Hi Dan, I co-taught a somewhat similar course: a half-semester graduate course in "fundamentals of computation" before I got involved in Software Carpentry. This was in a physics & astronomy department but we had a few people from other sciences as well. I think it ended up being useful for the students, but we certainly could have done it better. Issues we ran into:
- some faculty thought that computing was something students should pick up on their own, certainly not something that should count for graduate credit at the same level as electrodynamics or quantum mechanics. - we ran the course in a "trilingual" fashion (Python, MATLAB, IDL) to try and satisfy supervisors of potential students. We had 3 instructors so this wasn't as bad as it sounds, but it did increase complexity. - variable student background level made it tough to pitch concepts at the right level. Some students who had already done some coding in their research were not easily persuaded to change their ways. - some people wanted to audit the course rather than take it for credit; this can be a problem if you need a minimum number of non-auditing students. - assessment was an issue, just in terms of finding time to have students do something, get them feedback, and do the next thing, all in 6 weeks. - we had a final exam which was not incredibly successful: we wanted to have something time-limited but it was difficult to do something meaningful-yet-doable in a reasonable period. Pauline > Hi everyone: > > I was wondering if anyone has had any success teaching the swc material as a > semester long lab course? Assuming 1 lab a week for 1.5 hours a lab, if we > mimic the swc workshop pace we have at least 6 weeks of material: > > Bash: 2 weeks > Git: 2 weeks > Python/R: 2 weeks > > Now, this could be 2 half-semester courses or it can be expanded to include > LaTeX, SQL, data carpentry material, for a semester long course. Has anyone > else thought of this or tried to pitch this to a department chair? > > I've touched base on the idea of such a course with numerous faculty members > (from CUMC and the EE department at CU), and the response is all positive. > I'm mostly asking to see what logistical/administrative hurdles I will > encounter. Dr. Pauline Barmby, Associate Professor Department of Physics & Astronomy, Western University 1151 Richmond St., London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada Voice: (519) 661-2111 x81557 Fax: (519) 661-2033 [email protected] _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
