Rutgers University Student Instructional Rating Spring 2010
16 640 640 01 68411 ZEILBERGER Doron
ENROLL= 14 RESP= 12 (85%) STRONGLY STRONGLY # OF MEAN MEAN MEAN MEAN
DISAGREE NEUTRAL AGREE NO OF OF OF OF
PART A: UNIVERSITY-WIDE QUESTIONS: 1 2 3 4 5 RESPONSES SECTION COURSE DEPT LEVEL
1. The instructor was prepared for class and
presented the material in an organized manner 0 0 0 3 9 0 4.75 4.75 4.49 4.75
2. The instructor responded effectively to
student comments and questions 0 0 1 1 10 0 4.75 4.75 4.54 4.75
3. The instructor generated interest in the
course material 0 0 0 2 10 0 4.83 4.83 4.37 4.83
4. The instructor had a positive attitude toward
assisting all students in understanding
course material 0 0 0 2 10 0 4.83 4.83 4.56 4.83
5. The instructor assigned grades fairly 0 0 0 0 9 3 5.00 5.00 4.67 5.00
6. The instructional methods encouraged student
learning 0 0 0 5 7 0 4.58 4.58 4.24 4.58
7. I learned a great deal in this course 0 0 2 4 6 0 4.33 4.33 4.35 4.33
8. I had a strong prior interest in the subject
matter and wanted to take this course 0 0 0 4 8 0 4.67 4.67 4.48 4.67
9. I rate the teaching effectiveness of the
instructor as 0 0 0 4 8 0 4.67 4.67 4.39 4.67
10. I rate the overall quality of the course as 0 0 0 4 8 0 4.67 4.67 4.37 4.67What do you like best about this course?:
The use of computer mathematics to effectively explore many of these questions.
Really interesting topics, especially about primes!
It introduced me to the fundamental importance of Symbolic Computing
The learning experience.
Dr. Z clearly a gifted teacher. Not only that, he cares about his students and listens to them. It is refreshing to be in a graduate math class where the focus on learning is so valued. Dr. Z made class accessible to even beginners, with harder challenges for 'expert' students. This adjusted the difficulty level to whatever was appropriate for each student, which, along with Dr. Z's bright personality, made class engaging and interesting. I appreciated that Dr. Z put everything online. If I wasn't fast enough at typing, I could still catch up by downloading the latest text file.
Learning and implementing interesting algorithms.
If you were teaching this course, what would you do differently?:
I think alot of the algorithms we try to program in class take up way too much instructional time. It would be helpful if some algorithms were prepared beforehand -- the instruction could focus on the IDEAS without spending so much time writing and de-bugging Maple code. Students spend too much of the class period typing up things that aren't helping them understand anything! For example, the Nim2 program we recently wrote is easy to understand, at least the idea of it, if Dr. Z had spent some time explaining precisely what the goal of this procedure is. Instead, we spent alot of time grappling with Maple and getting very little understanding as to what the whole point of Nim2(N1,N2) is supposed to mean!! It may not be apparent, but students often have no idea whatsoever what a program is supposed to be doing. In order to not look stupid, they pretend to understand -- and often they kind of get it, and are able to help Dr. Z finish minor bits of code when he calls on them. But they do not understand the ideas -- they don't know what the point is, and have completely lost track of what the class is about! More focus on HOW and WHY and the ideas behind the algorithms. This is what we need. In order to get time for that, perhaps some algorithms should be prepared in advance -- algorithms that are not at all interesting (stupid loops that generate lists), so that students can be taught how to DO the experimental math without having to spend so much time in class tediously fighting with Maple about typos in their loops and local variables and whatever else.
I didn't like getting called on randomly to answer questions in class when I was still trying to understand what we were trying to do, it confused me even more sometimes.
I would encourage more group work so that student with different level can work together.
I would do the same.
The class was such a positive experience, I am hard pressed to recommend any changes! If I was absolutely forced to suggest something, perhaps it would be interesting to see what other people did for their final projects. There are probably many ways to implement this, such as a 'poster session' on computers, where each project would be annotated so that someone could sit down and play around with it. This would allow me to get feedback on my project to make it even better, before submitting it to Dr. Z.
It was difficult to keep up with the homework, maybe I would assign fewer problems.
In what ways, if any, has this course or the instructor encouraged your intellectual growth and progress?:
Many ways -- the course content is dynamic and fun, the coursework is challenging and interesting. The methods used in experimental math are very useful and good to understand.
I love that we have to do a project for the course, and that we could do a project on something relevant to our own interests. Learning to use maple will definitely help in my future endeavors!
This course encouraged my intellectual growth and progress by introducing the tool of Symbolic computation and emphasizing the role of algorithms in mathematics.
Reading material and practice.
By making me more proficient at programming and using Maple, I have a powerful tool that I will use a lot in the future
Other comments or suggestions::
Tone down the homework at the end of the semester. Everybody is swamped, and we can't find time to do the homework since we are working on lots of other stuff AND the project for this class. Having time to work on the project means not having time to do the homework!
Just a minor suggestion: It might be helpful to have some of the classes to discuss the topic at hand and a possible algorithm before just trying to code it right away. I would get lost oftentimes when I didn't understand how we were implementing something, even when I understood the idea involved.
I would suggest having An experimental Math I and II just we have combinatorics I and II
I think after the first few weeks (where novices might be learning for the first time how to use Maple) the classroom format becomes slightly less effective. I think we could have worked faster if we were just given an in-class assignment to work on, instead of watching the overhead projector. The instructor and some of the experts could assist anyone who was having difficulty with the assignment.