Feedback from Week 4

1. Please rank how helpful each of the resources available for learning the material in this course (1 most helpful, 9 least helpful)

• Labs (1.46)
• Lectures (2.69)
• Self-Learning Modules (4.38)
• Textbook (5.23)
• Lab Feedback (5.31)
• taylorial.com (5.69)
• Small Groups (6.00)
• Low Stakes Homework (6.85)
• Low Stakes Labs (7.38)

2. For the top two resources, please indicate what you find most helpful.

• I learn the most when I'm coding, so I think anything involving coding itself is pretty helpful. I also like hearing other people's questions because they often address things I hadn't even considered.
• For the top two I selected, Labs are the most helpful as they allow me to actually practice implementing the stuff learned in the SLM's and lectures. For the second best resource, I would actually tie lectures and SLM's as they are more or less the same thing, as they cover the material we are learning for the week. In all honesty, I feel they are partially redundant, as I have seen nearly identical topics covered in the SLM's and lecture material.
• For the labs, I like that you can just play around with and practice what we are learning. For the lectures I like that they are know in person, and I think it will become easier to understand the material that is being taught.
• Taylorial.com: I like that there is so much detail that is encompassed in Taylorial.com because I can learn about the whole topic with all the vocabulary associated with it in the shortest time. I also like that it comes with examples right next to descriptions, so I can really see the applications of the topic in quick succession of learning about it.
  Labs: Labs let me apply my knowledge, which makes the material stick with me better because I actually replicate the ideas that we are covering in class. I also feel because it is the largest evaluation of each week, I can justify making sure I take my time and producing the most quality work while also asking more questions to better my understanding.
• The video lectures + objectives in the self learning modules (what to look for and focus your notes on) are what I find the most helpful, as they give a clear idea of what my learning should be focused on, and provide the information to be learned directly to me.
• Writing down the notes from lectures helps me learn the material really well. I actually retain knowledge. Labs are using what I learned from lectures and quizzes and shows me how they are used in code. Writing in code helps me understand how everything works and functions.
• I mainly learn by actually doing the lab and trying to teach myself. Sadly I don't absorb a lot from online videos, but I do familiarize myself through reading and trying to solve the lab.
• In lectures, you give in-depth information about the topics and about how certain things work. With that information we then take the important step of putting the concepts into practice. The two give a general know-how as well as an application of the skills learned.
• I find the labs the most helpful since it lets me apply what I've learned to give me a better understanding of how to use the material. The textbook is where I find myself learning majority of the material and where I might go if I forget how to implement something.
• I find the labs most helpful because they are difficult assignments that force you to apply the skills that you are learning in class. I have always learned best by doing, and so I find the labs extremely helpful for learning. I find the lectures also helpful because they kind of outline exactly what you need to learn and what skills and knowledge you are expected to know, and having that outlined and the answers provided is beneficial to understanding what I am even supposed to be learning in this class.
• The labs give me a chance to practice what I learned throughout the week but also helps me better understand things I didn't get as well. The lectures and note-taking help me a lot especially when code examples are given. They are also a great resource to uses later when I'm studying. I also enjoy having the rerun lectures as a back up if i need more clearification on something.
• I find the lectures and labs most useful because the lecture is a good intro to the material and helps to learn the material while the labs help by acutally doing what the lecture is talking about and making it concrete
• I find hands on work really helps me to understand how the material from lectures and the textbook can be applied and helps me go beyond just knowing topics to actually using them.

