COURSE EVALUATION REPORT

MICHAEL NELSON

200710

1 STRONGLY DISAGREE

2 DISAGREE

3 NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE

4 AGREE

5 STRONGLY AGREE

n/a NOT APPLICABLE

NR NO RESPONSE

CS 418/CS 518 - Aggregate

	QUESTIONS FOR EVALUATION:	RESPONSE FREQUENCY
	QUESTIONS FOR EVALUATION:	RESPONSE FREQUENCY
		1	2	3	4	5	n/a	NR	n	MEAN	INSTR MEAN	STD. DEV.	DEPT MEAN	COLL MEAN
1	IN THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASS, THE INSTRUCTOR PROVIDED DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION THAT CLEARLY EXPLAINED THE COURSE CONTENT, ASSIGNMENTS, GRADING AND OTHER IMPORTANT POLICIES.	0	0	0	2	7	0	0	9	4.78	4.78	0.69	4.29	4.52
2	THE COURSE MATERIALS, EXAMS, PROJECTS AND/OR PAPERS IN THE CLASS REQUIRED ME TO THINK CRITICALLY.	0	0	0	2	7	0	0	9	4.78	4.78	0.40	4.26	4.45
3	THE INSTRUCTOR WELCOMED QUESTIONS AND OTHER CLASS PARTICIPATION.	0	0	0	1	8	0	0	9	4.89	4.89	0.40	4.29	4.37
4	THE INSTRUCTOR WAS ENTHUSIASTIC WITH RESPECT TO THE SUBJECT MATTER.	0	0	0	1	8	0	0	9	4.89	4.89	0.57	4.10	4.32
5	THE INSTRUCTOR WAS AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AND HELPFUL DURING OFFICE HOURS.	0	0	0	0	9	0	0	9	5.00	5.00	0.61	4.13	4.47
6	THE INSTRUCTOR ARRIVED ON TIME FOR CLASS AND USED THE FULL CLASS PERIOD ALLOTED.	0	0	0	1	8	0	0	9	4.89	4.89	0.90	4.42	4.56
7	IN ORDER TO GET GOOD GRADES ON TESTS AND ASSIGNMENTS, I HAD TO KNOW THE COURSE MATERIALS OUTLINED IN THE SYLLABUS AND DISCUSSED IN CLASS.	0	0	0	2	7	0	0	9	4.78	4.78	0.39	4.28	4.49
8	THE INSTRUCTOR'S PRESENTATIONS WERE INFORMATIVE.	0	0	0	2	7	0	0	9	4.78	4.78	0.63	3.94	4.16
9	OVERALL, I HAVE LEARNED OR BENEFITED FROM THIS CLASS.	0	0	0	1	8	0	0	9	4.89	4.89	0.56	3.94	4.11
10	OVERALL, THE INSTRUCTOR IS AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER.	0	0	0	1	8	0	0	9	4.89	4.89	0.68	3.93	4.11

GENERAL INFORMATION:
APPROXIMATE CLASS STANDING		PRESENT GPA		HRS PER WEEK SPENT PREPARING FOR CLASS
FRESHMAN	0	LESS THAN 2.00	0	0 TO 2	0
SOPHOMORE	0	2.00 TO 2.49	0	3 TO 5	1
JUNIOR	0	2.50 TO 2.99	0	6 TO 8	3
SENIOR	2	3.00 TO 3.49	3	9 TO 11	2
GRADUATE	7	3.50 +	5	12 OR MORE	3
OTHER	0	DO NOT KNOW	1

SEX		AGE		FULL OR PART TIME STUDENT
MALE	5	20 & UNDER	0	FULL-TIME	7
FEMALE	4	21 - 25	6	PART-TIME	2
		26 +	3

REASON FOR TAKING COURSE		EXPECTED COURSE GRADE		EMPLOYED WHILE TAKING COURSE
REQUIRED FOR MAJOR	2	A	7	NOT EMPLOYED	3
GEN. ED. REQUIREMENT	2	B	1	PART-TIME JOB	4
ELECTIVE	3	C	0	FULL-TIME JOB	2
OTHER	2	D	0
		F	0
		P	0
		Q	0

