| Campus: | University of Hawaii at Manoa | Course: | ICS 311 - Algorithms |
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| Department: | Information& Computer Sciences | Crn (Section): | 81338 (001) |
| TA: | Armin Soltan & Kaiying Lin |
1. Global appraisal: Overall how would you rate this INSTRUCTOR?
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2. Considering everything, how would you rate the GA/TA’s sections of this COURSE?
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3. Considering everything, how would you rate the LAB for this course?
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4. What did you find most valuable and helpful about the instructor? |
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The instructor is always willing to give help.
Not giving the answer directly and trying to get us there on our own.
I liked how he explained content in an understandable manner and cared about our understanding of the material.
The instructor was definitely passionate about the subject, and willing to work outside of class to explain difficult concepts. He also explained each problem of the classwork after first giving us time to attempt our own solution, and I found this style of teaching very informative.
The instructor knows what he is talking about and can answer most questions with in-depth explanations. It never seemed like there was a question he outright didn't know how to answer.
The instructor is incredibly Kind, Knowledgeable and overall a great teacher. It is immediately apparent that he is passionate about what he teaches, and about teaching in general.
I found some explanations and hints that were given during labs were helpful because they have helped lead me to a solution for the problem sets.
The instructor is clearly knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. This aura helps when it comes to their explanations because they can boil down the complicated text to something that's easier to understand. If there is something most valuable about the instructor, its their explanations on the concepts during lectures.
To be honest not much. The only nice thing was when he asked if students had questions before the quiz so you could get a little help if you didn't understand the lecture.
The instructor was excellent at explaining concepts. You can tell he cares and wants students to understand the concepts, not just memorize solutions.
Before each quiz, we were able to ask any questions about the content and it would make our quizzes a lot easier.
I really liked how he would always ask if we had any questions, and explain the answers to them reguardless of how simple they were.
Professor Nodari is very knowledgeable about the subject and gives clear explanations. This is something not very common in instructors for higher level undergrad courses at UH.
He is available to students
The instructor clearly knows alot about the subject which is good.
Always open to ask questions and go to for help
Nodari is a very knowledgeable, respectful, and tries to make class enjoyable. This class requires a lot of time to wrap the topics of classwork and homework around your head, but the Professor is able to explain material in a way for students to understand.
I think Nodari is super brilliant. He is definitely very well-versed and passionate about the material he is teaching. He doesn't show it very openly, but Nodari cares very deeply about his students and helps them to succeed in any way he can. He constantly incorporates different strategies to motivate his students, which is more than can be said about most of the professors I've had in college thus far.
The detailed analysis given for example problems and willingness to answer all questions relating to course amterials from students.
Professor Nodari is a very good professor, he answers questions well and engages the class by asking us questions throughout practice examples. He also holds office hours which are very helpful. He is also very approachable and funny
The instructor was always willing to answer questions during office hours, and when asked in class broke things down to very simple terms. When working through classwork he was helpful. Nodari is available if you just ask.
Office hours are so important.
Nodari would definitely spend time to help explain the concepts being covered, as long as somebody brought questions at the beginning of class.
I really enjoyed office hours since I was able to get a much better understanding of the material. This is because Professor Nodari will get into the very basic details of the problem. Some thought it wasn't necessary but I personally liked that he explained it thoroughly.
It was clear that Nodari was really knowledgeable because he explained things very clearly for the most part. He takes into account student feedback and is always looking to improve this course which I like. Even though he expects a lot, I felt as if the course was still fair.
I liked that he released the classwork assignments and homework answers after we did them so we can see our grades.
He will answer your questions
Primarily the course structure and that he encouraged that students came to office hours.
The instructor really knows the topic vary well is passionate about it and I believe he sets up the class so you have no choice but to succeed I think having notes be graded is a brilliant idea. Its not exactly hand-holding but I think how the course is structured it makes sure you stay on top of the topics and it is hard to fall behind (unless you are skipping assignments).
