NOTES

These are notes relevant to running the course again.

Negotiate with chair to get a kick-back in to foundation account.

Biggest take-away: the original design was WAAAAAAY too ambitous about
what and how much could be covered.

Every exercise needs to be pared down.

In the beginning, you've got to drill drill drill.

Exercise 2: smiley should be two exercises.  Part I is up to pinholes.
Part II is after pinholes.  Even better: rewrite and simplify to avoid
pinholes.

There needs to be 1-2 more exercises between 1 and 2 that drill on
expressions and syntax.

Need to do the "circles of evaluation" thing to teach people syntax.

Need to have clearer requirements about computing equipment before
class starts.

People should buy the book if the exams are going to be open notes,
so make sure bookstore has it.

Fewer exams.

Daily exercises are good, but they should be much shorter.

Need to talk about the expectations of a college course: you are
responsible for staying up on the reading.  The reading should be done
*before* lecture so that lecture is not the first time you're seeing
something.  Active reading.  Reach out when lost or stuck.  (Go to the
bathroom when you need to; no need to ask or wait.)  *READ* the
syllabus and schedule.  Refer back to it frequently.  Follow
instructions precisely.

Some students (a small number) are on top of the material and would've
been able to manage the original pace.  For them it's important to
have supplemental material that can keep them occupied.

Turn lab 4 (line editor) into a homework exercise.  Give function for
rendering.


Drills on the stepper: based on the exam, it's clear people are not
internalizing the stepper.  Many student can't parse the program or
stepping produces syntax errors.  Need to really drill this.  Should
have very explicitly described rules for (1) finding the next redex,
(2) performing reduction.  This would serve 131A too.  Start when we
in arithmetic (arith, const) and add as things are introduced (plug,
cond, ...).

Maybe swap Oobleck and Files and Directories labs so that people have
more practice with (intrepretation-free) templates before seeing the
file system lab.  Could also try to make ForD lab more fun by picking
a different domain.  Maybe a photo library?  Photo or Album, etc.
Make a slideshow program.

Need some GIFs for Hangman lab, Space Invader lab, and Snek
assignment.

Add more illustration on snake motion in assignment 2.

Write up lab materials on universe games we did in lecture.

The Sneks program can be the culmination of assignment 1 and 2 and
universe.

Next time (perspectives from the end): 

* I think the idea here, in retrospect, is to give students exposure
  to college-level material, but with out the college-level
  evaluation.  Should also be more fun, collaborative, and interactive
  that this year's version.

* grade exercises based on effort.  Submitting something should get
  you most or all of the points.  Leave it up to students to decide
  whether to do the work or not.  Relieves stress on students, while
  giving plenty of material for students who want to go deep.
  Relieves work of TAs.

* add take home quizes that are just drills.  Ideally students can do
  them in 30 minutes or less and check their work before submitting,
  so it should be easy points for them and forces them to drill.

* give assignment 3 (final project) on the first day.  Let students
  work on it from the beginning.

* final project should be due the night before the last class.  The
  last class should have an hour of demos, an hour of gaming, and a
  wrap-up.  Make it fun.  Include parents.

* make lectures more clinic like: less lecturing (with more
  supplemental material outside of class).  Could do team-based work.
  Each table is a team (and tables are rotated).  Each team works on a
  different piece of something that can be put together to make a
  larger program.  <-- This would be really cool, and seems doable by
  taking existing games, distributing functions to teams, perhaps with
  black box solutions to the other teams' functions.  Could have
  module on bb testing.  This lets students focus on something small
  while still building something bigger.

* do something to incentivize the reading (reading summary quizes?)

* don't have a final exam.  Use the final project as the final exam.

* use two exercises for assignment revisions.  (I did at the end, but
  it should happen sooner.)  Making it happen soon after assignment is
  due requires quick turn around on assignment grading.  This let's us
  be thorough in critique and students learn by fixing it up.

* make it clear that assignment 1 is graded on use of design recipe.
  (It's tight because DR is a few lectures in.)