Survey Results

I received 39 non-blank surveys back. Thanks to all that participated.

Below, I attempted to summarize the results statistically and respond to some frequent comments.
Some of your comments are also given, copied verbatim.

Lectures: I am glad that the large majority of students can follow and understand the lectures very well. Out of 39 students, 31 said that they follow or understand the lectures very well, 3 said they did not, while 5 gave answers in between.

Homeworks (time): Most people spend more than three hours a week on the homework. 20 students said they spend between 2-4 hrs/week, 12 students spend 1-2 hrs/week, 4 spend more than 4, and 1 spends less than 1 hour per week.

Homeworks (representativeness + difficulty): Most people consider the homeworks to be representative of the material and of the right amount of difficulty, with a few challenging problems here and there. I got 10 answers saying that the homeworks were all right, 6 who said they were somewhat challenging or challenging, and one who said they were mostly easy.

Discussion Section (helpfulness): Most students go to discussion section, and most of those that do find Ghassan and the discussion useful for the homework. In numbers, out of 37 answers on this topic 30 said they go to discussion, while 7 said they don't. Out of the 30 that do go, for 21 the discussion is helpful or very helpful for the homework. For 3 students the discussion section is not very helpful, while for the other 6 it helps sometimes but not always.

Discussion and Homework: Students who reported that they do not go to discussion section also reported that they spend more hours on the homework.

Fun: Most of you are having some sort of fun, which is very good! Out of 37 answers to this question, 19 students stated that they are having fun, 9 said that they are not, while the rest were either not sure if fun could be had in school, or if this class reached their threshold for fun. Strangely, for some of you fun correlates with scores on the tests.

Comments, ideas, etc:

Many of you requested additional examples to be done in class. That I can do, within our time constraints.
You also want less overlap in the examples that Ghassan and I cover. I hope on that issue you have already seen results.
Some of you want copies of my lecture notes before class starts so that you can follow the proofs on the board rather than rush to copy them down. Although I understand your points on this I do think that there is inherent value in copying. And during proofs I do stop often and ask for your input and give you time to write things down. Plus, you should be going over your notes at home anyways and not just rely on understanding the material during lecture. One problem with having the lecture notes in front of you while I teach is that your comfort level may increase while at the same time your attention may decrease, and we all know where that leads.
Some of you raised concerns that the midterm and the first quiz in terms of coverage were not fully representative of the material in the first half of the course. I personally think that the midterm covered most of the material we went through until then. Since you will have more time for the final, there will be more questions on it, and it will appear to be a broader exam.

Some specific comments:

"Overall, I am very satisfied with the subjects covered in class and the degree of difficulty of the material."

"The book is hard to understand."

"Place more emphasis on things you feel are important . . ."

"I don't always feel as though the quizzes/tests reflect the same kind of material from the lecture, or HW."

"Serve cookies in class."

"[Discussion section is] very informative."

"...lectures are much easier to understand and to participate in after reading the lecture ahead of time..."

"Midterm was difficult and was not what I was expecting."

Are you having fun?

"Very much."

"When I manage to understand the material, yes!"

"Yes!"

"No, you're sort of an ass."

"I was until I got the first quiz back."

"This class is a bit hard for me, but I suppose I am having as much fun as I can at school."