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5. What did you find least valuable and helpful about the instructor? |
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The instructor doesn't go back in topics, but that should be expected in this high-paced class.
Having to turn in homework in person was extremely inconvenient as a commuting student. Spent lots of gas just to turn in homework.
I think that sometimes he thought the worst of us students and didn't give us the benefit of the doubt. It was sometimes hurtful because even if we are trying our hardest to study or prepare for quizzes and tests he equates that to us cheating on homework. Like with homework we had access to the notes and TAs so it's obvious we'd do better on homework than on quizzes and tests. Yes, we should understand the material since we understand the homework but I think it's unfair to strictly have a direct correlation of doing well on quizzes and tests to doing well on homework for all students.
He occasionally asks non-specific questions, and I find some of his class/hw assignments to be lacking clarification. The vague questions asked during class are confusing and lead to minutes of silence from the class.
At times he seems to think the class isn't trying hard enough or is in some capacity not caring about the course for some reason.
When you are an expert, as the professor is, It can be hard to put yourself in the shoes of people that don't understand.
I didn't find anything that was particularly not valuable or unhelpful.
The least valuable and helpful thing about the instructor is the teaching method utilized. As I've said previously, I find the reverse classroom way harder than just a standard lecture. But overall the instructor is very good with the format they teach, just may not be for me.
The fact not much was taught by him. When it was it was usually very wishy washy and not very valuable as he was never prepared to teach content so he usually had to come up with it on the spot.
The instructor is excellent at explaining concepts but will not give you too many hints. At times, it can be frustrating because it feels like you are stuck and cannot make any further progress.
I think lectures would be better for me personally because if I don’t understand something, I can ask about it right now rather than have to go through the rest of the content not understanding a certain part.
I couldn't make it to any of his office hours at all, but other than that there's really nothing.
Professor Nodari acknowledges the failure of the department to teach us discreet math however doesn’t give much help in understanding the concepts aside from recommending us to review. Asking for help on content that was included in prerequisite courses is often met with a “you should know that already” or “look into it on your own time.”
Harsh with partial credit
However, because he knows so much about the subject it can be hard to for him to explain to a student level.
Can be hard to approach
There could have been more supplement studying problems aside from the textbook, lecture videos, and classwork. A rough study guide for the midterms/final would have greatly helped as well.
This is what I will say:
Like I said, I think Nodari is brilliant, but I also think he's a little intense sometimes. Putting down students with comments like "You probably copied this from someone's homework, or maybe you found the solution somewhere" isn't constructive. Even on the chance that you're right, you run the risk of assessing the situation wrong and discrediting the possibility that we genuinely did that work on our own, which is super discouraging. It's possible to forget things. A very high population of students have a hard time remembering small details especially when balancing it with work from other classes. Maybe the student worked really hard to find the solution but later forgot the exact process of how they arrived there. This happens to me ALL THE TIME. Energy like this makes learning in the classroom a much less enjoyable experience and transitively makes learning harder as well.
I want to clarify that I think encouraging students not to cheat is important, but is better as a general announcement to the class, and not as a targeted statement at specific students. My main point is that a little bit of kindness goes a long way. I'm not saying you need an ear-to-ear smile and a chipper attitude in class, but just consider the circumstances before jumping to conclusions. If students are learning the course material at the cost of their sense of self-worth and mental health, then the detriments of the experience as a whole start to outweigh the benefits.
N/A
Sometimes we would spend a lot of time on the more simple concepts (which is good don't get me wrong, foundations are vital) but we lost time in class and often did not get to the more complex problems in the classwork which is where I was the most confused. I am not sure how to help this because you cannot really move on without the foundations but that is just something that was hard for me.
Group work and peer grading but I do appreciate the bonus points.
His skepticism and doubt about the effort some students put into the class definitely left some feeling a bit discouraged from my experience with talking with some classmates.
