Subject: RE: feedback from tutor about COP2210
From: Mark Allen Weiss <weiss@cs.fiu.edu>
Date: 9/25/2011 11:06 PM
To: Greg Shaw <shawg@fiu.edu>
CC: Kip Irvine <irvinek@cs.fiu.edu>, Norman Pestaina <pestaina@cs.fiu.edu>,
"pelina@cis.fiu.edu" <pelina@cis.fiu.edu>, "mcdwells@cis.fiu.edu" <mcdwells@cis.fiu.edu>,
Nagarajan Prabakar <prabakar@cs.fiu.edu>

All,

Greg's reasoning is pretty much what Cay Horstmann tried to convince me of years ago.
It kind of makes sense, and yet in his book, he put arrays right before ArrayLists,
because at some point you have to do arrays, and that's as good a place as any.

Personally, I think arrays ought to be done in Programming I.  Neither one of the COP-2210
and COP-3337 syllabi take ownership of arrays, though the catalog description places it
in COP-3337.  This appears to be the consequence of a so-so catalog description.

The UGC was planning to look at the first two programming courses, and will now also look at
the catalog description for COP-2210, COP-2250, COP-3337, and COP-3804, as well as
the syllabi to see if changes are warranted.

Regards,

Mark Weiss



On Fri, 23 Sep 2011, Greg Shaw wrote:

> Dear Fellow Programming II Instructors,
>
> I am writing this in response to Kip's email (below) and in the interest of helping
> our students make as seemless a transition from Prog I to Prog II as possible.
>
> I choose not to teach arrays in Prog I, for the following reasons:
>
> 1.  The Common Course Objectives for Prog I specifically include the
>    ArrayList class, but not arrays.
>
> 2.  However implemented, lists are the most challenging topic in Prog I.
>    Rather than confuse beginning students - and devote valuable class
>    time - with two different ways to accomplish the same thing, I teach
>    the easy way (ArrayList) and leave the more difficult (array) for
>    Prog II.
>
> 3.  The basic concepts of OOP and classes as ADT's are new and
>    challenging to beginners yet essential to their success.  ArrayList
>    is a true ADT whereas arrays require more than a passing familiarity
>    with the grim details of the implementation.
>
> 4.  Mastering ArrayLists first greatly enhances the student's chances of
>    understanding arrays because they would be comfortable with basic
>    list processing operations as abstractions, and now would just need
>    to learn how these are actually implemented.
>
> I begin Prog II with a review of ArrayList, after which we "go under the hood"
> and see what's really there.
>
> This is just my philosophy and of course I would welcome everyone's comments and ideas.
> However, as things stand now please include a unit on the array early on in Prog II
> as my students will not have covered this in Prog I.
>
> Sincerely,
> Greg
> ________________________________________
> From: Kip Irvine [irvinek@cs.fiu.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 10:28 AM
> To: Greg Shaw
> Subject: feedback from tutor about COP2210
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> One of my best tutors reported to me that he's getting quite a few
> student clients who took COP2210 and are now in COP3337. The students
> seem to not have enough practice with arrays, and their COP3337
> instructors expect them to already have more skill in this area. If you
> want, I can survey the rest of the tutors to get a consensus.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Cheers,
> Kip