2/20 lecture evaluation about 80 responses 11 bonus points awarded for asking questions in lecture 1 1KnowCode-for-max: 2 1KnowCode-for-max: 1) very bad 6 1KnowCode-for-max: 2) bad 26 1KnowCode-for-max: 3) ok 31 1KnowCode-for-max: 4) good 14 1KnowCode-for-max: 5) very good 1 1LecCode-for-max: 3 1LecCode-for-max: 0) don't remember seeing it 35 1LecCode-for-max: 3) ok 35 1LecCode-for-max: 4) good 6 1LecCode-for-max: 5) very good 1 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 1 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 1) very bad 7 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 2) bad 34 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 3) ok 29 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 4) good 8 2KnowInvariant-for-Max: 5) very good 1 2LecInvariant-for-Max: 5 2LecInvariant-for-Max: 2) bad 40 2LecInvariant-for-Max: 3) ok 28 2LecInvariant-for-Max: 4) good 6 2LecInvariant-for-Max: 5) very good 1 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 1 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 1) very bad 8 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 2) bad 33 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 3) ok 24 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 4) good 13 3KnowIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 5) very good 1 3LecIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 5 3LecIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 2) bad 32 3LecIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 3) ok 32 3LecIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 4) good 10 3LecIdea-of-Loop-Invariant: 5) very good 1 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 3 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 1) very bad 14 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 2) bad 39 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 3) ok 17 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 4) good 6 4KnowArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 5) very good 1 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 1 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 1) very bad 15 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 2) bad 39 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 3) ok 19 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 4) good 5 4LecArrays-as-Lookup-Tables: 5) very good 1 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 2 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 1) very bad 23 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 2) bad 31 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 3) ok 19 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 4) good 4 5KnowChars-as-Loop-Indices: 5) very good 1 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 3 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 0) don't remember seeing it 2 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 1) very bad 13 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 2) bad 40 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 3) ok 18 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 4) good 3 5LecChars-as-Loop-Indices: 5) very good 2 6KnowScripts: 1 6KnowScripts: 1) very bad 12 6KnowScripts: 2) bad 34 6KnowScripts: 3) ok 26 6KnowScripts: 4) good 5 6KnowScripts: 5) very good 1 6LecScripts: 2 6LecScripts: 0) don't remember seeing it 11 6LecScripts: 2) bad 38 6LecScripts: 3) ok 23 6LecScripts: 4) good 5 6LecScripts: 5) very good 1 7KnowFunctions: 2 7KnowFunctions: 1) very bad 12 7KnowFunctions: 2) bad 34 7KnowFunctions: 3) ok 27 7KnowFunctions: 4) good 4 7KnowFunctions: 5) very good 1 7LecFunctions: 1 7LecFunctions: 1) very bad 9 7LecFunctions: 2) bad 37 7LecFunctions: 3) ok 27 7LecFunctions: 4) good 5 7LecFunctions: 5) very good 1 9LecOverall: 9 9LecOverall: 2) bad 43 9LecOverall: 3) ok 26 9LecOverall: 4) good 1 9LecOverall: 5) very good 1 9LecPace: 1 9LecPace: 1) way too slow 5 9LecPace: 2) too slow 59 9LecPace: 3) ok 13 9LecPace: 4) too fast 1 9LecPace: 5) way too fast reminder: please don't use the RETURN or ENTER key in the middle of a paragraph ---- q> The lookup tables and chars-as-loop-indices were just a little q> unclear, perhaps you could go over this topic again next lecture. I q> was unsure of how one would set up a lookup table and then access q> the character which is represented by a number. ---- q> WAY TOO SLOW---you already taught us about invariants and functions q> in the last lecture and I found it very useless to listen to it all q> again. sorry, for many people invariants are a tricky concept, and thus i will be providing lots of reinforcement. ---- q> I have a lot of trouble with functions. I hope the next lecture q> will clear this up. please let me know if it did. ---- q> I thought the first part of lecture was pretty good. However, from q> the middle to the end, when material was new and people (including q> myself) asked questions, it almost seemed like it was frustrating q> for you and so you simply said "just try it" or brushed it q> off. normally i am happy to answer questions, but in this case i was pressed for time (i tried to put too much into the lecture) and i do expect people to actually try out examples from lecture to figure them out. i would be much more sympathetic to something like "i tried such-and-such example and it gave me this result, which i don't understand: please explain". q> Maybe it was just me who thought this, but I just thought q> asking questions was encouraged. Anyway, overall the lecture was q> alright, I guess I'll look over stuff covered in the 2nd half q> again, unless its reviewed on Thursday ---- q> I know there isn't much time during lecture, but it may help with q> the understanding of new, or hard to grasp concepts if a quick q> demonstration using matlab could be shown on the screen i'll try to do that from time to time. ---- q> I was hoping that today's lecture would cover in greater detail how q> to create a function. ---- q> I am a first time programmer, and i find it hard to grasp the q> buliding blocks that are assummed we know coming into q> lecture. Sometimes i feel like those of us who are a little weaker q> with the basics, get ignored, to answer the two technical questions q> of more expierenced programmers, and that elcture caters to those q> wtiht expierence. Today was one of thsoe days. ---- q> lookup tables wasn't at all clear until i went to section ---- q> I feel that the professor presents material that is needed to q> complete the project after he should. We have had the project for q> almost 2 weeks and after the prelim we still couldn't do most of it q> because it hadn't been covered. I understand we are to pick up q> most of it on our own, but it is absurd to expect us to get a good q> start on the project when a lot of relevent material wasn't covered q> until today's lecture. actually, much of the relevant material had been covered, but i believe