If you go to him for help on the homework and you haven't a clue how to start, he won't help much. You're expected to have thought it out well enough that you'd have a specific question. However, he will not do the thinking for you and you must get to the realizations yourself. Could be seen as a good thing though, as this forces you to spend time thinking about it which is a skill you need for the work place.
Nothing
the quizes
Nothing in particular, but if I had to say anything, he has high expectations of his students, so you really should try to keep up with the material, otherwise you'll fall behind incredibly quick.
I think some of the homeworks it felt like we had to spend a lot of time writting super specific psuedo code when the main point was just to understand if you get the over arching ideas. Like you can recognize that this can be represented as a flow problem and how you would represent it is this way should be sufficient writing pages of psuedo code to do the specifics I think should be left for classes like 111 211 and 212.
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6. The instructor is fair and objective in evaluating students.
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7. The instructor is well prepared and organized.
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8. Which aspect of the course were most valuable? |
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The office hours.
Lecture Notes and group activities
Learning how to work together with others
The homeworks were difficult but helpful in preparation for the exam. The videos were the most valuable learning resource, these provided much needed visual clarification of abstract concepts. Office hours essentially functioned the way the classwork groups were meant to -- we spent many hours working with peers and bouncing ideas off of each other. Because these peers were people we chose to work with, we didn't face the limitation of different thinking/working styles that the randomized in-class groups do. The classwork assignments were very useful in learning how to apply new concepts.
All topics seem to be very important but the most universally applicable topics involve dynamic programming and sorting algorithms. Learning in-depth about these two things is very important in my opinion.
Having Professor as a resource in class, and the communal support from Ta's and other students learning the material.
I think the in-class group exercises were valuable because it allows me to learn from others and find what I understand and don't understand.
Kind of a blessing and a curse but the reverse classroom aspect of the class. I like that we have everything available to us but I feel I absorb way less when the class is like that.
The online notes, if you could sift through the unimportant things.
I found the the group discussions and the instructor's explanations of the in-class exercises helpful. I appreciate that we had the chance to first try a problem out ourselves. The most beneficial aspect was where the instructor led the class through coming up with the solution together.
I guess to just keep going. I know this class is beating a lot of us up but up to this point, we are still going.
I believe that the quizzes and homeworks were the most valuable parts of the class because they allowed me to understand how much of the content I understood, and even sometimes learn through the quizzes themselves.
Homework and class work was very effective at teaching all of the core concepts of the class. Anyone can access the lecture material as it is based on the very popular CLRS textbook which is used literally everywhere. The coursework on the other hand was very directed and didn’t introduce too much unnecessary fluff in the learning process.
Quizzes force content review before class.
Doing the in class problems because it was the only practice where we could understand how the professor would solve it. The main thing about the class is doing practice problems to understand the concepts.
time management
I think the classwork and figuring out applications from the day's lecture material into other problems proved to be both challenging and rewarding.
I think the points incentive for the notes definitely helped encourage us to take better, detailed notes, which helped us learn easier as well.
The in-class exercises and group rotations were also nice because they not only gave us the chance to acquaint ourselves with the other students in the class, but we also learned to collaborate in different ways depending on the people we worked with. Keep this system just as it is!
Enhancing understanding of data structures and sorting algorithms
Pretty much all of it. All the various parts of the class were useful. Although sometimes painful, the quizzes were useful for making sure I actually learned the material like I was supposed to.
How the basics are so valuable.
I can't personally speak for this but without a doubt based on what I've heard, office hours.
The homework includes lots of high-level questions that I haven't seen before. I think these were the most valuable since it makes other common interview questions not so difficult.
The in class exercises were the most valuable because it allowed me to grow my understanding of the material and bounce ideas of my peers. I liked that I had the chance to apply my knowledge without the pressure of getting a grade.
the classwork
The lecture notes and videos were organized well and for the most were reasonable to follow along with some understanding.
How in-depth the content was.
