This post is mainly for your comments.
Go directly to the comments, or click on “Responses” below.
Here’s also a link to the slides, assignments, and quizzes:
This post is mainly for your comments.
Go directly to the comments, or click on “Responses” below.
Here’s also a link to the slides, assignments, and quizzes:
Regarding bonus marks:
Although it’s nice to receive bonus marks at every turn, it really detracts from my 100% when the class median is over 90%
.
Perhaps pre-determined bonus questions (difficulty: high) that require extra reading and enhance learning/comprehension of the subject would be more appropriate than free marks.
That’s my take on the bonus questions.
Now, back to earning my first million on traveling salesman algorithm ………
Don’t be a douche.
Some comments on MATH 1P67:
It is better if we have the slides earlier, and prior class so we can print them out and bring them to class *inserting some notes if needed* instead of being in a hurry copying and never been attention to what you are saying.
Another issue with MATH 1P67 is that I don’t understand half of the lecture ( as well as my friends) due to your different style of teaching, MATH 1P66 was much more easier in terms of delivering the material, not just the bonus part. You sequentially assume that we know everything and it is our responsibility to know everything before class, in fact most of us are first year students and never had this kind of math problems before. Quizzes are tough and most of the class find it extremely difficult to concentrate and do not know what are you exactly looking for at the end of each class. I feel like this is a general math class where things and solutions come from nowhere.
As you can see, it’s a one month course and time just very quickly flies by! Most Brocku Profs in such case make their best effort in delivering the most important aspects of each course they teach and being concise and simple as much as possible with their students to ensure that they learn something they can benefit from. If we take everything in a hurry, we will never be able to implement MATH 1P67 in any sequential class nor do well on final exam.
Thanks You!
Thanks for the long comment! I’ll try to have the slides ready by 1pm on class days.
The rest, I’ll read that very carefully.
Comments regarding MATH 1P67 Spring 2011:
Class quizzes are far too long & difficult considering we only have a few days between each quiz to learn the material; never-mind master it enough to do well on a test. It would be far more beneficial during class to go over several sample questions and solutions in detail during class – the types of questions you plan to put on quizzes and the final exam. For example, on Assignment #1, there are a few questions that were never explained how to solve in class or in the text book. How are we supposed to learn anything if we have no idea how to do the problems?
I would also suggest making the quizzes open book because expecting us to memorize all the material in such a short period of time is also a bit too much for a compressed Spring course.
Thank you for taking the time to read this comment!
I would like suggesting making quizzes worth less % and assignments worth more % of the final mark for this class.
But there are 9 quizzes and only 5 assignments.
So doing bad on one quiz is no problem at all, whereas doing bad on one assignment is bad.
The same for me: If I realize that one quiz was too hard, that’s not much of a problem, I’ll just make the others easier and give bonus points. If one assignment is too hard, that’s more difficult to mitigate.
Btw: I took the second question of Quiz-1 out of the grading (is that English?). What I mean to say is: since nobody had any points on the second question of Quiz-1, the first question is now worth 4% of the final grade.
Thanks for your comments!
Thanks for the suggestion about example problems. I’ll definitely keep that in mind!
Quizzes: That’s a difficult one. Open book quizzes would entail more difficult questions — they cannot be almost the same as the examples in class. On the other hand you have a point with memorizing. What about this compromise: I’ll point out more clearly what specifically are the key facts and skills you need from a section? So you won’t have to memorize everything. For example, in the case of Quiz 2, you’d have to know the definitions of O,Omega,Theta, the proof ideas for “is big-O” and “is not big-O”, and an vague understanding of “what grows faster” — 0, 1, log, n^k, 2^n. Would that work? Or would it still be too much? Please give me some feedback on this one!
As for the assignments, I was surprised that nobody asked anything in class; only one person was in my office hour to ask anything; only one person visited the Help Centre time. My guess is that it is customary to start reading the assignment on the day before deadline, is that right? So I’ll have to come up with another solution.
What specifically did you have in mind when you said, for some of the questions, you didn’t know how to solve them?
Just to clarify, we hand in our assignment in class correct? Or do we have a drop box?
Class.
Thank you for going over the assignment and quiz questions during class last night. It was a great help understanding the material and your step by step explanation of the solutions was very helpful. I bet a lot of people in class would have done better had you done that before the quizzes. Would you be able to do more example problems before a quiz? For example, we do a bunch of sample questions from the section to be quizzed on during the class before the quiz. So this upcoming Monday we do problems that are similar to the problems you will put on the quiz for Wednesday and so on. Thanks!
