How Computers Work

1. Lectures:
• Clarity of lectures: 9.04
• Organization of material: 8.96
• Willingness to help: 7.27
2. Recitations:
• Clarity of recitations: 6.35
• Organization of material: 6.15
• Willingness to help: 7.92
3. Teaching Assistants:
4. Michael S Allen
• Clarity of TA explanations: 7.11
• TA patience: 6.92
• TA willingness to help: 6.77
5. Dimitri Kountourogiannis
• Clarity of TA explanations: 7.77
• TA patience: 8.73
• TA willingness to help: 8.96
6. Ben Reudlinger
• Clarity of TA explanations: 7.04
• TA patience: 7.38
• TA willingness to help: 7.73
7. Overall course:
• Overall course rigor and challenge: 7.30
• Course organization and design: 7.58
• Clear relationship to curriculum: 8.73
8. Administration:
• Administrative friendliness: 8.11
• Administrative responsiveness: 7.65

Qualitative Evaluation:
For most of the class, month 3 was one of the most balanced months taught so far at ADU as far as rigor, pace and course material is concerned.

The students were asked to evaluate not only on the program content but also the faculty and staff with whom they interacted.

Lectures (Gill Pratt):

Gill Pratt is a great lecturer and was recognized for his experience and explanation of material. The majority of the students really enjoyed the class. He did a great job in organizing and presenting the material.

Most of the students felt that the use of slides to present the material was one of the most effective technique adopted by a lecturer so far. Though Gill was terrific, but his absence was certainly conspicuous. Some of the students would have liked him to schedule office hours and essentially spend more time with the students.

Recitations (Mike Allen and Ben Reudlinger):

The quality of recitations was significantly lower as compared to the previous months. This month the recitations were not useful, clear, interesting or well-organized. This started a new trend of students not attending recitations as they felt it was a waste of time. Compared to Mike, some students felt that Ben did a good job with an organized presentation. It was evident that he had put in a lot of time and thought into preparing for recitations.

Problem Sets:

Problems sets for this course were helpful, challenging and of the right rigor. The difficulty, quantity and length of the problem sets was just right.

Exams:

The exams were useful for self-assessment and infact very well done.

Books/Texts:

The text “Computer Organization and Design” book by Patterson and Hennessy, while very well written, was not particularly useful to the course. It seemed to have marginal connection with the material covered in class and should have had more tight integration with the curriculum. It would be more useful as a reference rather than as a core book.

On the other hand, the “Computation Structures” book by Ward and Halstead, was found by some of the students to be a better fit for the course.

Relation to Computer Science:

This was considered to be the most useful course in terms of contributing towards an overall picture of computer science. According to one of the students, this course is essential to making the overall curriculum real and complete.

Teaching Assistants (Mike,Ben and Dimitri):

There were not very comments in this area.

System Administration:

From the start of ADU, the major area of complaint has been the poor, slow and unreliable network connection. This has been marred by unusable workstations and frequent catastrophic meltdowns. The network system was a major block to completing assignments.

Most helpful staff:

Jeffrey Radcliffe and Robb Monn received notable recognition from the students for fixing the computer problems, which plagued ADU last month.

Future changes to the course:

More hands on application of the course such as circuit building.

More communication across the academic/teaching team.

Patterson and Hennessy book needs to be done away with as a core book. Use of a book more directly related to the course material.

More tutorials should be organized especially before problem sets.