154
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== Curriculum Meeting December 17 2014 ==
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* The faculty members made the following recommendations:
# Edit and clarify word problem descriptions on both tests and exams. Improve conciseness and remove ambiguity for students who are still in initial stages of learning the English language. Implement a standard template with which the students become familiar throughout the semester so that they spend minimum time determining what is being asked of them. The focus in semesters one and two should be on testing their programming skills only. Leave the requirements analysis to more dedicated courses that run in parallel or follow afterwards.
# Provide comprehensive and prompt feedback for each workshop submission in order to engage students. Hire part-time tutors for this purpose, leaving only the marking to the instructor. Tutor feedback should be available throughout the first three semesters.
# Hold review sessions outside class time for students who have found material too difficult to understand the first time around. Part-time tutors can run these review sessions on a weekly basis.
# Several faculty member expressed disappointment with the quality of service that learning center tutors provide. Comments included a lack of understanding of the more modern material being introduced and providing solutions instead of showing students how to find those solutions.
# Prefer two double-sided reference sheets to open book during tests and exams.
# Print test and exam papers in color. Students have found this particularly helpful in the reading of walkthrough problems.
# Learn applications of Cognitive Load Theory to the teaching of our programming subjects. The material covered in the Foundations of Teaching and Learning is insufficient for programming students. Faculty expressed an interest in a deeper understanding of cognitive psychology.
# Instructors need to step up to prepare labs for more variety beyond the default labs that are currently available. Several faculty members remarked that they do not have time to do so.
# Weekly coordination meetings in multi-section subjects are quite important. They allow instructors to share experience, help identify student difficulties across the sections, ensure that instructors are on the same page with respect to emphasis and provide more equitable assessments[MLM1] .
Fardad noted that in order to accommodate active learning by his students, he prepared all of his examples before class and would move them to the screen as he lectured. This saved considerable time over entering code which requires the students to wait for him to finish. Elliott noted that he too prepared his sample code off-line for the same purpose.
**[MLM1]I’d like to see a recommendation for a mid-semester promo meeting for all first semester courses. This is over-and-above what this report represents but it also flags students struggling across all first semester subjects and may warrant a different kind of intervention than an individual subject intervention.
= Ongoing Issues =