All of the lecture matirial, the office hours, the inclass exsersizes, and the fact that the HWs really pushed us
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9. Which aspect of the course were least valuable? |
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The lecture notes were extremely broad and hardly helped me understand the material. I learned most of the material from MIT lectures and the CLRS textbook.
homework was very grand and confusing, unless you went to office hours felt like you didn't know exactly what was being asked but not everyone can make office hours
We didn't know our weighted grade all semester so it was hard to gauge whether to consider dropping the course or planning to change our schedules based on how we're doing in class.
The randomization of the groups were useful during the first half of the semester in allowing us to work with people we had never worked with before. By the second half, the randomization wasn't very random, and groups were repeating themselves. By this time, I already had an idea of who I liked working with and who I didn't, and I think the last few weeks of groupwork would be more beneficial if we were able to choose our groups by then. Some assigned chapters didn't have matching video resources, and were very difficult to understand based off of the textbook alone. The peer evaluations are an unnecessarily high 5%. Many students said they weren't aware they were supposed to assign points based off of their weekly groups, and were instead giving them to those they worked with on their homework. Make the instructions clear, and lower it to 2%.
I always read the textbook when taking notes, but most of the things in the textbook might never be mentioned. The topic notes are a much better-concentrated form of what knowledge you should know.
Group evaluations, while conceptually valid in some cases amount to a popularity contest. this program serves the purpose of preventing laziness, Perhaps starting with an even points distribution that is then subtracted from may be more beneficial. It seems as though some people only distribute points to their friends, or will forget to assign points when turning in the homework.
I don't think there was any aspect that was not very valuable.
Kind of petty but the grading of the notes were least valuable. Making the notes a factor in passing made me feel that the note taking was more of a chore than a medium for learning. I feel that the motivation for learning/taking notes comes from the quizzes.
The quizzes before class I understand he doesn't want students to be looking at the material for the quiz while in class. But instead I think it should be setup so students in class exercise is related to the quiz of that day. So students have a better change to actually learn and then be tested on it.
This class is extremely hard. With the amount of content and the grading. But it just seems so hard for no reason and just makes the class so stressful. Since it is so hard, with everything I do relating to the class I just want to get it over with and I end up not really having the content stick.
as important as I think the notes were, I don't think how they were implemented was the best, I feel like on multiple occasions I got 1s on 3 pages of notes because of my handwriting.
N/A
The notes, personally I did not use this as much.
groupwork
The optional homework assignments. Even if we attempted, we would not have known the answer to them without going to office hours to figure it out.
The peer evaluation scores. (Refer to Question 5)
Most theory based topics
Nothing really felt like a waste of time and all the homework and classwork was good prep for the exam.
I still feel like I barely learned or retained anything because I'm more worried about the grade I'm going to get than the content.
Almost everything was in some way valuable to the instruction.
Participation points. If people forget to write in the points, our grades are lowered. Even though it's only 5%, every point counts since this course is naturally hard to pass.
I feel as if the note taking system did not really help me. It became a chore to fit into the Cornell notes style of note taking which I have never really enjoyed.
I just disliked how the hw had to be submitted in person at such at strange time.
The least valuable component is probably the collaborative aspect. I think that collaboration is important, but it's really difficult to keep everyone going at the same pace. For activities and assignments that are collaborative in nature, collaboration should be encouraged, but I don't think that applies very strongly in this course.
again I feel like sometimes the HW was too specific with the psuedo code but this was only a few times and I enjoyed all of the HWs
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10. Other comments? |
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I think the grading for peer grades were extremely unfair. In theory it works, but why should I be punished for someone forgetting to write my peer credit assignment on their homework. I'd understand if they actually gave me a 0, but in most cases, students are just forgetting to put that on their homework. I've even heard of students putting the names of other people who weren't in their groups and giving them 60 points, making them have more than 300 points and the person they give the points to wasn't even in their group.
The best way to describe the course material is Unintuitive. At its heart most of the problems in this course are simple, however, the way they are presented is difficult to understand. Half of the battle is understanding what the questions are asking. The course requires you to think differently than you normally would. It includes many proof techniques that are difficult to wrap your head around. This course relies heavily on your understanding of Various Notations and previous courses ICS 141 and ICS241.
