Evaluation Comments

Summary View

What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?

• doesn't have much practical experience
• Professor Riely is knowledgeable and humorous, I enjoyed his class very much
• A definite command of the material and concepts, and able to explain them effectively with examples. I think something to consider would be to perhaps organize the slide differently in order to include other vital information regarding concepts covered in class. For the most part I found them largely unhelpful when I needed a quick reference to a problem I was working on in the hw or when I needed help in a quiz question.
• I didn't feel that the homework/worksheets/quizzes were a great preparation for the exams. Everything leading up to the exams relied heavily on using actual coding environments, but you're not able to use a computer for the exam. Given that, I felt that the exams were too difficult.
• Knowledgeable and independent. Some weakness in presentation, he moves quickly, sometimes presenting an interesting point and then clearing the screen very quickly before it had time to sink in.
• clear in teaching the material
• Good and clear at explaining material. Very concise and straight to the point.
• Strength: Very good at explaining functional programming - really knew his subject. I learned quite a bit. Jim is the most organized teacher I've had at DePaul.Weakness: Though I did well on homework and quizzes, the midterm test was entirely too difficult.

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?

• strengthens my theoretical background
• N/A
• HW assignments and quizzes were great in preparing for the exams. The lectures for certain helped fill in gaps on the presentation slides.
• Although they were not worth very many points, the worksheets did a pretty good job of teaching the material.
• worksheets
• Functional programming. I had tried JavaScript development before, but Jim's explanations of JavaScript in class were wonderful. I understand == vs. ===, hoisting, scoping and let vs. var now.

What suggestions do you have that could help improve the course?

• use better examples, explain how some concepts are used in real-work environment
• N/A
• Again, mostly just making room to include a little more information on the slides to make them useful as a quick reference. I took notes as well but it?s easy to miss stuff that either requires going back through the lecture or tying to piece together based on what information the slides do give.
• I think it should focus on fewer languages. The textbooks were not very helpful. Several times this course would introduce a new programming language and jump straight into advanced characteristics of that language, which I found frustrating since I did not have prior experience with these.
• the quizzes and mid-term had questions that I probably will not face in real life. Wish it wasn't so convoluted and esoteric.
• For the online videos, I think the new digital pointer is not that great. It lags on video and the pointer itself (the red dot that appears on the screen) is too large for the power point so it's hard to tell sometimes what is being pointed out on the screen. I do think it is a lot better than NOT using it because being able to see what parts of the presentation you are referring to makes following along a lot easier. Also, I prefer writing things out on the white board vs the whole "writing directly on the powerpoint". The white board is much more legible in the videos.
• Have the tests Jim gives reviewed for over-difficulty before he puts over half the class in trouble, or have them curved.

Do you have comments on the grading procedures and exams?

• no. the grading is good
• N/A
• N/A
• The exams were excruciatingly detailed. I reallly hated trying to figure out questions that had answers split across multiple pages.
• 50% less than 'B' on the mid term? What??? I won't get reimbursed by my company if I don't get an 'A' or 'B'. Look at the mid-term test score distribution. If 85% were a 'safe to get reimbursed' score, only 30% would get reimbursed. That's $3,500 out of my pocket - I'm not sure I can afford to sign up for more courses.This is the first course I've had trouble with - I got a 90% plus on quizzes and homework in this course previous to this. I've never done functional programming before. I bet if you look at the half of the class that got 'A's and 'B's you'd find they program JavaScript (a functional programming language) for a living, and the others never programmed functionally before.This is unacceptable. Warn people when they sign up in the course catalog - you will likely fail or not get reimbursed by your company with an 'A' or 'B'.

Other comments?

• N/A
• Thanks for a great term!
• I felt a bit let down by the course because it seemed to really focus on the peculiar behavior of C and java and I was expecting something different. I thought this was going to be more about larger concepts of programming languages.
• I learned a great deal in this course, and if I'm able to finish my degree after this debacle, I won't take courses where I don't already know the subject matter well - which is a shame.Jim is a great teacher, just don't decimate the class - actually in latin would 50% not getting reimbursed/failing after doing all the homework and studying be d?midium instead of decimate (1/10)?