about

We, the CS faculty, have a lot of experience in what teaching techniques are effective for our students. This document is an attempt to record some of those ideas and suggestions for the benefit of new and old faculty alike.

class

If your class is a lower-division class, the number of students who don't attend lecture is sometimes high. Take attendance and give credit for it. It's simple to pass around a sign-up sheet every lecture.

More and more things demand our student's attention. In lecture that often shows up as an open laptop. It's a distraction to the students and the instructor. At the beginning of the term make a polite request that laptops not be used during lecture.

It's hard to elicit participation from students, and it's more likely due to embarrassment than apathy. Call the students by name, which will make the class feel more personal. Give them the opportunity to make presentations and give them credit.

If your class has discussion sections, have your assistants give quizzes for credit. Perhaps some part of the credit could be for just showing up to encourage attendance.

Remembering your students by name is much easier with photos of them. CLIPs provides that. And it's a good idea to keep old photos, too, for when something comes up for that student after the term is over, like a letter of recommendation.

communication

It's sometimes important to have announcements for your class. Blackboard provides that. They're ordered by date and can remove themselves automatically by date or you can remove them manually.

It's sometimes important to send e-mail to the whole class. Both CLIPs and Blackboard provide that, but Blackboard's e-mail is easier to use.

Students benefit from a venue where they can ask questions of both the instructors and other students. Newsgroups were popular in the past, but web forums are a better alternative now, because they allow multiple topics in a single forum as well as read-only topics. Blackboard provides that. Consider creating the following topics and threads:

Then encourage the submission of all questions to the forum so that everyone can benefit from the questions and the answers. As well, you and your assistants should read and respond to the posts.

assignments

If your class requires working in groups, use Blackboard to define those groups and set up discussion forums for each group. It's sometimes useful to set up a private group for the instructors, so that they can have a private discussion forum.

If your class requires programming assignments, it would be invaluable for them to experience pair programming at least once. It will serve them well on their resume, if and when they seek a job as a developer.

Regardless of what aspect of CS you're teaching, students benefit from exposure to the literature. Find and assign relevant papers.

Give students the opportunity to present their solution to a project or analysis of a paper for credit.

grading and testing

Students benefit from having immediate and ready access to their grades as the term progresses. Blackboard's gradebook or CLIPs eGradebook provide that. Both allow the definition of assignment types and names and the downloading of the final grades at the end of the term.

If your class requires programming assignments, it is a sad fact that you're likely to discover plagiarism. Use and advertise the use of Moss.

Consider having a part of your tests be multiple choice. The Measurement and Evaluation Center can provide bubble sheets, which can then be graded mechanically in just a few minutes. Furthermore they can provide an item analysis, which helps in evaluating the quality of your questions. Catherine Thomas can obtain those sheets for you.

If your class has multiple sections, give the tests at night so that all sections can take the test simultaneously. If you do, advertise the dates and times of those tests in the Registrar's course schedule. Catherine Thomas can set that up for you.

If your class has multiple assistants, have the assistants take turns with composing quizzes and grading assignments and tests, so as to reduce the bias of one assistant over the others.

syllabus

Elaine Rich has written a document that describes the code of conduct we expect from our students. Include that in your syllabus.

Students benefit from knowing explicit dates as soon as possible for all the major events of a course. Include a schedule in your syllabus with the following:

Students value knowing the expected workload. Include the following in your syllabus:

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