Syllabus

[Note: this webpage last modified Monday, 17-Sep-2012 19:06:59 EDT]

Always remember...

Table of Contents

General Information
Announcements
Recorded Lectures
Purpose and Focus of Course
Grading, Assignments, and Expectations
Blackboard
Academic Integrity
Special Needs

General Information

Lecture: TR 12:30-1:45pm in A019 Root Hall. If you are in section 002, you are with Dr. Sternfeld, and this website does not apply to your course.
Final exam: Tuesday Dec 11, 1:00-3:00pm.
Office hours: I am generally in my office and available most MWF's from about 8:30am-4pm. My official office hours are Wednesdays 9:30-11:30am. My office is A-156 Root Hall.
Instructor: Jeff Kinne
Website: http://cs.indstate.edu/~jkinne/cs151-f2012 (or browse for Jeff Kinne on http://mathcs.indstate.edu, or search for Jeff Kinne on google, bing, yahoo, etc. and find a link to the course website from my personal webpage)

Prerequisite: There is no course prerequisite for this class. These are things I assume you already know from previous courses or experience: basic computer use (web browsers, email, installing programs on your computer), basic algebra and math. For the math, I assume you can do things like solve an equation for an unknown, or draw a graph/plot of a function such as y = x2. We will review any other math that may be needed (which will not be much).

GA Lab hours: We have a few graduate assistants who will be in the computer science unix lab, room A-015 in the basement of Root Hall, for about 20 hours per week in total. You can go to this lab to work on your programs. The computers are unix machines, and you can use the cs151xx login that will be sent to you during the first week of class to use them. Or, you can bring your laptop to work on. Either way, you can ask the graduate assistants to look at your programs, and you can work with any other CS 151 students that are there (you could use the lab as a regular meeting place to work with your classmates). The regular hours that the lab will be open are still be worked out. For now, the hours are the following, though this may change as schedules are worked out this week.

If the GA's will not be in the lab during the normal hours for some reason (e.g., illness), I will plan to email the class list to let you know.

Required text: We will follow the text Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen Downey. The text is freely available online from that link, or you can buy a physical copy of the book.

More Information about Python: Official Python Web site, Python Tutorial, Python Language Reference, Python Language Library, LearnPython - interactive tutorial, PySchools - another interactive turotial, Learning with Python: Interactive Edition (for Python 3)

There are very many online resources that you could find for learning to program with Python. You could search on youtube for videos, search the web, etc. You could look for other Python courses that have their information online, for example this one from MIT, or this one from MIT that has videos.

Another source similar to Think Python is the Python Programming Wikibook.

Course Announcements

Announcements regarding the course will be made both during class and via email to your @sycamores.indstate.edu email address. You should regularly check this email account or have it forwarded to an account that you check regularly. You can set the account to forward by logging into your indstate.edu email from Internet Explorer (the "light" version of the webmail client that opens up from Firefox or Chrome does not give the option to forward email).

Recorded Lectures

Some of the lectures in the class will be recorded using Tegrity. You can view these lectures by going to blackboard for this course and clicking on "Tegrity Classes" on the left hand side. You will be asked to install a browser plugin to allow you to view the lectures. Note that any questions/responses from students may also be recorded as part of the lecture (audio only, there is no video recorder in the classroom). If you have any concerns over this, please notify the instructor in the first week of classes.

Purpose and Focus of Course

This course is an introduction to programming in Python and is also the first course in computer science taken by those majoring or minoring in computer science. The primary goal of the course is that you learn the fundamentals of programming in Python. After taking this course (if you put in the time and earn a good grade), you should be able to write programs and solve problems using Python, and you should be able to read, understand, and modify Python code written by others.

Why Python? We have chosen Python as the programming language for this course because it is easier to learn than many other important programming languages such as C++ and Java. At the same time, Python is widely used in industry and a good language to know.

Example topics In addition to becoming familiar with Python, programming, and certain computer science ideas, I hope you have fun. Here are some examples of topics we may may cover and programs you will personally create!

We will not cover all of those topics, but that should give you an idea of the types of things we will look at. Hopefully there are some things there that sound exciting!

Extra practice: For some Python fun once you are comfortable with Python later in the semester, try out some online programming competition/game stuff. For example, Project Euler or The Python Challenge.

