From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Mar 14 20:33:25 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2F0XPLv013528 for ; Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:33:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2F0XImZ020895 for ; Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:33:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 4737 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2007 00:26:38 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 15 Mar 2007 00:26:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 4671 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2007 00:26:38 -0000 Received: from defer.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.58) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 15 Mar 2007 00:26:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 9302 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2007 00:26:23 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by defer.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 15 Mar 2007 00:26:23 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3851505 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:26:22 -0400 Delivered-To: cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 7544 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2007 00:26:12 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 15 Mar 2007 00:26:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 24268 invoked from network); 15 Mar 2007 00:26:11 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 15 Mar 2007 00:26:11 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2F0QBaL013359 for ; Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:26:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l2F0QBmV013358 for cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu; Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:26:11 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703150026.l2F0QBmV013358@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:26:11 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION SUMMARY -- long message To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2839/Wed Mar 14 05:24:32 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 14461 Content-Length: 10792 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION SUMMARY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for your comments on the midsemester course evaluation. I received 27 responses (out of a possible 46), with twice as many from the grads as the undergrads, so please take expressions like "most" or "many", below, with a grain of salt. Without a doubt, the biggest change you'd like to see is..."nothing" (and that's a quote :-) Thanks! But that's not to say there's no room for improvement. Discussion in Recitation: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most of you were very happy with the quantity and quality of discussion in recitation; with the interactive nature of it; with the exploration of ideas that, to paraphrase one of you, "make you think"; and with the job Albert is doing; thanks! Those of you who were *unhappy* with the focus of discussions in recitation were unhappy in opposite ways: Some thought there should be more focus on the position papers; some, on the lectures; others, on the readings. In most cases, those thinking there should be more focus on one of these also indicated that there should be *less* focus on the other two. So it may be hard to please everyone. Peer Editing: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I got the most positive feedback on the peer editing; I'm glad that many of you find it useful. I'm happy that you like this. It's something I've done before, and it's one of the few ways to guarantee that almost everyone participates in some way. I also think it's useful (and fun) to listen to what others have to say. I hope you also come to find it fun to *analyze* and *evaluate* what they have to say (and to make sure that what *you* have to say can stand up to *their* analysis and evaluation :-) Most people who write for a living try to get colleagues to read their papers and suggest improvements. When you give a paper at a conference or present your work to your co-workers or bosses, it's good to have had a "dry run" to get rid of the bugs. That's the idea behind peer editing. There were a few people who weren't happy with it. Perhaps they're not getting good feedback (if you're one of these people, do your peer editing with other peers, either in class or outside class). Some of you wanted more guidance in the peer editing process; I tried to provide that for PP2 and will try harder for PP3 and beyond. Position Papers: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ One curious comment came from someone who said that the position papers were the most important part of the course. I think that's because that student sees them as the primary determiner of the grade. There are several concerns about this viewpoint. First, it's not the only determiner (class participation, attendance, readings, etc., also count). Second, it need only be 45% of the determiner (as opposed to 90%) if you opt for the final exam xor the term paper. (And to those of you who complained that you don't have time for the exam or the term paper, please note that had I not made them optional, at least one of them would have been required, in which case you would have had time for it :-) But of more significance is that you should always feel that the most important part of a course is what you learn in it, not what assignments you have to do. PP Grading: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But, as long as we're on the topic, let's talk about the grading of the position papers, which is the other main area for improvement that you suggested. First, I have begun publishing at least a draft of the grading rubrics for the position papers, and will continue to do so; this should alleviate somewhat your uncertainty about what I'm looking for in the papers. And I will not only drop the lowest grade, but, in light of the grading scheme for PP2 (which I think is somewhat fairer than the grading scheme for PP1) (and, by the way, your grades on PP2 were *much* better overall than for PP1!), I will re-grade PP1--more on that in a later posting. Some