Suggested ways to improve:

  1. Buy the textbook, read it, and bring it to tests – a sizeable fraction of the class didn’t have it taking the text which suggests you don’t have it
  2. Do the homework – the homework won’t address all the issues raised in the test, but it will address some of them and the likelihood that you will remember something is increased if you have actually used it in a program
  3. If you are “working together” with someone else on homework, make sure that this is a better way for you to learn than working by yourself.  If the group is larger than 2 people, this is unlikely to be true.  The people that have been “working together” generally did worse on the exam than other students.  Your homework grades may be fine because you “worked together” with other students, but you may not be learning the material.
  4. Come to class – I don’t grade on attendance but there was nothing on the exam that wasn’t discussed in class
  5. Pay attention in class - I don’t control what you do with your computer during class
  6. Take notes in class
  7. Except for brief questions to other students, don’t talk to other students during lecture – as you have discovered, it is distracting to me and isn’t a very good use of your time – While I certainly believe that you can learn things from your fellow students, if you are talking to them, you aren’t listening to what I am saying.  By trying to get the immediate homework done, you are missing out on concepts that will be important later.  Talk to the other students either before or after class.
  8. If I hand out non-graded exercises, do them before they are discussed in class – We did 3 sets of exercises together and I provided class time to do some of them and I remarked that they were good preparation for the quiz but I’m not sure they helped you. 
  9. Ask questions of me if you don’t understand something – either during class or outside of class
  10. Read test questions carefully – many questions involve more than one concept
  11. If you need help, and I am unable to provide it, go to the Tutoring Center on the 4th floor of the CG Building.
  12. Don’t be afraid to make suggestions to me about changing things about the course
  13. If you don’t like my approach to the class, consider transferring to either the Monday or Wednesday evening section  taught by Hung Vu - the problem is that these classes only meet once a week and they are unlikely to meet for the whole 4 hours, so there is less class time to learn the material

Revised: October 16, 2008