The graded peer evaluations seem to have ended up hurting a lot of students' grades. I, as well as those I asked, believe that the peer evaluation score was not reflective of how well we participated in discussions. At times, students forgot to evaluate their peers. Some students did not do the peer evaluation because they felt they didn't need the 1 extra credit point. Since you can allocate the 60 points to anyone in your group, students may be inclined to give all the points to their friends. I feel that 5% of your grade should not be left up to other students' discrepancies in this manner.
please for the love of algorithms restructure the discreet math class to focus on PROOFS more. Logic puzzles and notation really didn’t help me at all in this course, I struggled heavily with induction and more advanced recursion because we could pass discreet math while barely understanding proofs.
Homework should be given less weight, and exams more weight... Students cheat on homework to collect points. Also, peer evaluation scores are not fair, because you could be the best group member ever and still receive a 5% deduction on your final score.
Thank you Nodari.
I learned a lot from your course, and I come out of it a better student than I was before.
Online submissions for homework would be helpful for students who take longer to commute, and more visual aid(example pictures) to understanding homework questions might make it easier for students to finish it. I also think the notes should be given a 5% grade weight and the homework 25% to incentivize more rigorous note taking of topics. I also think having peer evaluations being done in the final 5 minutes of wendesdays class would guarantee everyone gets graded according to recent understanding of their teammantes.
HAGS
Great professor especially for this topic.
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11. The instructor was open to comments and questions.
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12. The course was a valuable contribution to my education.
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13. I learned a lot in this course.
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14. The instructor treated students with respect.
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15. The instructor demonstrated knowledge of the course content.
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16. This course challenged me intellectually.
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17. The instructor both sets high standards and helps students achieve them.
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18. The instructor was available for consultation.
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19. Considering everything, how would you rate this COURSE?
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20. What was the format of this class?
online synchronous (class scheduled for particular days and times)
online asynchronous (class conducted online - no scheduled class meeting)
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21. If you answered 'Other' for the question above, please specify. |
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The course adopts the flipped classroom model. Namely it is your responsibility to come to class having thoroughly learned and understood the material for independent study. this means that the amount of time you should expect to spend on the course is significantly larger than for other courses.
For the participation section, if a student forgets to turn in a peer evaluation I dont think it's fair to give all the students in the group a 0. I would change how the peer evaluation during cases where the other teammates dont turn in a peer evaluation. I also think that it would be helpful to have another day within the week to do practice problems like a recitation day.
Flipped class. Lecture Notes, Readings, and Lecture Videos all on our own time and In-person for a daily quiz with classwork problems.
N/A
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22. The course is highly recommended if it were taught by this instructor
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23. The teaching-learning strategies used in the course encouraged active class participation
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24. The instructor seems to enjoy teaching
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25. The instructor was enthusiastic about the course material
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26. What changes would you make in the lectures? |
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The lecture notes and screencasts are very broad compared to the the textbook, but that should be expected. If this question is talking about the in-class group work, I think they're great, but I wish the TAs were walking around more so more groups receive help.
More demonstration of pseudocode implementation or some time for homework help in class, not everyone can make office hours even if they wanted to.
I would like to have a general overview of the content before jumping into everything. The content outside of the class is very heavy and intense, there's no way it can all be covered in class, but expecting students to understand it all and have their questions answered within a short amount of time is a bit much.
The professor only lectures based off of the class assignments and the questions that students ask. He spends a substantial amount of time in the beginning of class answering these questions, but because he doesn't have a prepared lecture, he tends to jump around in concepts and sometimes gets deep into tangents in proofs he comes up with on the spot, which tends to be confusing. His writing/drawings on the board can also be disorganized and confusing.
There isn't much to change in the lectures. I wouldn't make any.
