WINTER QUARTER 2004 -- Information and Computer Science -- UC Irvine

Advanced Teaching Assistant Seminar -- ICS 398B

COURSE SCHEDULE AND INFORMATION

Instructor: David G. Kay, 406B Computer Science. Stop by any time, or send electronic mail to "kay".

Meeting time and place: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 to 1:50 p.m., in room 180 Computer Science. Since this is a two-unit course, we may 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. We ask that you attend the class meetings, participate in the discussions, and prepare for the various activities, which will include a variety of informal presentations leading towards your own complete design of a course.

Very approximate course schedule:

Week 1	January 13 & 15	Introductions and overview; planning a course
Week 2	January 20 & 22	Clarifying curricular and pedagogical goals
Week 3	January 27 & 29	Course design
Week 4	February 3 & 5	Assignment design
Week 5	February 10 & 12	Grading, plagiarism, managing graders
Week 6	February 17 & 19	Exam design
Week 7	February 24 & 26	Evaluation alternatives
Week 8	March 2	Setting final grades
Week 9	March 9 & 11	Curricular issues and teaching philosophies
Week 10	March 16 & 18	Epilogue

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 -- 7:07 PM