Fall 2010: What Went Right, What Went Wrong

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

As we're getting close to wrapping up this semester's offering of Software Carpentry, we've been putting some thought into the things that worked and didn't work in terms of how we administered the course. Here's what we came up with:

What Worked Well

Version Control — Students really seemed to recognize the value of incorporating version control into their work practices. Of all the topics covered so far, we've received the most positive feedback about version control.
Midterm Quiz — This was useful for assessing the students' learning, and getting an idea of how many of the students were keeping up with the material.
Check-ins — About a month ago, we had each of the students meet with us on Skype for 10 minutes or so. Again, this helped us get an idea of how the students were doing with the course material, and also allowed the students to give us feedback on things they'd like to see changed/added to SWC.
TA Organization — Although we got off to a bit of a slow start, the Software Carpentry TAs managed to get organized in terms of the administrative aspects of the course. Division of labor, and explicitly assigning tasks to specific people seemed to work well.
Asking Students for their Problems — We spoke to a few students about the kinds of computer-related problems they are facing in their research. Next semester we hope to write weekly blog posts in which we will work through the solutions to the problems that the students are reporting.
They like us! — The feedback we've been getting from students indicates that they are enjoying the SWC course, and see the value of the material.

What Went Wrong

Mid-term Quiz Results

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A few weeks ago we gave a quiz to the SWC students on the first three topics of the course: Version Control, Spreadsheets, and Databases. We did this in addition to our student check-ins in order to get a sense of how the students were doing with the material. Half of the class (24 students) submitted their answers.

Results:
Everyone did really, really well! The majority of the mistakes were small SQL syntax errors, or other similarly minor things.

Ainsley Lawson on The Carpentries

Fall 2010: What Went Right, What Went Wrong

Mid-term Quiz Results