Evaluation Comments

Summary View

What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?

• Major strength: knowledge of the topic
• He's incredibly skilled at answering questions. It's very impressive. There were times I had no idea what the student was asking, but he always understood the questions and gave appropriate answers.
• He always seemed to be extremely willing to explain or talk about a question outside of classtime. Only weakness is at times he makes the material seem easier than it is.
• I thought he offered a lot of good resources and was very accessible, but I thought that during lectures it was sometimes hard to follow the point he was trying to make. I would have also liked more examples for content from the second half of the quarter, which I thought was more difficult to grasp.
• The professor's professional knowledge, his patience and his detailed explanation of questions.
• optimistic,energetic, knowledge
• Not specific enough in what areas to concentrate on, presents concepts and then presents you with questions/scenarios so detailed and granular that you couldn't of imagined they would even exist and are graded on your first whack at the problems. I understand this is a concepts class and he presents concepts but it is at too high of a level in relation to the questions you are asked on exams.
• He was always available to answer any questions and address concerns.

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?

• Mini pre-recorded lectures by topic made it more modular and easy to view at home, homework assignments with tests provided instant feedback. Professor's zoom discussions where he goes over problems in detail were also very helpful
• Having zoom meetings for class time. I'm an online student, exclusively, and this is the format that needs to be used for all online classes beyond the pandemic. Being able to ask questions face to face while the topic is being covered is more beneficial than watching 3 1/4 hour lectures and emailing multiple questions days later. For years, I've had to note the times when an topic is covered on the video recording and send emails with questions. For the first time, I felt a part of the class as opposed to being an observer. I also learn by watching code, so the worksheets helped me tremendously as well as covering the coding examples during zoom meeting times.
• Worksheets and homework were short BUT had the benefit of conveying and teaching important concepts.
• The worksheets were very beneficial to me.
• Among all the courses I've learnt at DePaul, this one broadened my horizon most. I've got in touch with Scala, C, C++ and other languages which I never heard their names before.
• scala, scheme, c/c++, java etc.
• Lectures are good demonstrations of concepts.
• I was introduced to many different programming languages and concepts in a short amount of time.

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

• More homework assignments instead of quizzes/exams
• More test cases for the programs.
• I really don't have any suggestions. I found the format worked perfectly for me. The only minor suggestion would be showing more code examples in class.
• Maybe a small project could be helpful in making concepts more clear, while also adding complexity.
• I think that the professor moved too quickly through topics before fully explaining his thoughts.
• I feel that if the averages of midterm and final are around 50% the exam may be a bit too difficult.
• Make the homework, worksheets, and quizzes harder. They do not represent the difficulty of the midterm and final.

Do you have comments on the grading procedures and exams?

• No
• I found the quizzes and exams very challenging. However, I do like the automatic grading system.
• I thought everything was fair.
• I found it very difficult to prepare for the exams based on homework and quizzes. I am not a strong programmer at all and needed alot of practice which was hard to do.
• If everyone is getting a 50% something should change. Up to you what that change may be.
• Either make the midterm and final easier to match the quizzes and homework, or make the homework and quizzes harder to match the tests. I feel there is a large disconnect between the difficulty of these assignments.

Other comments?

• The class content was challenging, but the way it was organized and presented by the professor made a big difference. I really enjoyed this class
• I stopped doing instructor evaluations at least two years ago. The main reason I'm doing it now is because I wanted to record positive reviews for the instructor and class and I feel very strongly that DePaul needs to change their approach for online students. This format has been the best format yet. I'd watch the lecture videos, do the worksheets and homework then attend the Zoom meetings. I feel like we ended up with more hands-on learning this way, especially being able to interact during the Zoom meetings.
• Great lectures, intelligent respectable subject matter expert, we could use a little more direction on what to focus on for exams and midterms, not just "everything from the past 6 weeks" at a high level.