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Author

I have lost my faith in humanity.

Started by noah · 10 months ago

Here it is, your moment of Zen. That or I just finished grading the first round of CS4 projects. For those of you who are familiar with the project, the first submission is usually awful, averaging somewhere around a low C or high D. Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this %5 ... Continue reading »

6 comments

  • An old saying I know goes: "When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout"

    Might help, might not.
  • After grading CS4 for 5 weeks I'm already doubting the effectiveness of our CS program. I had a CS3 student ask me why his constructor couldn't return data and I've had more questions that the students should already know the answers to than I could ever imagine. Its going to be a long rest of my RIT career as a grader......
  • Noah, I am sorry that we did this to you.
  • I think it's time to ease up a bit, or have 2 C++ programming courses so that you don't hit them so hard with the big CS4 project.

    We're expecting a lot out of them and I think theres problems with switching from java to C++ and there are problems with the conceptual solutions that you're asking them to produce. Granted your almost giving them the psuedo-code, however it doesn't mean anything if they can't understand it.
  • Very much true, Paul. When we asked Sidney to change it, we meant we wanted a different project, but not a vastly more difficult project. Of course, "difficult" to Sidney and "difficult" to the rest of humanity are different beasts.

    I also agree on the two C++ courses. Originally, they did have two - CS4 and SE. The SE department changed this without informing the CS department, and the CS department was left up in the air about it. I understand that learning a new language poses difficulties, and learning the new paradigms of C++ is equally difficult.

    I'm not entirely convinced that the problem is that of the courses or the content, though. I've watched a steady decline in first project grades in the past 3 years, while at the same time watching Sean spend more and more class time explaining the project. During this time, the project didn't get any harder. I don't know that it is statistically meaningful, but it does scare me.
  • Is the problem also a result of RIT accepting too many Computer Science majors who aren't prepared to problem solve? Or are the students too lazy to think for themselves?

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