I did not want to post this entry, for many reasons.
- I am embarrassed to admit that I am not a good teacher.
- I am terribly disappointed to be confronted with this failure, just after the “high” of the publicity around my City-of-Edmonton inspired project in my CMPUT course.
- I am completely frustrated by the fact that what I thought was a good (in fact a better-than-good) course may end up in my “failures” column.
So I was not going to post it, definitely not.
And then, I decided to join the ranks of the ones who come out with embarrassing stories about themselves, in the hopes that their stories may be useful to others who are facing similar situations. And so here I go and I am posting this entry.
Last Friday, I found in my mailbox my teaching evaluations for my course last term. They were not-quite-abysmal but they were definitely, undoubtedly, undeniably bad. If the world was black and white, these evaluations would be black (or white in cultures where white is a color of mourning).
Now, I should also come clean with the fact that I am not an award-winning teacher (at least not at the undergraduate level) but these evaluations were quite below what I have come to expect from me. And the clear message (in fact the only written comment on the back of the collection of “agree/disagree” questions) was that the project was too hard. And the fact is that the project was not really too hard, definitely not harder than the projects usually done in this course in past years. And the only explanation that I am left with is that my students disliked the fact that the project was “real” and saw this to be too hard. Maybe I am oversimplifying but, no matter whether the project was the reason why my evaluations are bad or not, the truth is that the students did not like the project; they disliked it more than students generally dislike the project in this course; so in the end, I am having to attribute the strong dislike of the students for the project to the only feature that distinquished this project from the projects of past years: its realism. And that frustrates me … a lot. And, I am not sure what I will do next time I have to teach this course, and I am guessing it depends on when the next time will be and whether I will have forgotten the sting of this experience by then…
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For what it’s worth, I enjoyed having you as a prof and I would’ve loved to have such a real-world project when I took 301. Maybe there’s a way to further constrain the project so they don’t feel overwhelmed?
Thanks Sarah! I know that I have to somehow mitigate the “difficulty” or the “scariness” of the project and I am frustrated by the fact that I was not able to do so. I also got a very thoughtful email from a student from this class (thanks Tim) who suggested that I should increase the weight of the first deliverable (the part where the requirements are explained and the UI and software design are first drafted, to give students a stronger hint that this is important. It makes sense that this would decrease anxiety about “what the expectations are” and probably would reduce the students’ stress.
I will remember next time, for sure.
Or maybe I will just try to skip 301 when teaching assignments are made:-) nah… I actually *do* like this course very much
Eleni, thanks for writing this. Our “computer science” culture doesn’t often share the “lows” we have. I’ve been discouraged of talking about research experiences that didn’t work because these can turn students off from pursuing grad school. But I think it’s so much easier to succeed if we accept to fail often and recover from it quickly.
I haven’t taught in more than 10 years, but I still feel the sting of a class in which I though my project was awesome, but then I saw 80% of the students deciding to quit and wait for the next semester to take the “easier” version from another professor. It hurt
I actually wrote the line “I decided to join the ranks of the ones who come out with embarrassing stories about themselves, in the hopes that their stories may be useful to others who are facing similar situations.” in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Who knew that there are more out there who are not “successful” teachers in spite of their efforts?
Talking about the “sting”, I still remember a comment of a student in a 100-level course who said that “he was late to register and there was no space in the section of my colleague who co-taught the course so he was stuck in mine”. That one made me cry actually (it was a long time ago
Eleni,
First, you should be proud of yourself that you got the courage to share such an experience in public. Although I may personally disagree with the outcome of this evaluation, at least you should be happy as it positioned you at the second step of the Learning Process Ladder (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_96.htm).
Second, the problem I myself experienced while teach assisting at different courses is we always misunderstand the student’s objective of taking a certain course. I found that many (if it not the majority) of the students only care about their final grade of the course; they don’t really care much about the experience they gain out of it. For them, it is just a course, and the grade will dramatically affect many of their life aspects like being financially secured by winning more scholarships, and building an appealing resume by getting straight A’s. Although a real-life project would be a golden opportunity to gain real industry-grade experience, all what they care about is the grade nothing else.
We have to accept the fact that students always have different priorities than us.
–Rimon
I’ve been silently reading on this course project since I learned about it, as both a former U of A student and having worked on the open data catalogue project, so I’m sorry to learn that so many of your students didn’t share your enthusiasm.
Personally, one of my favourite courses during my studies was CMPUT 401 (w/ Dr Wong), and largely because we were tasked with real work that in successful cases resulted in some value for someone beyond the learning experience. That said, without 301 and a year of work experience behind me, I doubt I would have been prepared for everything that taking a real-world assignment from requirements gathering to success entails. 301 was definitely an interesting course though – I think for many students it can be a bit of an awakening on how much goes into any non-trivial software project. While that makes it a difficult and time-consuming course, I would maintain that it is also one of the most valuable and necessary.
As someone who has gone from leveraging my degree and very limited experience into a career to the other side of that table, I will pick a great portfolio of student work and an enthusiasm for interesting projects over the terminally grade-obsessed straight A student every time.
Thank you for the comment Devin! It is always good to hear back from our students! And I am especially glad to hear you comment on the need for enthused individuals. It is still my task to help more students get enthused in spite of having to work on homework and to meet deadlines!
Having taken this course with you last semester, I have a mixed reaction to this post.
The project was not necessarily “hard”, just extremely time-consuming (as any real project will be). I would attribute the low ratings you received to the common student’s laziness before I’d credit it to a poor choice of project.
This course provided me with the first ounce of real experience in my 5-year degree. We had to evaluate a spec, design a system from scratch, and implement it all by a specific deadline.
I say keep projects like this coming and let the lazy students filter out if need be. But I’m also a bit heartless when it comes to people who don’t appreciate hard work.
Thanks for the comment Graham!
I would be lying if I were to say that the thought that “students may not be so eager to work hard” did not cross my mind! (I hope I obfuscated this sentence enough to make it palatable to all audiences:-) And my preference has generally been to go for “realism”. And I have not been terribly good at estimating the amount of work involved to mimic reality. This estimation is very dependent on the students’ skill set coming to the course, and 301 has a broad variety of students. And what’s worse, I think the variety gets more variable which makes my poor estimation capabilities plain terrible.
I will for sure keep the projects coming but I just heard that next year I am doing 401 (yeah!!!) which is generally taken by students who like software engineering more which is always a great help to the instructor! Maybe you want to take it? I promise(threaten?) lots of fun and lots of interactions with real customers!
And I think that I trashed mistakenly a post by Shaun – sorry
I must say that I disagree with the majority of students from CMPUT 301. I believe that the project in this course last semester was excellent.
It was the first time that I’ve ever been expected to solve a real world problem at school. Having worked on co-op terms totalling close to sixteen months now, I can attest to the fact that the project’s content and execution were very similar to what would be experienced in industry, including requirements gathering, design, documentation, formal process, and implementation.
So the project wasn’t “hard” in my opinion, in fact it was exactly what it should be – challenging. For the students who haven’t applied their CS to real-world situations yet, I can understand that it would be far more challenging than anything they’ve done before. But at the same time, it is exactly what they need to push them out of the box of well defined academic problems.
Ultimately, I think the real world project should stay. I would say that instead of constraining the project or making it simpler, it would be most beneficial to make students more aware of the size of the project up front so that they know how much work really needs to go into it.
I was also in this class and I thought the project to be extremely valuable. Admittedly my team’s submission wasn’t as amazing as the winners but I was showing off our work to my friend’s and family for months. The whole experience only fortified that I am doing what I love to do.