Held Friday, December 8, 2000
Summary
Today we conclude the class by filling out evaluation forms, discussing
subjects covered, and considering how to make the class better.
Notes
- Don't forget to turn in your evaluations of your colleagues.
- Letter grades are okay, if you'd prefer to assign those.
- Please don't send me microsoft word files
- We'll do evaluations first and then my wrapup second.
- The body of this outline will appear later.
- My goal is to get grades back to you by Monday (provided I have
all the evaluations in).
- The final won't be available until this afternoon.
Overview
- How and why Grinnell faculty are evaluated. (Some myth, some truth.)
- Annual increments
- The bargain with the trustees
- The joys of numeric evaluation
- Faculty activity reports
- Promotion and tenure
- The problems of combining development and evaluation.
- Seemingly opposite goals, at least to some.
- The problems of course-specific forms.
- How does the budget committee generalize?
- How the faculty voted to use these forms.
- No use for annual increments
- To show development for promotion and tenure
- If you'd like to make comments on how I can make this course or
my teaching better, please let me know!
- The institutional evaluation forms ask a number of questions about the
``subject matter of the course''.
- Hence, it is important for me that you understand my perspective on
this issue.
- I believe that this course covers a number of different subject matters:
- Programming in Java
- Program Design
- Object-oriented Programming
- Algorithms
- Abstract data types and data structures
- We've covered an amazing amount, and I congratulate you for your hard
work.
- I tend to divide our topics into the theory and practice of computing.
- However, you will find theory in my practice section and practice in
my theory section.
That is, how to do particular things.
- Syntax
- Language basics: variables, references, primitive types,
control structures, objects, constructors, methods
- Classes vs. Objects
- The AWT and GUIs
- Exceptions
- Exceptions and exception handling
- Pre- and postconditions
- Separation of interface and implementation
- Testing
- Documentation
- Group work and large project design
- What is Object-oriented programming?
- How does it relate to procedural and functional programming?
- Modeling using objects (e.g., games, puzzles)
- Inheritance; superclasses; subclasses
- Interfaces
- Polymorphism
- Exceptions (not really OOP, but close)
That is, general philosophies of how to get things done.
- Recursion
- Algorithm analysis, big-O notation, and algorithm measurement
- Algorithm design techniques
- Divide and conquer
- Dynamic programming
- Greedy algorithms
- Luck
- Sorting Algorithms
- Insertion sort
- Merge sort
- Quick sort
- Heap sort
- Bubble sort
- Graph algorithms (and their use in modeling)
- Shortest path
- Traveling salescritter
- Reachability
- Lists
- Simple vs. ordered
- Linked lists
- Doubly linked lists
- Implementation with arrays
- Linear structures
- Stacks
- Queues
- Priority queues (and their implementation in heaps)
- Trees
- Dictionaries (implemented as hash tables and assocation lists)
- Graphs
- My mother taught Psychology at Boston University for over thirty
years. (``Aha, maybe that explains SamR's warped personality''.)
Eventually, she found a way that she liked to end her class, typically
with a series of statements. I try to do the same,
although the statements are clearly filtered through my sensibilities.
Most of us will take or teach other classes. However, this one is
unique; none will ever be quite like this it for a number of reasons.
The people in the class made it what it was. We should acknowledge
each other's contributions and commit ourselves to making similar
contributions in future classes. In paritcular, I thank all of you for
your contributions.
- Mom also makes a statement on the order of
While I enjoyed having you in my class, I'm also happy to have you
move on to other things. Like any parent or mentor, I've enjoyed seeing
you grow, but also want you to test your own wings.
- Finally, Mom tells a story of an elementary school teacher she had worked
with who was leaving her job. Mom stopped by to give the teacher a
goodbye present. The teacher cried. Mom said ``I expect that you've
been crying all day as you said goodbye to your students'' The
teacher said ``No, I forgot to say goodbye; that's why I'm
crying''. Since then mom has always made it a point to say goodbye
to her classes. I encourage you to say goodbye to your friends and
colleagues who you may not see again.
- I hope to see those of you who are not graduating in other courses.
Wednesday, 23 August 2000
- Created as a blank outline.
Thursday, 24 August 2000
- Slight reorganization to page design.
Back to Graphs, Concluded.
On to .