I tend to do better when concepts are explained at a high level first, and then to be introduced to technical and more formal notations and understandings. The class assumes fluency in several different notations and Ideas that are briefly introduced. Previous courses while they do touch on these concepts do not provide a deep employable working fundamental understanding of the concepts. I believe this impact is due to a lack of exposure/practice during short semesters, and a broad range of topics. Like riding a bike it would be helpful to at the beginning of a new subject have a bit more Hand holding/training wheels and to gradually learn to remove them, rather than to jump directly onto a high-powered motorcycle.
I can't think of any changes. I feel the lectures are alright with the way they are conducted.
I know that this change seems drastic but I feel that having lecture lectures would help with the absorption of material. It could also just be me not being to good with the reverse classroom layout of the class.
Well there are no lectures because he runs his class backwards where the lectures are on the students time. I did not find this helpful, if I could change it. I would change it to having the first day of the week for a lecture from the actual instructor of the class. Then the second day to be for the class group working time.
There isn’t any lectures, we just take notes from the course material. But one thing I would change is how each of our notes are graded. I know making the notes graded forces us to actually look at the content but I think the quizzes every class do that already. The notes do not contribute to our grade, it just decides whether or not we pass. Sometimes when I run out of time, I end up just spitting out the info onto without really understanding it.
Allow homework and/or notes to be turned in online.
The lectures and flipped classroom style is fine however it would be nice to have some sort of time set aside to go over material aside from office hours.
1 online for content review and 1 in person with class activities per week
I think that making in class exercises more similar to homework difficulty will give a better understanding on how to approach homework problems. I think that the participation points given from classwork on homework is also inconsistent and not a good representation of our effort in groupwork.
If the lectures were updated with more recent ways of understanding problems.
One thing I think I would change about the lectures is the note-grading system. At the start of the class, we're told that we must get an average of 2/3 on the notes to pass the class, but we can clearly see that the notes are not weighted in the grade book. It seems like a slap in the face that we're putting a lot of effort into the notes, for non-existent points.
I get that the purpose of the notes is to learn, and we certainly do try to learn by taking notes, but why not weigh them in the grade book if we're using the point system in the first place? This way our grade can somewhat reflect the time and effort we're dedicating to reading and learning the material.
I think it would also be a good idea to eliminate the peer evaluation scores from the grade book. There are students in the class who try to abuse the system, unintentionally do it wrong without being aware of it, or simply forget to complete it altogether. These are factors, that we, the recipient of these grades, cannot control. I understand that the purpose of the peer evaluation is to give us a chance to reward our peers for their contributions during class work, but it's a system that's just too easy to mess up or abuse. It's a far safer option for it to be extra credit instead of a factor in our complete grade.
I think a take home practice set of questions that aren't graded but solutions are given in the next lecture day might be helpful
Throughout the whole semester we were required to review the sections before arriving to class. Admittedly, it was a lot of material but there are multiple textbooks and lecture videos that you can choose to review from. I like this method and it gives me time to learn in on my own and form questions to bring to class, rather than wasting class time learning the new concepts directly.!
There is a lot of material so maybe more indication of what is the most important so students can prioritize certain things. The screencasts are ok, but for people who learn best in video format they do not always follow the CLRS textbook very well. I have a hard time processing walls of text on their own, so the screencasts really helped me but they are old and lacking in a good amount of content from the textbook. Updating the most important ones would be useful.
I would like to have been lecture days with more pictures and diagrams as well as allowing us to explain what we are confused on and not expect that we should have already learned it.
The idea about changing table partners is a good idea in general. However, changing on a weekly basis feels a bit quick. Something like changing every two weeks instead could give people more time to get used to working with different types of people.
To give actual lectures rather than assuming everyone understood the material because even though I read the text and watched the screencasts, it would've been very helpful to reinforce the knowledge. I feel like one day should be a lecture (or half lecture) and another is the regular group work day. Probably have Monday as the lecture day to prepare for the next class much better.
