Instructor Responsibilities
I thought I was ready to teach when I requested my first assignment as "Instructor of Record" for a summer session class. What I learned was that although I was a master of the material and could help individual students learn it, helping an entire room full of students learn at the same time was a different situation altogether. This first experience also inspired me to begin studying teaching and learning to help me be a better facilitator of learning for my students. This section follows my growth as a "traditional" classroom teacher and the important lessons I have learned. Student evaluations of my teaching are included in Appendix D.
CSC216 Programming Concepts in Java
CSC216 is the second in a three course sequence of programming courses for computer science majors, as well as a second programming course for several other engineering majors. As such, there is little flexibility in the content of the course since it is the transition between the elementary introduction course and the following "Data Structures" course. I have taught this course three times during 10-week summer sessions. One of the biggest challenges of this course, for teacher and student alike, is that while the number of contact hours for this class in a summer session are the same as during a regular spring or fall semester, some compression of content is necessary to allow for the additional in-class discussion and exercises necessary to help the students build their comprehension in a shorter period of time. more...
CSC295D Perspectives on Software System Design
This course served as the object of the "observation" semester for my work in the PtP program. Because I had experience as an instructor for a core undergraduate course (CSC216), my mentor and I decided to use the PtP program as an opportunity to actually develop a course. This widened the scope of my responsibilities to include writing a proposal for the course, defining the overall learning objectives and expected outcomes and writing the syllabus, and finding, refining, and presenting a variety of content to meet those objectives. more...
CSC495D Perspectives on Software Systems Design
This course was a refinement of CSC295D that Dr. Honeycutt and I taught in the previous semester. The change in course numbering was necessary to attract students to the course: as a 200-level course (as taught the previous semester), it was not eligible for use as a "CSC Restricted Elective." As a 400-level course, it would be eligible, and thus more attractive to students. Furthermore, we realized from teaching CSC295D that the level of difficulty of the material was more appropriate for advanced students. Of course, making this change required submitting a new course proposal. Because this was the second teaching semester in the PtP program, I also assumed the primary responsibility for teaching the course. more...
