Object-oriented Program Design and Software Engineering

1. Lectures:
• Clarity of lectures: 8.55
• Organization of material: 8.68
• Willingness to help: 9.09
2. Recitations:
• Clarity of recitations: 2.55
• Organization of material: 2.91
• Willingness to help: 6.77
3. Teaching Assistants:
4. Michael S Allen
• Clarity of TA explanations: 7.39
• TA patience: 7.36
• TA willingness to help: 7.64
5. Dimitri Kountourogiannis
• Clarity of TA explanations: 8.0
• TA patience: 8.23
• TA willingness to help: 8.36
6. Rusty Chris
• Clarity of TA explanations:8.82 7.04
• TA patience: 8.95
• TA willingness to help: 9.05
7. Overall course:
• Overall course rigor and challenge: 8.73
• Course organization and design: 8.5
• Clear relationship to curriculum: 9.55
8. Administration:
• Administrative friendliness: 8.41
• Administrative responsiveness: 8.0

Qualitative Evaluation:
For most of the class, lectures, books and problem sets for month 4 worked really well. However, the recitations were a total and complete failure. They were not useful at all, which meant that a significant element of the course was missing.

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

Lectures (David Goddeau):

According to the students, the lectures were good and very well prepared. David gave a very good overview of the material, which will serve as good references in the future. David was appreciated for the great deal of effort, thought and organization, which he put into the course. It really showed on the quality of his teaching and the course.

Recitations (Alan Frank):

This month recitations were rarely valuable. Unfortunately, Alan was not the right person for the job and did not have the necessary experience. He did not adequately prepare for his tasks and as a result they were a painful chore to attend for all the students. Moreover, he was not familiar with Java and gave misinformation.

Inspite of being aware of this fact, the administration did not do anything to rectify the way the recitations were being conducted. The whole situation turned out to be embarrassing and uncomfortable for most of the students. On the same note, one of the students commented that previous recitation instructors (Shai, John Pezaris and Tara) set very hard standards, which Alan Frank did not come close to reaching.

Ideally, the students would have liked the recitations for this month to be either lab work, coding or Q&A sessions on their projects rather than just being another lecture.

Problem Sets:

Problems sets for this course were quite rigorous, challenging and very well designed. The students especially enjoyed the Gnutella project. They covered a lot of material and related well to the course material. As one student commented \"the problem sets were exactly on target.\"

Exams:

There were not very many comments in this area.

Books/Texts:

The students found both the volumes of \"Core Java\" book as indispensable references and great series. They integrated well with the lectures and taught the material reasonably well. The online Java references were also very helpful.

Relation to Computer Science:

All the students knew where the course fits in the overall CS picture.

Teaching Assistants (Mike,Dimitri and Rusty):

Rusty was voted as the TA of the month.

System Administration:

Jeffrey Radcliffe and Robb Monn received special mention from the students for all the time and effort spent in resolving computer network problems.

Most helpful staff:

Rusty and David were singled out as great finds and terrific addition to the staff. As one student commented, \"Rusty really knows his stuff, and has a very relaxed and reassuring demeanor.\"

Future changes to the course:

This seemed to be much more of a Java course than an Object-oriented programming course. In keeping with that, in the future, there should be emphasis on the design of systems also.

Recitation for this course should have focused on practical applications (coding) or lab work rather than just being extra lecture.

Administration should be more responsive in dealing effectively with a bad situation (such as recitations being a total disaster) and take steps to redress it.