SPRING QUARTER 2007 — Information and Computer Science — UC Irvine

Advanced Teaching Assistant Seminar — ICS 398B

COURSE SCHEDULE AND INFORMATION

Instructor: David G. Kay, 5056 Donald Bren Hall. Stop by any time, or send electronic mail to "kay".

Meeting time and place: Wednesdays 9:00 to 11:50 a.m., in room DBH 1423. Since this is a two-unit course, we may adjust the times slightly or skip the occasional class meeting.

Course goals: In this course we will cover teaching computer science at the college level, from the instructor's perspective. This perspective is useful even for students, as consumers of instruction, but we presume that participants in this course have some (perhaps tentative) plans to teach computer science, whether through University Extension, Summer Sessions, or their own academic job. We will look at (and in most cases practice) designing and running one's own course, designing assignments and exams, setting grades, preparing teaching portfolios (records of your teaching for use in job applications and promotion cases), making curricular decisions, and other related issues.

Course requirements: This seminar is not designed to impose a large time burden on the participants beyond the class meetings themselves. Grading is satisfactory/unsatisfactory or pass/not-pass. But it is important that you attend the class meetings, participate in the discussions, and prepare for the various activities, which will include some readings and a variety of informal presentations leading towards your own complete design of a course.

Very approximate course schedule:

Week 1

 April 4
Introductions and overview; planning a course

Week 2

 April 11
 Clarifying curricular and pedagogical goals

Week 3

 April 18
Course design

Week 4

 April 25
 Assignment design

Week 5

 May 2
Grading, plagiarism, managing graders

Week 6

 May 9
Exam design

Week 7

 May 16
 Evaluation alternatives

Week 8

 May 23
 Setting final grades

Week 9

 May 30
Curricular issues and teaching philosophies

Week 10

 June 6

Epilogue

Electronic mail: Be sure you will receive electronic mail sent to your UCInet ID (your address @uci.edu) This is where official course announcements are sent; it's not necessarily the same as your account @ics.uci.edu. If you don't have a UCInet ID, see http://activate.uci.edu/. You can redirect Email from this account to another account (@ics.uci.edu, for example); see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/email/forward.html .

David G. Kay, kay@uci.edu