Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!jade!ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!windley
From: windley@iris.ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching (Student's responsibilities)
Message-ID: <806@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 11 Jan 88 19:08:39 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <6511@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <18514@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: windley@iris.UUCP (Phil Windley)
Organization: U.C. Davis - College of Engineering
Lines: 34

In article <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> moreno@umn-cs.UUCP (Andres Moreno) writes:
>Recent postings on the net reflect a much needed attitude towards improving
>the quality of teaching in colleges.However, I must point out that
>ultimately, the student is responsible for his or her own learning.

   (Additional material deleted)

Most of the posting so far have concentrated mainly on the classroom
presentation.  While I think that classroom presentatin is important,
that is only one part of whay should be a cohesive attempt to build an
environment where the students learn in spite of proclivities to
merely get the grade and get out.

Included in this, of course, is homework, exams, discussion sections,
etc.  Also important, I believe, are grading policies (the proper
grading policy goes a long way toward encouraging students to do those
things that will help them learn the materal) and office hours.

In computer classes (where much of the learning takes place outside of
the classroom), it is especially important that the homework emphasize
the right things.  For example, in a class that is designed to teach
someone to program in Pascal, it might be appropriate to assign
problems like writing a program to do horoscopes or play mastermind.
These could be used to introduce new features of Pascal.  These
assignments would, in my opinion, be inappropriate for a class that is
supposed to introduce computer science to majors.  In this case, one
isn't trying to teach a language (although that may be a side issue),
but teach important CS topics.  Appropriate problems, might emphasize
recursion, operator overloading, and other CS topics.


Phil Windley
Robotics Research Lab
University of California, Davis