore: 5) very good 1 3LecQuizCore: 0) don't remember seeing it 2 3LecQuizCore: 1) very bad 3 3LecQuizCore: 2) bad 16 3LecQuizCore: 3) ok 16 3LecQuizCore: 4) good 8 3LecQuizCore: 5) very good 1 4KnowQuizBonus: 4 4KnowQuizBonus: 2) bad 22 4KnowQuizBonus: 3) ok 9 4KnowQuizBonus: 4) good 10 4KnowQuizBonus: 5) very good 1 4LecQuizBonus: 0) don't remember seeing it 1 4LecQuizBonus: 1) very bad 2 4LecQuizBonus: 2) bad 23 4LecQuizBonus: 3) ok 17 4LecQuizBonus: 4) good 2 4LecQuizBonus: 5) very good 10 6LecOverall: 3) ok 32 6LecOverall: 4) good 4 6LecOverall: 5) very good ---- q> Because of my previous programming experience my understanding of all q> the material so far has been very good. However, from speaking with q> a few people others feel that the quiz was unfair. Apparently some q> sections covered temp variables while others (mine included) did not. my apologies. we goofed. note that this kind of situation is one reason we will be dropping at least 2 quiz scores, possibly a few more. ---- q> Honestly I didn't think the content of the quiz question was fair to q> a very good portion of the class. Many of us had our sections q> cancelled this week due to overabundance and therefore never learned q> what we needed to know for either quiz question. Despite the fact q> that it's a "small" quiz, I just didn't feel comfortable to be in a q> helpless position since there was nothing I could really do with the q> questions. Therefore I obviously got both questions incorrect because q> I had no clue what to do. Other than that, I thought the lecture q> itself was pretty good. ---- q> Keep up the good work. Enjoying the perfect pace. ---- q> The lecture seems a little disconnected at times and perhaps some q> references seem to require prior knowledge of programming eg. tmp. I yes, that was a goof: swapping 2 variables was covered in section. briefly to swap the contents of variables X and Y, you should use a third "auxiliary" or "helper" variable, which we called "tmp" in section and the quiz. pseudocode: Matlab: tmp <-- X; >> tmp = X; X <-- Y; >> X = Y; Y <-- tmp; >> Y = tmp; q> am still not very clear about what is actually programmed into Matlab q> and what is pseudocode. Could you explain? almost everything i have done is, in fact, Matlab code. as above, i will try to prefix matlab code with ">>" to distinguish it from pseudocode. ---- q> I liked that you showed two different solutions to the quiz question. tangent: in lecture or in office hours, if you ask me to repeat a question, please try to differentiate between: + "please repeat exactly what you said" and + "please repeat what you said using another explanation" i'm afraid i have a tendency to try to give another explanation when, in fact, merely repeating the original was what was wanted and would be more helpful -- please help me help you. ---- q> Pretty good job so far, the only thing is that the lecture are not q> really following the Matlab book too much, so I'm ahead in some areas q> and clueless in others. i do plan to assign readings, but for now, please look in the table of contents and read (parts of) early chapters that as appropriate. ---- q> Regarding the tabular format, is there ever a time that one column q> can have more than one tracing or output. For instance, like in q> column 3 below: q> q> x | 1 | | 4 | q> --+---+---+---+ q> y | | 5 | 9 | yes! that will show up in a few weeks, when we will see that in certain cases it is possible to simultaneously assign to multiple variables. ---- q> Are all quizzes going to be suprise quizzes? that we should expect q> them at all times? i'll announce some ahead of time, but as stated on the webpages, you should not be surprised to have (unannounced) quizzes in lecture and section. ---- q> cool class; just that i wish the instructor can write the notes q> slower, it's hard to catch up i'm afraid that i *always* have problems with this. now and then, you might call out, "please wait!". ---- q> The answers for the quiz was not explained very thoroughly. Although q> it was my first day at lecture, I think it's quite comprehensive yet q> the material is hard to swallow. I think we should go over our errors q> a couple of times. ---- q> The lecture seemed fine to me, although not terribly exciting. ---- q> I would prefer for the instructor to link the lectures more closely q> to reading in the text and to assignments. ---- q> In general,I understood the material presented in class. However, I q> think it would be helpful to have more practice problems like the q> quiz presented in class. ---- q> I understood tracing lecture just fine, it was very good. The q> explaination of the quiz i felt went a little fast, especially the q> for loop. But i still understood it based on my past programming q> experience. Also, I felt that too much time was spent reviewing the q> previous lecture. I think that the lectures are pretty clear and such q> a long review was not the best use of lecture time. I think it would i normally won't spend quite as much time reviewing. however, those are really important principles. q> have been important to get to conditionals seeing as we have a q> project due on monday. But overall i like the lectures. I like the q> video monitor/pen & paper combo. You write big and slow and explain q> as you write which is helpful. this is, in fact, why i don't use pre-printed lecture slides: writing things down makes me go slower. i'm not entirely happy with the clarity of the writing -- i'm going try to use a felt tip pen, which hopefully will write a bit darker and thicker, and also make me write a tad bigger. ---- q> Overall, the lecture was good. Although, I am not prepared at all q> for the Project from lectures, but I learned from the help files. ---- q> I