I ATTENDED ---- CLASS
ALL	5
MOST	3
FEW	0

NR :	No response. Student did not rate the instructor on this question.
*n :*	Number of responses for this question (does not include �no response�.)
Mean:	The mean for this call number/CRN. In the case of aggregate reports, the mean for all session cross-listed together for this course.
Instr Mean:	The mean for all courses taught by this instructor for a college. This number is the same on all reports for this instructor for a college.
Std. Deviation:	The standard deviation for instructors means in this department.
Dept Mean:	The mean for all courses taught by this department, including any course cross-listed to a course taught by this department. This number is the same on all reports for this department.
Coll Mean:	The mean for all courses taught by this college, including any course cross-listed to a course taught by this college. This number is the same on all reports for this college.
ENROLLMENT:	Total number of students enrolled for this call number/CRN. In the case of aggregate reports, the total number of students enrolled for all call numbers cross-listed together with at least one completed evaluation.

ENROLLMENT:	18
TOTAL RESPONSES:	9

GENERAL WRITTEN COMMENTS:

WHAT FACTORS ABOUT THIS CLASS CONTRIBUTED THE MOST TO YOUR LEARNING? WHAT ASPECTS OF THIS CLASS HELPED YOU TO LEARN THINK CRITICALLY?

Learned by reading the assigned materials and sample code especially those demoed during class. The general description of assignments were sometimes vague which forces students to think throughly before tackling the project.
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Any student who came to the class and really wanted to Learn its material, would be able to benefit a lot. I have learned in this class about web programming more than I have learned in 2 yrs of web developing work.
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The assignments really force you to get into the code. A lot of the assignments require you to go beyond the book and figure out ways to implement various features required. The book is good.
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WHAT DID YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT THE CLASS AND YOUR INSTRUCTOR?

The class project was interesting even though it was a BBS. Many of the work that went into learning and building the BBS in a LAMP environment can be applied to many web application found on the internet. I learned a great deal. The professor was always there to answer any question or concerns.
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The unique idea that Dr. Nelson came up with: "Students share a forum where they can help each other and learn from each other". No student needed to cheat or ask for external help for projects since an "ALLOWED" help was already there by the classmates and Dr. Nelson encouraged that. I, personally, never liked programming nor web developing. Dr. Nelson totally changed this idea and made me really interested about the course.
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Professor Nelson knows A LOT about the internet and coding in PHP. This is made obvious during his lectures as he oftentimes delves deeper into the material than the book does. I really enjoyed participating in his lectures as they were always interesting.
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WHAT CHANGES IF ANY, COULD BE MADE TO THE CLASS THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED YOU TO LEARN MORE? WHAT COULD THE INSTRUCTOR HAVE DONE TO MAKE THE COURSE AN EVEN BETTER LEARNING EXPERIENCE?

I think it is important for us to know up front all the assignments from the beginning. It is critical because each assignment builds on previous assignments. Even though we can look at previous year assignments, it should be in black and white from the start. It would of been more useful if the professor gone over database demo of the BBS example instead of movie or comic codes found in the php book examples.
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Nothing ...
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The class is based almost solely on the four assignments. While this is great for the student, it also works against the students as well. The assignments aren't particularly hard for someone this deep into the CS program, but they are sometimes overly time-consuming. I'm not up to date on how elective credit hours are rated, but this one should probably be worth 1 more credit hour. If I were to compare the two CS electives I'm taking right now in the amount of time required, this one takes at least five times more effort to pass. Professor Nelson has an overall good personality, and his total and complete fandom of VT is unquestionable and not related to the following point. Sometimes discussions about preferred software choices and development tools almost seem as if he's trying to find someone in the class who disagrees just so he could have a fan-war. This never happened of course, but it is tiring at times.
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WHAT FACTORS ABOUT YOUR OWN PERFORMANCE HELPED YOU LEARN THE MOST? WHAT DID YOU DO TO FACILITATE YOUR LEARNING?

My programming experience and learning to use the sample codes given in class and the book.
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I was highly involved with Dr. Nelson's forum. The importance of information posted on the forum is indescribable.
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Made sure to at least try to allot enough time for the assignments. Reviewed a lot of the HTML standards on the W3C page and many documents on the PHP site.
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WHAT COULD YOU HAVE DONE TO MAKE THE COURSE AN EVEN BETTER LEARNING EXPERIENCE?

Nothing. I learned a lot and was happy with the outcome of this class.
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Nothing...
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