Roach, Steven

CS 4310-25358

Spring 2003

Comments:

1. The class is excellent the way things are organized and conducted. Although I think that Dr. Roach may allow for the students to pick the team they want to be in because that would and greatly in team relations. When students know each other they communicate better and therefore will work better. Enhancing their work and by these means producing a better project.

We do not allow students to choose their own teams for several reasons. First, it is our intent to have you learn how to communicate with a more diverse set of students that you would likely choose on your own. It is a human tendency to select people who are most like you. However, we want you to be able to work with a wide range of people.

We further believe that the product you create will be much better if your team has greater diversity. This is because a wide range of ideas are needed to create usable, flexible, reliable software.

Finally, the research shows that the two team selection strategies that have the highest probability of creating disastrous teams are (a) random and (b) self-selected teams. We are actually doing you a favor by not allowing you to choose your own teammates. Dr. Gates and I discuss this matter frequently with our colleagues at other institutions. In fact, we are hosting a panel session on team strategies in the classroom at the Frontiers in Education conference in 2003. Having studied the matter, we believe that self-selected teams are not appropriate in this situation.

2. Would be good to have all notes printed in the “nice color” course notes. Sometimes I stopped listening just because I was writing. You are an excellent teacher. Despite the grade I got (less that A for sure), I’ve learned a lot. Thanks.

I chose not to have color copies because of the expense. Chose not to print all of the content of every slide because students stop taking notes and stop paying attention when I do this. By only giving you part of the notes, I have relieved you of the need to write everything, but have encouraged you to have your pen in hand and write during the lecture.

3. This is an overall excellent course. Dr. Roach has obviously put a lot of thought into the structure of the course. I learned a great deal about teamwork and about software engineering.

4. This class is the prime example of the need to establish a reasonable load of work associated with number of in class hours. A 3 hour class that requires 15-20 hours of group meetings to discuss project assignments 10 hours of individual work to do the assignments plus 6 hours of studying and reading is far from reasonable. The book is an expensive paperweight. While sections were assigned to be read during the beginning it was not referred to again after the third week of class. The handbook was an excellent idea. A table of contents would have been extremely helpful. The class is a pressure cooker, with so many huge assignments due, many new topics to learn, a project to try to grasp, and a group of new people to learn to work with you constantly feel behind the entire semester. Some of us do take other classes and other responsibilities.

If your team is spending 15-20 hours per week in meetings, then you are obviously wasting a lot of time. One of the objectives of this course is for you to learn to conduct effective meetings. In order to do this, you must have a reason for meeting, come to the meeting prepared, stay on task, and end the meeting when the objectives are met or no productive work is being accomplished.

The book discusses many of the topics covered in class. I assume that you can read and do not need me to read the book to you. I expect that you will find the text book from last semester as well as the one chosen for this semester useful in 4311.

I have added a table of contents to the course notes for 4311 next semester.

5. This class has definitely been the most intensive class, I’ve taken a while at UTEP. But, I have really learned many new things that will help me in the future. The structure of the class was a challenge for me in that it was very time intensive, mainly because I had other classes to worry about. I know that if this class was the only class I was taking, say like during the summer, I would have learned much more. The instructor is a very good instructor, I like the fact that he’s more interested in the students learning. But the lectures do go very fast and is difficult to capture everything that is being taught.

6. As a student at any level of my studies, have I had to work as hard. As I have in CS 4310. Along with the hard work, I have gained so much from this class, I’ve learned and applied it over and over again. I don’t know what grade I’ll get in this class, but I know what I am getting out of it. Dr. Roach challenged us day in and day out, at times I would leave school confused not knowing what the heck just happened; but in time things became clearer and now I feel like a stranger student.

7. I enjoyed the class. I felt that we didn’t have enough feedback with the SRS draft. I would have learned more if there would have been more comments on the SRS requirements section.

Monica and I both went through all of the SRS drafts and provided extensive feedback. I don’t know what else we could have done to assist you.

8. Excellent teacher. Thanks I learn a lot. I have two suggestions to improve the class. 1^st. make the exams with less theory. Put more exercises. 2^nd Provide example of the assignments most of the time I didn’t know how to start them.

My exams cover the ABET objectives for the course that are not covered in any other manner (such as the project). I am obligated to assess my students on the course objectives.

9. I have learned a lot in this class, in all ways. I have learned to work in a team which is pretty difficult. Dr. Roach is a really good teacher. The class is exaggerated difficult, so slow down. I like this class and I hope to get a good grade because after this an usual amount of work we all deserve a good grade.

The pace of the course is fast. There is a great deal of material to cover, and you need to cover it in order to succeed on your project. I don’t know where there is time for a slower pace. Can you recommend where to take more time and where to spend less?

10. I think its pretty hard to have somethings due on the day of a test or one day before, the test should have more space in time between when you turn deliverables in for example if something is due on a Monday the test should be on a Thursday to have more time to review the material.

Part of being a professional in the software industry is being able to plan. The exams were scheduled on the first day of class. All assignments are made several days or weeks before they are due.

11. Dr. Roach is a nice and cool professor. He pushed us very hard throughout the semester. I wish he could force us to have mandatory weekly meetings with him. This way he knows where exactly we are and how we should do to make progress.

12. Excellent course. Finally a class that gives you a taste of the ‘real’ world. My main concern however involves the group assignments. Although we were trained in class what the assignment is, I believe we didn’t spend enough time training how to perform the assignment. It kind of felt like trial and error…we were ‘coding and fixing’ to schedule. Students with similar schedules could be grouped together.

13. First I really enjoyed the whole semester in the class, thank you Dr. Roach. It would be a good idea to have more contact with the client so they can give us feedback of what we are doing. It would be a good idea if you would ask us to do a presentation during the semester on topics such as use cases, feasibility reports.