This was my first time in a reverse classroom setting and I really enjoyed how it worked because I had the time to come into office hours for further clarification on the material.
allow for a practice test, that way we can fully understand what types of problems will be on the test instead of just a list of topics. Many of the practice problems provided by the text book, it doesn't have the answers. It is much more convenient to study using the homeworks because we are given the answers right then and there.
It would be nice if for the in class lecture you just quickly explained or bring up the key concepts for that day either before or after the quiz because sometimes there is a majority of people who read the book and have questions that they are too afraid to ask or were too confused by it to what they should ask. (You could also ask the class if they need an explanation for it or not)
We didn't exactly have lectures, it was mostly in-class exercises, which I enjoyed.
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27. What advice would you give to students, who might be taking this course in the future? |
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The advice I would give to students is to go to office hours and spend more time trying to understand the material rather than just taking notes just to take notes.
Take notes seriously, you'll do better on quiz's. Go to office hours for help.
Take a super light course load and prepare to devote most of your time to this course.
I would recommend forming study groups and spending extensive time bouncing ideas off of each other. This class is essentially about learning how to be creative enough to solve abstract and complex problems, and this requires thinking in totally new ways and being able to recognize relevant information and patterns. Be prepared to spend hours just imagining how to solve these problems. Really know the main mechanisms/uses of every algorithm and use these as your framework for solving new problems.
Be prepared to take a lot of time out of class to understand concepts, take notes, and study. Going to office hours is practically a must if you want good success.
This course is very demanding. Please be prepared to spend well upwards of 5-10 hours outside of the lecture working on studying the material. If you are introduced to something you are expected to employ it with a high degree of understanding, although most concepts will still feel foreign and novel.
I recommend reviewing what you learned in discrete math (especially proofs, probability, graphs, and asymptotic notation) and calculus (summations, integrals, logarithm, etc.) because you will be expected to know it without having to look at notes or textbooks. If you are taking any other class that you think might be time consuming, drop it (if able) since this class will take up most of your time with assignments and note-taking.
As others have said start on homework early. Depending on the professor, you get extra credit for turning it in earlier. You also relieve some stress that comes with doing homework as if you start on say Thursday, it can be harder to think about the problems.
Be prepared to teach yourself. A lot of computer science if teaching yourself and finding solutions. However this class relies heavily on that concept. Also don't get so caught up in the mathematical side. The class notes makes it seem important but it's not when it comes to tests and quizzes. Just make sure you understand how what you are learning for the week works. If you run low on time, youtube may be more help then the online lectures. He claims he posts all the students responses in the end of class evaluations, let's see if this one makes it.
Try to do as many practice problems as possible. Attempt the optional homework problems as well since it may show up on an exam. Read through the textbook and use the lecture notes to understand which concepts you should focus on.
Understand the basics. Up until the end of the class, we are still going back to things we have learned in past classes. If you have to relearn all of this, it is going to make a very hard class even harder.
The notes are undoubtedly the most important things to this class, I'm not done with it just yet, but even though I haven't done amazingly on the homework, the thing I'm most worried about are the notes. If you have bad handwriting, you might just have to spend most of the time you spend on this class on notes.
Not only with regards to grades, notes are extremely important for understanding the content, and doing well on the quizzes and homeworks.
start your homework early, this was the best advice I got from last semester’s students. Not only does it give you time to develop questions for TAs and professors but it also gives you a good idea of the key points to look for when taking notes through the week. Also go to office hours.
Don't bother reading the text, just focus on the notes/screencasts.
This class is challenging and try to stick with it.
Watching the lecture videos helps so much for understanding material before quizzes.
Learn time management skills and be prepared.
Attend office hours as much as possible, although instructed not to do so, search up topic examples and explanations via youtube or other websites if you are not understanding certain material. Have a group to study with.
Nodari is very strict. He has challenged me possibly more than any other professor I've had until now. He's not very flexible unless you work very hard in his class, and even then so.