of you felt that I downgrade papers that disagree with my positions. If I did, that was a coincidence. I only downgrade papers that don't analyze arguments well. Note from the rubric that I give equal points for agreeing or disagreeing with a premise; I only give lower points if you neglect to state or defend your position. When grading the position papers, I try for as much objectivity as I can in an admittedly subjective enterprise. Accordingly, I try to grade on whether you're adequately analyzing the arguments rather than on whether you're "right" or "wrong". Another complaint (not a common one) along these lines was that you put a lot of hard work into your position papers and should get an accordingly high grade. As fair as that might seem, that doesn't work in practice. Suppose there are two employees, one of whom writes useful code quickly and one of whom writes buggy code slowly. Should the second one get paid as highly as the first? My grades are given on the basis of whether or not you analyzed the argument using the proper tools, not on whether or not you agreed with it and not on how long it took you. One interesting suggestion was to allow you to revise your position papers a second time (i.e., for a third draft) with the goal of a possibly higher grade. Let me think about that; it's not *too* unreasonable :-) Course Grading: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A couple of people were unhappy with my grading scheme (max A- for straight-A position papers plus attendance, participation, etc.). If I had *required* the exam or term paper, I bet I would have gotten other complaints. I prefer making these optional in this kind of course so that those of you who don't really want to do them can concentrate on the subject matter, the readings, and the argument analyses. One person said that the A- max was unfair because they didn't have enough time to do the optional exam or term paper. Again, had it been required, they would somehow have found the time. Think of it this way: It's not really that you only have to do the position papers and can opt for the exam xor the term paper. A better way to look at it is that you should really do both the position papers and either the exam or the term paper. But I'm allowing you to skip doing the latter without a 45% grade penalty! By opting not to do all the work, you agree to getting a slightly lower maximum grade. Readings: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Several of you wanted fewer readings, some wanted easier readings. Some wanted more depth in the readings and less breadth (I'm not sure how to handle that while simultaneously cutting down on readings, unless you meant to spend more time on fewer readings). But others of you seemed quite happy with the readings, both in terms of quantity and quality. I think I'm probably steering a middle course. The last time I taught this course, I had many more readings and have sharply cut down on them. (This is why I triaged them into "required", "strongly recommended", and "recommended".) I'll try to keep the future reading lists shorter. But there's just so much good stuff that I think you'd like to read! As for depth, that's one value of your reading journals or the option for the term paper--to give you a chance to think and say more about a given reading. As for the ease of accessing the readings, yes, a textbook would be easier, but it doesn't exist. As I said above, there are lots of good things to read, and one of my goals is to let you know about them. I've had fun discovering some of them, too. It's been rather a hassle to make them available on line, but I really didn't have any other serious option except lots and lots of handouts. Accessing some of the papers online can, indeed, be a hassle, but it's a useful skill to have, and we should actually be thankful to the Powers That Be (probably in the libraries) for allowing so much online access to .buffalo.edu users. Length of class: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Several of you suggested that the class would work better if it were longer. I agree: A Tues-Thurs schedule gives more time for uninterrupted discussion. Faculty usually have no control over when courses are scheduled, but I'll keep it in mind for the next time. Others suggested making it a 2-semester course. Hmmm... Others recommended omitting the recitation, but I'll bet that that wouldn't be overly popular if I surveyed everyone in the course. You're actually getting more time for discussion by having recitation, and the peer-editing (which takes place in recitation instead of lecture) doesn't cut into lecture time (as it did the previous time I taught this course, without a recitation section). Other ideas: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ One good idea someone had was for me to put summaries of my lectures on the web. I've occasionally thought of doing that, but the amount of time it would take is prohibitive--don't forget: I need to read about twice as many papers as you do, so that I know which ones to assign and which ones to skip, plus I write my lectures, plus read your papers, plus all the other stuff I have to do (like being Director of Graduate Studies this year, which is a huge time sink). I know what some of you are thinking: Instead of writing my lectures on paper, why not write them directly to a website? Well, two reasons, one personal, one pedagogical. The personal reason is that I don't write well online; I'm old-fashioned and generally prefer pen and paper first, and only later transcribing to a website. The pedagogical reason is that if I did that ahead of time, some students might not bother attending lectures (yes, I know they'd miss out on all sorts of wonderful in-class happenings, but...). I am, however, planning on creating an anthology of readings, and adapting my lecture notes to section introductions. But that's a project for the summer and next year. In general, many (if not most) of you seem happy with the way the course is going in general, with the topics, the readings, the assignments... and with me :-) So, thanks again. I will try to take your ideas into account to improve the second half of the course. If any of you would like to discuss any of these issues further, either privately or via the Listserv, please feel free.