Advice to Instructors

Advice to Instructors

Course Goals | Syllabus/book | Website | Room | Lecture/lab | Flexibility | Exams

Course Goals
The purpose of this course is to give students an understanding of the way computers and the Internet work. The focus is not so much on teaching skills and "how to" (although that is necessary) but on how and why these techniques work.
For example, the course covers HTML formatting. The goal is not to teach every single HTML tag and get bogged down in HTML syntax, but to illuminate the workings of the Web - to show that all Web pages are simple text files, to give concrete examples of source files and output, to show how programming relies on strict rules of syntax, etc.
In terms of programming, we do not expect students to be able to learn to program in this course. Our goal is to demonstrate how programming constructs work. We do not expect the students to be able to write programs from scratch, but we expect them to be able to modify our scripts and get the satisfaction of having their script work.
JavaScript is not an ideal language for teaching. It is more complicated than Pascal, but there are several advantages to using JavaScript:
- it does not require any special software, or even an Internet connection. Students can do their work on any machine with a Web browser and a simple text editor like Notepad.
- JavaScript provides immediate gratification. Students can very quickly get the "wow" effect of working with colors and responding to events.
- JavaScript scripts are embedded in Web pages, so working on JavaScripts gives students a "taste" of Internet programming.
Syllabus/book
We haven't found a textbook that ideally suits our course. This semester we are using a new textbook, A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science, by David Reed (Prentice-Hall). Our syllabus does not go in the same order as the book, so you will find that we will be skipping around. Nevertheless, this book seems like a better choice than the Beekman book that we used in the past. The Beekman text is a fluffy book. It's easy to read, but some students didn't use it at all. Some students used it as a reference and used the index to look up the terms that they need to know. Please let us know how you find the Reed book.
The Course Pak includes selections from several other books to cover topics that are either not in the other book or are not presented in enough depth. The syllabus posted for the students includes readings from the Reed book and from the Course Pak.
The syllabus listed on the faculty page of the Core 5.1 site has additional readings from other books which should be read by the instructor in preparing for the class. You can get desk copies of the books from the publishers.
The Reed book is available in the bookstore. The Course Pak can be purchased by students at Shakespeare & Co., which is located near the Flatbush Avenue entrance to the college. Instructors can call Sabine, at 516-877-3967, for a desk copy or other information. The Campus Course Pak website is www.ccpaks.com.
Website
We had trouble last semester with the sci network, so the Core 5.1 website has been copied over to the its network. Please use http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~core51 . We are leaving the sci site up as a backup (www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~core51) but it may not be in sync with the its site, so please don't use it unless its is down.
For any problems with the web site, please contact Professors Dexter, Gurwitz, Yarmish or Whitlock.
Room
The course is scheduled one hour a week in a conventional classroom and one hour a week in a computer lab room. The room 130cNE has been assigned to all the Core 5.1 labs.
Please contact the secretary to order keys for the 130NE and 135NE classrooms.
Be forewarned that we have had difficulty with servicing the lab last semester.
If your schedule allows, it might be preferable to find out if you can schedule the Library's multimedia classroom for your lab. (This won't work if your lecture and lab are back-to-back, because you won't have enough time to go to a different building. However, if your schedule has lecture and lab on different days, it might work out.) Scheduling the Library's room is done through AIT .
Lecture/lab schedule
There are lecture outline notes posted online, under the faculty part of the Core 5.1 site. The full list of labs is there as well, although the main page will not list the labs until the week they are current.
The labs are a mixture of "show and tell" demonstrations and hands-on activities for the students to do on their own. Instructions for some of the "show and tell"s are also available on the faculty lab page, but are not posted on the main site.
The labs do not necessarily have to be completed during the lab hour. In some cases the students may be able to finish during lab time, if not they should finish the activity for homework. (Some weeks the activities are labeled separately as lab and hw, in many cases the labs are listed as lab/hw.)
Some students may want to turn in their work at the end of the lab, but the printer in room 130cNE does not always work. One solution is to ask for the lab/homework to be turned in at the next lecture.
The syllabus is designed with some flexibility built-in. There are two weeks that are reserved for review and exam. You can choose to schedule the exam in either the lecture or the lab slot and use the other slot for review or additional lab time. Additionally, Week 14 is intentionally left somewhat open.
Flexibility
You must be prepared to be flexible. Inevitably, over the course of the semester, you will encounter difficulties with the network connection or with the projector or other hardware.
In many cases, the lab does not require Internet access, although the lab instructions are online. Always print out the materials before lab. If the Internet connection is down, you can still work on HTML and JavaScript on the local machines.
For the weeks that are Interent-dependent (like lab 2, or lab 4) be prepared to shift gears and do something else. (For example, you might use the time for another topic, or you could start on HTML, etc. )
Exams
Sample old exams are available on the faculty part of the website. Please be careful not to share these documents with students. Also do not use these exams, since students may have copies from their friends!
The final is departmental.