Grading, Assignments, and Expectations

The students of this course have the following responsibilities: read assigned readings before lecture, attend lecture, complete homework assignments, take exams, and complete a project. The final grade consists of:

The class attendance grade serves the purpose of giving you credit for coming to class. You benefit from coming to class by seeing me present the new material, getting to ask questions, interacting with your classmates, keeping up on what is going on in the course, etc.

The exams serve as benchmarks of your ability to relatively quickly solve problems related to the material. This helps me assign a grade, and also gives you motivation to pay attention and keep up with the assignments.

The weekly programming homework assignments are designed to solidify your knowledge by having you write programs.

The final project will be discussed further after the first few weeks of the semester. Students will choose a larger programming project that will be completed by the end of the semester and presented to the class.

Expectations. My expectation is that an average student will spend 6-9 hours OUTSIDE of class each week (that is in addition to class time) WORKING PRODUCTIVELY/EFFICIENTLY (not just starring at the computer) to complete their coursework for this class. Some students may spend less time than this, and some students will spend more.

Classroom conduct. You may not use cell phones, iPods/music players, etc. during class. You should be civil and respectful to both the instructor and your classmates, and you should arrive to class a few minutes before the scheduled lecture so you are ready for lecture to begin on time. You may use your computer during class if you are using it to follow along with the programming examples that are being discussed. You may not check email, facebook, work on other courses, etc. during class.

Important Note. If you wait until the last minute to begin your homework assignments, I will not be available to answer questions if you have problems. Programming assignments are notorious in the sense that oftentimes most of the time completing the assignment occurs after you thought you had the problem solved. This is called debugging (and testing), and is typically most of the effort in completing a program. So you MUST start your homework early. I suggest attempting the assignment the day it is given, or the day after, so that if you have a problem you can ask early. If you continue to have problems in trying to complete the assignment, you will have time to ask again. Working on programming assignments is much less stressful if you start early!

Grade cutoffs

I make no promise ahead of time what the exact cutoff will be in terms of the number of points to achieve an A+, A, A-, etc. These will depend on how the course goes. I will use the guidelines below in assigning letter grades. After the first few weeks, I will include a "letter grade if the semester ended today" in your grades and for taking attendance. You can keep track of how you are doing in the course with the grades on the blackboard site for this course.

The following is roughly what I would expect by the end of the semester to earn a particular grade. This may not mean too much to you now, so you may want to check this again a few weeks into the semester.

Grading Programs

For the later programming assignments, I will assign a grade based on correctness and style. The exact breakdown may vary slightly from one assignment to another. In general, 60-70% of the points for an assignment will be given based on whether it is correct. The remaining 30-40% will be given based on good programming style: (i) choosing variable and function names that are descriptive/appropriate, (ii) writing code that is easy to understand and efficient, (iii) including documentation at the top of each file about what is in that file and how to use it, (iv) including documentation with each function describing what the function does (including what should be input to the function and what the function outputs), (v) documentation throughout each function describing the flow of the program. For portions of the code that are given to you, you do not need to add documentation to those parts of the code; if I give you partially completed code, you are responsible only for documenting the code that you add.

Blackboard

The course has a blackboard site. Click here to go to blackboard. You should see CS 151 listed under your courses for the current term. The blackboard site is used for giving you your grades. The blackboard site can also be used to post questions/comments about the class. You have the option of posting your questions in blackboard or just sending email. If you do not want your question visible to the rest of the class, then send email. It could be good to post the question on blackboard because (1) other students may be having the same problem and could benefit from seeing the answer to your question, (2) other students can respond to your question/comment - and may do so sooner than I do.

Other than the course grades and discussion board on blackboard, all course content, schedule, etc. is kept on the instructor's webpage (which you are currently viewing).

Academic Integrity

Please follow these guidelines to avoid problems with academic misconduct in this course:

If cheating is observed, you will at the least receive a 0 for the assignment (and may receive an F for the course), and I will file a Notification of Academic Integrity Violation Report with Student Judicial Programs, as required by the university's policy on Academic Integrity. A student who is caught cheating twice (whether in a single course or different courses) is likely to be brought before the All-University Court hearing panel, which can impose sanctions up to and including suspension/expulsion. See the Student Code of Conduct and Academic Integrity Resources for more information.

Please ask the instructor if you have doubts about what is considered cheating in this course.

Special Needs

If you have special needs for the classroom environment, homeworks, or quizzes, please inform the instructor during the first week of classes. If you have any such needs, you should go to the Student Academic Services Center to coordinate this. See Student Academic Services Center - Disabled Student Services for more information.