COP2551/COP3540 Interest Group
The following CIS faculty met on 2/6/02 to interchange ideas about the implementation
of this course sequence: Katharine Brown, Roger Eggen, Sherif Elfayoumy, Paul Higbee,
Chip Klostermeyer, Scott Piersall, Behrooz Seyed-Abassi, Arturo Sanchez, Judy Solano,
Charles Winton, and Ron Zucker. Based on concerns that some students may not be
coming out of one or both of these courses (COP2251, in particular) with sufficient
programming skills, the discussion lead to propose the following activities:
1. Collaborative definition of a document referred to as “Implementation Guidelines”
associated with this sequence, which will help define a (hopefully dynamic over time)
consensus on the topics to be covered, the depth of coverage, and topic distribution
between the two courses in the sequence. We are taking the current APC forms
associated with these courses as the official course descriptions, to which we have
added “I/O Streams”. The last page of each APC form is attached as an image file
(scanned).
2. Implementation of a pre-programming assignment to be tackled by students entering
COP3540 as an assessment instrument to measure the extent at which they possess
the skills implied by the COP2551 course objectives and topics.
To achieve this, we have proposed to:
1. Ask interested faculty to submit the questionnaire that follows this page, which will
help define the first draft of the implementation guidelines and pre-programming
assignment, to be discussed in a future meeting. Please, complete the questionnaire
and send it to asanchez@unf.edu.
2. Wait for the first drafts to be compiled by Katharine Brown, Sherif Elfayoumy, Chip
Klostermeyer, and Arturo Sanchez, who volunteered for the task, and then call for a
second meeting for discussing, and refining them.
Respectfully submitted by:
Katharine Brown,
Sherif Elfayoumy,
Chip Klostermeyer, and
Arturo Sanchez
2/6/02
Questionnaire on Implementing the
COP2551/COP3540 Course Sequence
Submitted by:
1. Please use the following table to let us know your ideas about:
a. The order in which these topics should be covered.
b. The depth at which these topics should be covered, and
c. The distribution of these topics between COP2551 and COP3540.
The clustering we are presenting corresponds to the one in the current APC’s, but feel
free to reorganize topics, as you deem appropriate. However, do not add topics that
are not listed, for there will be a section in the questionnaire that addresses this issue.
We are assuming each course is delivered in the equivalent of a 15-week semester
with 150 mins of contact hours per week (usually, 2 class sessions per week),
therefore the total number of class sessions should add up to the appropriate number.
For instance, in a typical Spring/Fall term, that number should never be greater than
30, and you probably need to take into account the number of class sessions needed
for test administration.
COP2551:
Topic
# Class
Sessions
Implementation Details
The object-oriented
paradigm
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Design issues
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
and
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Classes and objects
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Arrays
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Conditionals
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Properties
methods
Loops
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Protection
mechanisms
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Abstraction
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Encapsulation
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Inheritance
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Polymorphism
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Interfaces
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Exception handling
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Event handling
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
User interfaces
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Threads
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Graphics and
animation
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
I/O Streams
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
COP3540:
Topic
#Class
Sessions
Implementation Details
Abstract data type,
classes and
different structures
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Arrays: classes and
class interfaces
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Stacks: operations,
parsing arithmetic
expressions
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Queues:
operations, deques,
priority queues
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Linked lists: singly
and double linked
lists
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Recursion:
structure and
handling
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Sorting: simple and
advanced
techniques
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Trees: operations
and traversals
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Heaps
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Indexing: simple
and complex
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Hashing: Static
overflow handling
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Hashing: open
addressing, and
separate chaining
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Hashing: dynamic
and extendable
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Graphs
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
Weighted graphs
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Do you lecture on this?
Are students required to learn this on their own?
Do you ask exam questions on this?
Do you give HW requiring use of this?
Comments:
2. Please send us a sample of any other assessment instrument(s) that you use to
evaluate your students. That is, exams, quizzes, homework, programs, etc. (URL if at
all possible).
3. Please let us know about:
a. Topics not on the previous table that you would like to include with a brief
description of your approach, a rationale that explains why you believe it
should be added, and to which course.
b. Topics on the previous table that you believe should not be covered with a
rationale that explains your position.
4. Provide any information about your style or philosophy of teaching these courses.
5. Please let us know about other resources not mentioned above that you use or have
produced (URL if at all possible).
6. Please let us know about your approach to use Integrated Development Environments
(IDE’s) in connection with these courses. If you do not use any, we would like to know
your rationale for not using them.
7. You are encouraged to suggest a sample exam to be taken (anonymously) by students
entering COP3540 as an assessment instrument to measure the extent at which they
posses the skills implied by the COP2551 course objectives and topics. Such an exam
might consist of a single question of the form “Write a Java program to do X.” which is
to be completed, with pencil and paper, in, say, thirty minutes. The goal is that the results
of these exams will allow the faculty to assess the skills of students coming out of COP
2251.
Thank you for your time and cooperation!