BIO/CSC295 2009F, Class 28: Wrapup

Admin:
* Happy last day of class!
* Fill out the post-course survey at 
  http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/psychology/faculty/dl/risc/
* Remember: Bring your portfolios to the final (or submit them
  beforehand).
* Send Sam and Vida your EC checklists

Overview:
* Pre-Post Test.
* Course Evaluation Form.
* Lopatto's Survey.
  http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/psychology/faculty/dl/risc/
* Preparing for the Final.
* Debriefing.
* Final Comments.

Final Exam
* Everything is fair game
  * Some stuff from before the midsem
  * Some stuff since the midsem
* More or less the same structure as the midsem
  * About six questions
  * Designed to take ten minutes each
* One sheet of hand-written notes
  * 8.5 x 11 inches or A4
  * You can write on both sides
  * You cannot write with a computer
* Whenever the registrar scheduled it
  * 2 p.m. on Wednesday
* Will we have to write code?
  * Probably not
* Will we have to read/understand code?
  * Probably
* Will we have to write an algorithm?
  * Maybe
* Will we have to apply an algorithm?
  * Probably

Final Exam Questions
* Available online Handouts -> Final Exam Q's
* X's questions to be added soon
* What topics do the questions not cover?
  * Pigs!
  * Questions are biased towards after break

What went well?
* Good trust as a class (between students and between students and faculty)
* Seeing interactions between faculty
* Took advantage of two professors teaching one class (complementary)
  * And seeing that we had trouble with the other side useful
* Discussing articles in class in detail was helpful
* Working as a team
  * You learn from explaining
  * You learn from each other

What went poorly?
* Jokes about grades.
* Textbook did not give us enough background.
* Would have liked us to provide more Web-based supplementary material 
  * Here's more info on the biology
* A lot of vagueness on what was being graded and what wasn't
  * Got better as the course went on 
* Course Web site was not up to date
  * Sam's fault
* Needed more background on the programming side
  * Vocabulary (e.g., "What is a list?")
* Would have benefitted from simple worksheets as you were going along
* Would have benefitted from some wet lab work (once a month?)

Somewhere in between
* Different ways that the topics are approached
  * Biology had a lot of time spent discussing the ideas
  * CS had a lot of time spent trying to build things
* Think about how class is scheduled.  Would three one-hour sessions
  have been better?  Time to think about the lecture before you do
  the lab.
* Sometimes not enough work (or not enough homework); it was okay to
  not get some parts
  * Should we separate the class for some lectures for more efficiency?