3. For any two resources, please provide suggestions on what could be done to improve them.

• I think everything you've done is pretty effective; if anything is less effective, it's because I don't have a lot of time (or feel the need) to look over it on my own. All the things that you grade pretty much teach me the material I need to know for that week.
• As I mentioned before, I feel that the SLM's are somewhat redundant, so in my opinion, we could focus a little bit less on them to allow some time for other things, namely the low stakes assignments (labs and homework). I really like the regular labs because they help me practice implementing the new material we have learned, so I feel that more time to work with code would be better than some duplicate course material between lectures and SLM's.
• Maybe have an option for the low stakes homework and lab where we could see a finished lab or homework so we could see a different way that the problem could be solved.
• Self-Learning Modules: In general, I really like the self-learning modules because I can explore the new topic at my own speed. However, it seems that some of the questions on the quizzes target details that seem somewhat small in comparison to the actual ideas behind the topic being covered. I don't know if this is how the course is supposed to be structured to make us focus on the details of everything as programmers, but it feels like the quizzes are evaluating knowledge of small details rather than evaluating the knowledge of the concepts as a whole sometimes.
  Lectures: In my Network Protocols class last semester, when we had to watch videos for class, we sometimes were required to ask a question about something in the video through a series of questions at the end of the video. This could be an interesting way of increasing the value of video lectures because it will allow for questions to be asked more freely as would happen in a normal lecture setting.
• Taylorial.com seems very informative and helpful, especially considering the wide variety of topics covered. It would be nice if certain taylorial pages were put out on canvas links for us to see according to what module they fit well with.
  The labs would be a little more fun and engaging if they allowed for more wiggle-room in terms of what the final product should be like. Maybe extra credit opportunities, or different optional choices for how to complete certain areas of the lab
• For the lecture notes actually would like to see what a really good set of notes looks like for your class. Also on lab feedback, and this is more on my part, but discussing what was difficult in the lab so it doesn't build up lab after lab and become too difficult.
• In-person classes will go a long way towards me being able to ask others for help that I desperately need. Additionally, more text resources would be helpful.
• The small group discussions may become less important as we see each other in class more, so those may be able to be phased out as long as everyone has people to talk to when they run into issues.
  The low-stakes quizzes are very helpful for gauging my own understanding of the topics to give an idea of what I need to spend more time on, **though sometimes they address topics we have not yet been exposed to that week or the week before, so they sometimes seem a little unfair, as they're supposed to be about things we've covered.
• With the teaching style you have, I don't really know how you could improve any of these things. (not saying there's anything wrong with your teaching style, just saying I think you have these parts working pretty well) I mostly ranked them based on how I feel I learn best.
• Sometimes with the labs I have a hard time understanding what I am supposed to be doing, and it takes me a couple of rereads of the lab to grasp what to do. I don't really learn well from reading, so I think having more visuals would be very beneficial. But I also understand that reading is a skill that also needs to be learned, and it would be kind of hard to make visuals. I do appreciate though when you explain the lab in class. Having the lab explained to me makes me understand it better than having to read it. For the lectures, I think they could have been improved by having more of a PowerPoint layout in all the videos. I preferred the lecture videos with a PowerPoint than without because sometimes I was busy writing and missed something you may have said. I just found the PowerPoints very useful when trying to write and listen at the same time. I enjoyed having something to look at. I also would like more examples in lectures. I definitely learn best through examples and I like coding along during lectures, so I think more examples would definitely help improve the lectures.
• For small group discutions , it may be helpfull to have specific things to go over instead of just having it be questions only. I don't really have anyother feedback. All of the resources are super helpfull. The ones I ranked lower are still very helpful. it was very hard to figure out what to rank low because everything has been very helpful.
• I would like the slm to be a little more in depth and explain the information a little bit better. Also I don't know what taylorial is so explaining and making that accessable
• I think lectures could be improved by going over new topics in them more often, which you said will be happening more now that we’re doing some in person classes. I also think the small groups could be improved by having us do more small assignments as a group like the one we did in week 3.

4. What one thing could I start or stop doing that would be helpful for you?

• I think getting rid of some of the asynchronous notes when we're in person would help. It would free up some time to get other work done.
• I think this class is in a good position the way it is. I would be happy continuing the way the class is for the rest of the term.
• I hope that our meeting times will continue to stay and person and that it will be used for teaching us different things about what we are learning.
• It could be helpful if you took some time after lab due dates to cover the class's common errors because if many struggled with a certain part, it can happen that others guessed correctly in the same area, even though these parts may still be confusing these people. By recognizing the common errors among the class, every student has the chance to learn about what to be on the lookout for in future labs.
• instead of the small group meetings, review sessions with the entire class so that questions can be heard by all.
• Maybe during lab time, pull us aside to ask how the previous lab went and possibly give us tips for the next one or what to work on.
• I feel like I am falling farther behind every day, so any outside resources to bring me up to speed are welcome.
• You asked us all how we felt about turning in notes, and I said I didn't much care. After more thinking though and as my schedule starts to populate itself as more extracurriculars become available, the removal or decrease of this requirement would be helpful. It may not be as needed either for we'll be in person following along with the lectures as you present them.
• I feel I would benefit from less quizzes and instead short homework problems.
• I mentioned this in the last question, but it would really help me to have more coding examples within the lectures.
• I don't know how relevant this will be now that the class will be in person but on some of the lecture recordings and reruns, it was hard to hear the students in the classrooms' questions. I believe you did in some of the videos, but it would be very helpful to have some caption for the harder to hear qustions.
• I would like if you count continue to post the recorded lectures even when we go back to fully in person
• Start giving more examples during lecture.