I would mainly say to find time to dedicate to this class where you know you'll be in your best mindset. If you can work during your prime focus hours, the whole learning process for this class will be much easier. There is something due every class, so make sure you have everything you need prepared by that morning, or even better, the night before. Don't push yourself too hard about the occasional slip. Sometimes it's hard to get it all done in time. It's okay.
The way Nodari instructs in class is very useful and informative. If you ask him questions, he will answer them and try to help you understand to the best of his ability, so while it can be nerve-wracking to speak up in class, asking questions WILL HELP YOU.
One of the most important things I want to talk about is how Nodari communicates with students. He is helpful when you ask questions, but sometimes his demeanor can be a little discouraging. Here are a few things to look out for:
1. Nodari usually speaks generally to the class in a way that directly calls out the "stragglers" who aren't putting any effort into the class. Sometimes he may assume this is you because you did something a certain way, or rather, failed to do something a certain way. It's super frustrating, I know, but try not to get discouraged by this. Nodari's main goal is to prevent the worst-case scenario of students failing due to a lack of trying.
Communication is key. If you're having issues, definitely reach out to Nodari or the TA's. You're far more likely to succeed if you do, and you'd only be helping yourself.
If you're asking if Nodari is a good professor or not, the answer kind of depends on you. Are you a good student? Have you come to class to learn the material and apply it, or have you come to score as many points as you can for your grade by any means necessary? If you're here to learn, Nodari will teach you, and you will come out of the course knowing very important information on Algorithms.
If you've come to score points by any means necessary, then I've got some bad news for you: As computer scientists, we are constantly writing programs that execute procedures of given steps. These are algorithms. When you choose to do this professionally, your employers will want you to optimize system storage and runtime to ensure that your programs run as smoothly as possible. My point is that the material you will learn in this class is extremely important, as this material is relevant, in some capacity, to all fields of computer science.
Study the 141/241 material and practice ioinduction. Review the screencasts before the first day and learn how to understand pseudocode if not tagught from 211/241.
Stay on top of your work (dont procrastinate), ask questions, go to office hours, and make study groups!
Go to office hours! Start homework early and try to work collaboratively with classmates because bouncing ideas off each other is really helpful. Finish notes early in the week and ask questions when you come to class. For the exams, understand the procedure of each algorithm and understand what kind of problems different algorithms can be adapted to. Just try to see as many different types of problems as you can and try to be creative in applying the algorithms you know. If your discrete math knowledge is weak (especially induction, graph theory content) you probably want to review that. Also review 211 (but I would say less of a priority than discrete math).
Know your basics especially in ICS 141 and ICS 241.
Making sure there is time in your schedule taking into account number of credits being taken, jobs, and extracurriculars. Really fully understanding the material in this class is a significant time commitment that I personally didn't fully quite get down even with around 7-10 hours a week spent on this class.
Please start the readings and screencasts as early as possible and don't take any other time-consuming classes at the same time. Plan to put in more hours than you anticipate for this class. If you think you're gonna put in x hours a week, double it, and then triple that.
Use every resource provided to you to study, the lecture notes, textbook, screencasts, and the MIT lectures. To understand some sections in this class, I even had to go a step further and find other sources that provided explanations. All the different perspectives will help you hone into the key concepts of the material.
Also, do not underestimate how hard it is to perform under pressure during the exams and the quizzes even if you understand the material.
make sure to take notes before-hand
Start homework early, don’t be afraid to go to office hours, don’t do notes at the last minute, practice lots, at least look at and think about the optional he problems as a version of they are some times on the midterms, don’t wait last minute to take notes, and make sure some is giving you peer evaluation points as they are part of your weighted grade.
It's a tough class. Study ahead, don't fall behind. Be sure to look through the textbook and not just the provided notes. Just looking at screencasts and notes aren't enough to cut it in this class.
It's a hard class but it should be you are a computer science major if you are taking this class (most likely) and I feel I became a much better programmer and problem solver from the class even though I focus in data science and machine learning. If you are taking Algorithms Nodari is the professor I would recommend, unless you just want to get through the class then I believe his class is much harder than the others but you learn a lot.
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