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Computer Science courses are difficult. They are not based on your personal experience, like writing an ENGRW 300 essay about your life. They are not based on opinion or what seems close enough to you.
To put it bluntly: 2 + 3 is never 566.2
Computer Science courses are based on facts and logical arguments that use those facts. Every Computer Science problem has a correct answer that meets the facts and requirements of the course.
Computer Science professors design courses around two ideas. First, there is a certain amount of knowledge you must have when you finish the course. Second, there are topics that give most students problems and that need special attention.
The best we can do is to design our courses for some kind of average student.
I continuously modify my explanations and my help for the problem topics in the course. But I can't address every student's individual situation.
Customizing the course to meet your needs is up to you. Here are several ways how to do that.
Here's one way to customize your Computer Science courses for your needs:
Start Immediately On New Material Create Questions Get Answers Ask Follow Up Questions Submit All Work Before Your Deadline Redo Graded Work Until You Learn All The Ideas |
There are two themes here - asking questions and creating your own deadlines.
Every graded assignment, quiz, and exam will have a deadline for submission.
Let's say homework 6 is due before noon on October 23.
This deadline might not work perfectly for you. So make your own deadline that is EARLIER than noon on October 23.
Let's say you prefer to work late at night. Set your personalized homework 6 deadline for midnight on October 22. This is 12 hours earlier than the actual deadline for the assignment.
Then when you meet your personal deadline you also meet my posted deadline for homework 6. You can always turn in your work earlier than the deadline.
Your questions are customized to what you're having trouble with. The questions and my answers will be part of your custom version of the course.
Note that "trouble" does not mean that you didn't fully understand a topic the first time you read about it. That happens with every STEM topic, for every student.
"Trouble" means that after you read, re-read, and worked through examples of the topic that you had questions. It also means that you ran into difficulty when you tried to apply the topic to a homework or quiz solution. It also means that you didn't get the grade on a homework or quiz or exam that you expected to earn.
Now let's look at some details about asking questions.
My simple answer is "far more often than you do". :)
The fuller answer is "whenever you have the feeling that you don't understand something".
This feeling can come when you're reading about new topics. It can come when you try to use new topics to solve a problem. It can come when graded work is returned and you have trouble understanding a grading comment.
We're lucky in Computer Science. Programming is mostly text.
There is a bit of visual information in programming. Often apps have a visual interface (window). In moderately complicated apps there is a spatial organization and transfer of data that is best explained with pictures.
But behind the window and the data organization pictures is a sequence of precisely formatted text statements composed of keyboard characters only.
So programmers already communicate with precise formatting and words.
That makes it easier to type questions and answers using text documents, Canvas Inbox messages, and Canvas Discussions forum posts.
As the programming problems get more complicated you'll use pictures to organize the data for the solution.
Digitizing these pictures means taking a phone pictures. You can then send the picture image file through Canvas to your professor.
I'll have instructions and exercises during the first week of the course so you can practice this type of communication.
Online courses seem to inspire students to wait until the last minute to do work.
My course design requires that you not do this.
I'll release new information one week at a time. Read the information as soon as it becomes available. Ask questions about the information.
I'll release homework, quiz, and lab assignments a number of days before they are due. Start your solutions as soon as the assignments become available. Ask questions about your work.
I will not be available 24/7. I will not be available online at the moment you have a question.
But I will answer your online questions during scheduled office hours.
Schedule your questions so you can get my reply, and ask followup questions, around my office hours.
The best approach is to ask a question that is possible to immediately answer. This requires that you've tried to understand the topic. Tell me what work you've already done to try to get the topic.
Then try to precisely ask the question. This takes practice.
You also have the option to ask questions on the Discussion forums for your online course. Your classmates can also answer those questions. (I moderate the Discussion forums and correct answers that are off or misleading.)
Even if you're not exactly sure how to phrase your question, you must ask it.
I'll help you with your question phrasing as we go through the course. You'll get better at it.
last updated February 3, 2023