Experiment with course materials concerning

1
Experiment with course materials concerning
Threads

• M. Ivanovic, K. Bothe, I. Jurca

2
Plan experiments with certain Java topics
Mira in Berlin, February 2006

1. Basic Concepts of Object-Orientation Objects,
   Classes, Abstract Data Types
2. Objects and Classes Additional Useful
   Features
3. Inheritance, Polymorphism, Dynamic Binding
4. Exception handling
5. Interfaces
6. Event handling
7. Threads Processes
8. MouseMaze

3
Threads
Ioan Threads for more advanced students, Zagreb
2004
Klaus Threads for 1st semester students, HU 2006

• Mira Experiment with a group of better students
  (fourth semester, some voluntaries from 3rd year)
  about Tread presentation
• To present to the students both versions of
  tread presentations (Klaus, Ioan)
• Collect their opinions, suggestions and maybe
  critical points (in order to make further
  improvements or even better to join and then
  improve both presentations)

4
Presentation circumstances

• At the end of semester, after finishing whole
  Java topics
• Klaus and Ioans presentation about Threads
• 30 students, 22 filled questionnaire (problem
  some of them were voluntaries, motivation?)
• 2nd and 3rd year students

5
Questionnaire

• I. Effort
• How many hours did it take you to post-process
  the lecture
• II Contents of the lecture
• 1. Do you consider the amount of knowledge
  offered in the lectures
• too much ? ? ? ? ? too
  few
• 2. How do you consider the contents of the
  lecture?
• too easy ? ? ? ? ? too
  difficult
• 3. Is the course well-structured?
• very well ? ? ? ? ?
  unstructured
• 4. Are there any special requirements
  (pre-knowledge) to be able to understand the
  course?
• General remarks and suggestions concerning
  section II

6
Questionnaire

• III Style of the lecture
• 1. Is the lecturer familiar with the contents of
  the lecture?
• very well ? ? ? ? ? not
  so much
• 2. Do the lectures seem to be well-prepared?
• very well ? ? ? ? ? not
  so much
• 3. Is the lecturer engaged?
• very well ? ? ? ? ? not
  so much
• 4. Is the lecturer willing to answer questions
  asked by the students?
• very well ? ? ? ? ? not
  so much
• 5 Is the presentation of the lecture
• too fast ? ? ? ? ? too
  slow?
• 6. Does the presentation style encourage you to
  follow the lecture?
• very well ? ? ? ? ?
  not so much
• General remarks and suggestions concerning
  section III

7
Questionnaire

• IV Using media
• 1. Is the amount of information on the slides
  adequate?
• very well ? ? ? ? ?
  not so much
• 2. Are the slides well-structured and
  clearly-arranged?
• very well ? ? ? ? ?
  not so much
• 3. What is your opinion about existence of
  program code on slides? Please explain more
  detailed.
• General remarks and suggestions concerning
  section IV

8
Questionnaire

• V Benefit of the lecture (or value, profit,
  usefulness)
• 1. Did you learn a lot of new things?
• much ? ? ? ? ?? not
  so much
• 2. Do you think the contents of the lecture is
  useful?
• completely ? ? ? ? ? not
  so much
• 4. What is you overall rank of the lecture?
• very well ?? ? ? ? ? ? bad
• General remarks and suggestions concerning
  section V (e. g. which topics did you like best -
  and why, which are not so important or not so
  interesting, which deserved more and which less
  attention/duration).
• Final general remarks to the lecture

9
Questionnaire Results

• I think that we have 2 solutions
• To show .doc file with all students opinions,
  and discuss only items with arrows (I put arrows
  on, in my opinion, illustrative and
  characteristic items)
• To take only illustrative and characteristic
  items and include them in this presentation
• What do you think about that?

10
General Suggestions

• Results of additional, informal discussions with
  more motivated and more interested students
• Both presentations are good, but not excellent.
  Klaus presentation is basic and too general and
  Ioans is too complex.
• Right solution combination of both
  presentations.
• Introduction, explanation of basic notions and
  terms
• Good elements of both presentations
• Additional elements like dispatchers.
• Slides have to be interesting, with a lot of
  animations and graphics.
• In presentation it is necessary to include a lot
  of examples (basic as well as more complex), with
  animation of program execution and output.
• Also it is necessary to include real-life
  examples. For example producer-consumer case
  study has to be visualized.
• It is advanced topic and is not suitable for
  first-year (NS) students.
• Content of presentation has to be enough for
  learning all necessary thread concepts students
  should not use additional sources (books,
  manuals,?). After classes students expect to
  have necessary knowledge to be able to write
  their own programs using threads.
• Maybe it is better to include this topic (about
  threads) into Operating Systems course!?!?