EECS Dept UC Berkeley

 Overview

The course catalog entry for CS302:

Discussion and review of research and practice relating to the teaching of computer science: knowledge organization and misconceptions, curriculum and topic organization, evaluation, collaborative learning, technology use, and administrative issues. As part of a semester-long project to design a computer science course, participants invent and refine a variety of homework and exam activities, and evaluate alternatives for textbooks, grading and other administrative policies, and innovative uses of technology.

In our own words, CS302 is very probably the last professional development related to teaching you'll receive before you receive your PhD, get a great job at a top-tier institution, and have to manage on your own. Our meta-goal is to prepare you fully for that position. Very often the first thing you'll be asked to do is teach a course. What goes into designing that course is the vast majority of CS302's emphasis, but we'll also provide you with other pieces. How does the move to put classes online change things? We'll also give you a rare peek into the week-to-week life of an instructor.

This course is one of the requirements for the graduate teaching minor. The course is 3 units, graded. The textbook is Tools for Teaching (second edition; Jossey-Bass, 2009) by Barbara Gross Davis, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion here at Berkeley. We’ll refer to it later in the course.

We'll take the first fifteen minutes of each class and share the many joys and challenges of our lives, department politics, cheating students, conference travel, paper reviewing, writing a book, tenure and promotion, time management, balancing a family, etc. The rest of each class will be spent having students sharing and reflecting on their homework from last week, and we'll have a roundtable discussion about the topic of the week to set you up for the following week's homework. We ask that you turn your homework in via Google Docs by 11:59pm one day before class (here saturday night), and use the following day and morning to comment and reflect on each other's work. We'll also use Piazza for any miscellaneous discussion and feedback. You'll probably learn as much or more from the feedback of your peers (in this peer review model) as you will from us.

We hope that you will leave CS302 with every question you've ever had about the teaching side of faculty life answered, and feel confident you'd be able to start your academic career with the wheels spinning, pointed squarely down the center of the road to success.

 News

2014-01-17 Welcome to CS302, everyone!
Those of us on staff are really excited about the class, and are looking forward to a great semester! From this point forward, we'll be using the Piazza Question and Answer website for all class discussions.

 Calendar

Weekly Schedule

Hour Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
10:00am          
11:00am          
12:00pm          
1:00pm          
2:00pm          
3:00pm

Class Meeting
606 Soda

       
4:00pm        

Semester Schedule (subject to change)

Week Days in 2012 Class topic Homework (out the week indicated, due the following week)
1 01-20 to 01-24 No Class, Holiday
2 01-27 to 01-31 Welcome, Introductions, Expectations. Goals for the class, best practices (for instructors and students) from the last offering. Choose the class you wish to design
3 02-03 to 02-07 Review class designs, Misconceptions discussion List misconceptions and attitudes and ways to mitigate
4 02-10 to 02-14 Review misconceptions and interfering attitudes, concept map and exercise generation discussion Create a concept map for your course
5 02-17 to 02-21 President's Day Holiday Design a few exercises according to the taxonomy (part 1)
6 02-24 to 02-28 Review concept maps, Exercise generation discussion Design a few exercises according to the taxonomy (part 2)
7 03-03 to 03-07 Review course exercises, case study discussion (MC away) Produce an outline of a case study and its solution
8 03-10 to 03-14 Case Studies, collaborative learning discussion Design a few activities that will facilitate group productivity
9 03-17 to 03-21 Collaborative Learning Activities, grading policy discussion Design and justify a grading policy
10 03-24 to 03-28 No Class, Spring Break
11 03-31 to 04-04 Grading Policy, exam authoring discussion Design the first course exam
12 04-07 to 04-11 Exams, online learning discussion Reflect on what it would take to MOOC-ify your course; what are the challenges and opportunities?
13 04-14 to 04-18 MOOCs (MC away)  
14 04-21 to 04-25 Things We Wish We Had Known When We Were In Your Shoes Collaboratively design your own CS301
15 04-28 to 05-02 Reflection on CS301 designs, CS302 feedback Make UC Berkeley proud as an amazing instructor!

 Instructors


Senior Lecturer SOE Dan Garcia
ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu
777 Soda, (510) 517-4041
OH: TBA
Senior Lecturer Emeritus Mike Clancy
clancy@cs.berkeley.edu
779 Soda, (510) 642-7017

 Grading

For the most part, we would prefer to teach this course without grades. What a wonderful concept, learning for learning sake! However, even though we can't change the "system" overnight, we can create grading policies that support learning as much as possible. The various course activities will contribute to your grade as follows:

Activity Percentage of Total Grade
Weekly Homework 50%
Parcipitation in class discussions 25%
Reviewing each other's work 25%

 Resources

Contact Webmaster | 2014-01-26@20:59:47 PST
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