thought that the quiz was a good idea because it will keep students q> on their toes, but it won't hurt us if we don't fully understand the q> concept. ---- q> I thought the lecture went well today. Since I have no background in q> computer programming at all, I am learning as we go along. The first q> day seemed like a different language. After today's lecture, I q> understand more, but I still need a lot of explanation on how to q> write an entire program. I understand the questions after you give q> the solution, I just need to get the problems on my own. ---- q> I thought today's lecture was reassuring. It was easy to follow. Even q> though I did the quiz problem wrong, I now understand the concept of q> the main question and the bonus. I'm very nervous about this class q> since I've never porgrammed before, but today's lecture was a good q> pace. tip: do try to learn things first on your own, but if you do have trouble, definitely come talk to the course staff to get help. a recurring problem that i see over and over is that students wait much too long to get help or else don't get any help at all. and again, if you encounter someone who is not helpful, try someone else. ---- q> it was the first real day of material so it wasn't that difficult ---- q> The concepts were interesting and surprisingly witty. ---- q> Lecture was good today. Professor Yan explained the topics in a q> manner that was easy to understand. He also presented many examples q> to make sure students did as well. The idea of receiving bonus q> points for asking questions really stimulated the group. Many more q> questions were asked today in lecture and helped students understand q> some important concepts more clearly. ---- q> Lecture topics were presented well! ---- q> As of now, I think that the lecture went fine--but that may be q> because I have no prior knowledge of programming. I am understanding q> everything that is being taught as of now, so the lectures are good. great! one word of caution: make sure you start projects early. even if you understand lecture, actually doing the programming yourself is usually a rather different experience. ---- q> I felt rushed during the quiz (E1) on Thursday. I needed more time to q> do the bonus problem as well. I felt that I wasn't given enough time q> to successfully show my knowledge of assignments. Hence, I just put q> down three statements (all of which were not thought out). Other than q> that, I thought the lecture material and concepts were presented q> well. it is good that you felt the bonus was in your reach, but note that bonus questions will typically be too hard/long for most people to finish in the alloted time. ---- q> Most of the material covered was well explained; I understood most of q> it. The bonus question was very educational. ---- q> Everything was so confusing until I went to the Demo. That really q> helped. I think the Demo should be done before trying to teach any q> of that other stuff. we goofed. we did in fact want to schedule demos before thursday. ---- q> There are a lot of commands in Matlab (and java for that matter). Is q> there a way we could have a resourse that lists all of the commmands q> (or something like the 50 most common commands). This would be very from the home page, go to the Matlab page, and under the Online Help section, try clicking on the CS100 MATLAB Summary. q> helpful and would allow some people to get a feel for where the q> course is going. Also, how can we prepare ourselves for the lectures q> - are there reading we can do before the lectures and problems we can q> do afterwards. I'm one of those people who understands things the q> more they see it, so this would help me out alot. i do plan to assign readings and to post partial lecture sketches (or at least lecture topics) ahead of time, but i'm not sure yet how far ahead time i'll be able to post lecture sketches. ---- q> For me, I definitely got more out of the second lecture than the q> first lecture. It seemed a little rushed when you jumped right into q> teaching during the first lecture. But, the rest of the first q> lecture was good. I really learned a lot during the second lecture, q> and your explanation of how to do the bonus problem was very clear. ---- q> My TA didn't teach anything during the first section because the q> class was too big. I could not answer quiz question number one. I q> didn't know what "tmp" was prior to your solving the problem for us q> on the board. My TA is Michael Singer and the section was on q> Wednesday at 125 - 215. yes, both the tue and wed 1:25 sections are way overbooked. on tuesday lecture, i will try to get volunteers to switch to the other sections; we are also trying to schedule tue and wed 12:20-1:10 sections. ---- q> I thought the material presented was clear and organized. The pop q> quiz I thought was challenging and something new. It forced us to q> come up with the idea of a temporary variable, which was not q> presented in our chapter 1 reading, in lecture, or in section. ---- q> It is difficult to get used to this somewhat new kind of thinking. q> For example, it did not occur to me on the quiz that a temporary q> variable would be needed to "hold" the value of x while it (x) was q> assigned something else. I understand the terms you introduce well, q> the explanations are fine. The quiz was really the first encounter q> with this way of thinking we have had. I guess what I'm saying is q> that perhaps more examples in lecture would be helpful; ones where q> you request help from the students to attack the problem. This may q> or may not be feasible due to time constraints but I think it would q> be valuable. i'll try to do that a bit, but that will mostly have to be done in section.