i did fail to clearly and repeatedly say: go ahead and start the code without using functions. once you understand how to do that, modifying it to use functions should not be too bad. ---- q> I'm still confused abotu the PURPOSE of loop invariants. we'll see many more examples next week. please let me know how things stand after each lecture next week. ---- q> I didn't really understand why it is good to use characters to give q> positions in arrays. It seems to me easier to just use number q> counters and keep track of the value of the counter in loops. q> Why is the idea of loop invariant so important in CS? If the loop q> invariant is just a conceptual idea of what must be true, is it q> just useful because it helps the programmer remember what cannot q> change in a loop? ---- q> I feel much more comfortable with invariants now than I did after q> the previous lecture. I also feel comfortable with scripts and q> functions. I felt a little lost about the idea of arrays as q> tables. I undertsood the example on printing "jan, feb, etc." but q> after that I was a little lost. ---- q> I really liked the "movie." That was quite helpful... ---- q> Would have been helpful to see an example actually done on Matlab, q> but I understand that it wasn't working. Also, exact definition of q> a script was lacking, I still don't know what they are. q> Also too many questions about the invariant bogged the lecture q> down. ---- q> The beginning of the lecuture was explained very well. For some q> reason when you did the new stuff at the end of the lecture, you q> sped up. It probably would have been better to do the new stuff a q> little slower. ---- q> i thought we should have gone through the stuff about path and q> finding files earlier in the course ---- q> Lecture was ok. I understand the invariant stuff a bit better now q> that we've gone over it more. It would be helpful if we touch on q> the new stuff again in the next lecture. ---- q> The pace of the lecture was rather fast... from writing notes and q> trying to process the information at the same time, it's hard to q> grasp what is exactly being presented. The demo itself was helpful q> in seeing the actual code being processed line by line. ---- q> I think more explanation of the syntax and the actual workings of q> functions would have been nice. Maybe we just haven't gotten there q> yet but if I hadn't had studied the book very hard I would have q> been completely lost having to write so many functions for P3. ---- q> i didn't understand some of the new material covered today, q> especially with the vectors. When you present the material you q> don't explain everything you do or what you actually type to do a q> program. ---- q> This is not a comment about lecture, but whenever I go to Carpenter q> Lab to receive my old projects back, or just to ask questions, the q> consultants are never there, or busy, or don't know the code for q> the locker, etc... q> Can you improve the system of consultant? we'll work on that. please keep me informed of problems. ---- q> i think today's lecture was a bit abstract in the parts q> "arrays-as-lookup-talbes" and "char-as-loop-indices". i hope that q> you can give us some actual programs as examples. but the q> movie-storyline thingy was really cool =) ---- q> i didn't understand many... ---- q> the lecture was interesting and organized, and the pace was good ---- q> honestly I think writing the material up on the board will benefit q> the audience more than typing everything on the screen. ---- q> I noticed a big departure from the styles of the previous q> lectures. I had covered all the topics discussed in lecture, the q> night before with my partner, so I found the lecture slow and q> redundant. However I strongly liked the use of the concrete, step q> by step example you used with the invariant. I thought the pace q> was slow--but I will appreciate that when we cover more new q> material. q> Much of the material in this course is self taught, and its hard to q> know when everyone is on the same page in ability. There should be q> (if there already is--I appologize) an index of material we are q> expected to know--as well as corresponding sample problems. ---- q> I think having your computer in class will really help a lot. Also q> it is a waste of class time for you to answer series of questions q> that would be more suited for office hours or section. Answers q> like: "you can figure it out with a few minutes of experimentation" q> work well to save class time. time permitting, such questions are fine, and it is *always* fair to say "i tried this code, and it did that, and i don't understand: please explain". ---- q> I wish you spent some more time on funcions and how they are used q> in MATLAB. ---- q> Functions were not explained very well. It would have been better q> to spend more time on this since they were so emphasized in the q> project! ---- q> I felt as though at times you may have spent too much time on q> certain aspects such as loop invariant at the expense of other q> concepts like functions. yes, that could have been handled a bit better, but loop invariants are an important concept, so i want to give repeated exposure. ---- q> My understanding of functions and scripts was mainly because I had q> had previous experience with computer programming. Otherwise, I q> would not have understood exactly what functions did and how. ---- q> I don't understand Chars-as-Loop-Indices, nor how to use arrays as q> lookup-tables. I understand the concept of lookup-tables, but not q> how to put them into Matlab or exactly what syntax to use. I am q> also not clear on how to use functions, do you make one M-file with q> the function then try to run it with another M-file? I am really q> lost with functions. ---- q> I feel now that in lecture I am lost in what you are saying. I can q> understand parts of it in lecture but when I get to the lab, I q> waste a lot of time trying to figure out what is going on. It q> should be more clear. The lecture pace is still too fast I think. ---- q> pace being a lot slower than normal due to the large quantity of q> questions asked turned out to be very good because in spending more q> time it allowed for better understanding of the material. ---- q> I just managed to finish the project...entirely - hence proof of q> do-ability. Looking back, however, I thought it was slightly too q> long though - and way too many files to keep in check. Perhaps q> future projects should be based more on a few long files rather q> than a whole lot of little files. Also, 4 problems(none like q> "Polynomials") or so would be nice. ---- q> I liked your using the laptop (because I didn't have to decipher q> your handwriting or wait for you to finish writing). Considering q> the number of questions that were asked more than once, however, q> many students' minds must have been wandering. This may have been q> due to not having anything to write.