Traditional
- Instructor lectures
- Students submit summaries/discussion questions for most
classes
- Students work problems
- individually
- groups of 2 or 3
| Student Lectures
- 3 students lecture on a topic
- Schedule guides flow of material
- Student presentation covers much of material
- Each student in group would present 10-15 minutes
- Instructor may add perspective at end of each class
- Groups likely change from one set of lectures to next
- other students work 2-3 problems
- individually
- groups of 2 or 3
Problem-based Course
- First class on topic
- Students ask questions on section of reading
- Class discussion clarifies questions
- Assignment given (e.g., 2-3 problems)
- Next class students present answers
- individually
- groups of 2 or 3
- selection of presenters could be random, volunteers, minimum
number required for semester, etc.
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Programming-based Course
- course focuses on series of programming assignments
- individually
- groups of 2 or 3
- if groups, would likely change often
- several potential difficulties
- pseudocode often given in text, so programming may entail
considerable syntax translation
- often support structure needed to set up a problem
- (e.g., construct a group, print a graph)
- programming effort may consume considerably more time
than applying algorithm on paper by hand
- multiple implementations often possible for the same algorithm
- (e.g., graphs might be implemented by hash tables,
adjacency lists, or adjacency matrices)
- multiple implementations complicates analysis
- analysis of algorithms may be difficult to cover in a
programming assignment
| In-class Small Groups
- students work in class on problems in small groups
- answers might be written up
- answers might be presented in class
- mechanisms for presenting answers open
- presentations could be same day or next class
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