Yes, that’s more or less what I have in mind.
I definitely feel that quizs 2 and 3 were more reasonable. Also, going over the quizs/assignments last night helped a lot.
So long as you present the solutions to example problems in concise steps that apply for all variations of questions we’d be expected to answer; steps that if followed, would give full marks on quizs/ homework or the final exam, I feel confident I can work my way through the same steps and have a better understanding of the course material and hopefully do well in this course.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
What section of the text will the quiz on Monday June 20 be covering?
Quiz #4 (Monday): a subset of the following:
1. Recursively defined functions. I give the recursive definition, you find a formula for the function and prove that it is correct using (1P66) induction.
2. Recursively defined structures: I give a recursive definition and you have to say what kind of objects it describes. See the examples we had in class, e.g. “3 in S; x in S and y in S then x+y in S” = positive multiples of 3. Rosen has nice examples involving bit strings.
3. I’m like to ask some basics about fractions: How to add, multiply, divide, cancel, compare — as bonus.
4. I’m also going to ask you to find the logic negation of some statements involving quantifiers (for all + exists) as well as “and” and “or”. This is 1P66, but since we need it badly, it makes sense to recall that. Also Bonus.
Btw: ASSIGNMENT #2 is online!!!!
Thanks!
Well, that’s a lot of comments since I checked last. In my opinion, the class being labelled “Mathematics for Computer Science” really indicates that you should either have prior programming experience or expectations of moving into a computer science-based program. My feeling is that a lot of problems arise from individuals who have no knowledge of code. For those that didn’t take the grade 12 maths, 1p20 is available for pre-calculus and just about everything else you needed to absorb in gr12.
That being said, it’s obvious that the course will come with inherent difficulties when completing a 4 month course in 1/3 the time. You should expect to do at LEAST a couple hours of reading per week plus time to complete assignments.
Thanks for your comments and for pointing out 1P20!
I did realize that for some of you the class is really too easy and boring. I hate that! Last week’s session in particular I saw a lot of fidgeting from those who had understood binary search earlier. On Monday I plan to proceed at a normal pace but with additional sample problems explained slowly and thoroughly. After all, Rosen is a very good book for understanding the concepts (whereas solving problems is more difficult to learn from a book).
Thxx a lot ,, last class was helpful =)
Last lecture was helpful. Please don’t be afraid to break down examples and explain each part even if it is slow. Most people are either too embarrassed to say they don’t understand or don’t care.
Yeah, that’s my guess, too. Although it always pains me to see people surfing the Internet during class out of boredom…
It’s their time & money… don’t let their boredom rob others who actually want to learn even if that means at a slower pace.
What will be on tomorrow’s quiz ?
Structural induction — I kinda thought that was obvious, after repeating 1585268 times how to do it
Please don’t change your mind about the quiz content, you say something you do it. Be a man.
What?!? Did I ever say something and then changed my mind?!?
@ BrockStudent
If people are too embarrassed to ask questions – then how dedicated are they really ? If anyone is to be embarrassed – its the guy that asked why 2x a number is even … (me) ^^
The problem with moving at an extremely slow pace isn’t that we’ll have to sit through the entire 3 hour lecture – but more so the fact that we are omitting something else that could/should be learned.
Also, I suspect that people that are having a very hard time with the content are not reading their text book (or don’t have it)
Case in point : binary search.
Also, it won’t let me edit, but this class has the highest number of help hours that I’ve ever seen for a course.
I don’t understand the edit part, but thanks for noticing!
Usually you’d edit your post to avoid posting twice in a row ^^
What exactly will be on the quiz for Monday June 27?
Sorry for the delay!
Monday’s quiz:
Given a recursive algorithm, write down a recursive formula for it’s running time. Practice this with the algorithms in section 4.4 / 7.3 of the textbook (you don’t need to understand the Theorems yet, though).
Bonus: Given a recursively defined function, write down an algorithm in pseudo code which computes the function. Practice this on n! and the Fibonacci numbers!!!
Thanks!
I think now we’ve got a positive groove going on
In the quiz, we want to have exactly the same as what you just typed. No random and abstract quizzes please.
What is a random quiz? What is an abstract quiz? Have I ever said “this will be on the quiz” and something else was on it? Are we talking about the same course here?
Will there be bonus marks on the final exam?
No bonus questions in the exam.
Any chance of you changing your mind?
Poor
What exactly will be on the quiz for Wed June 29?
Apply the Master Thm (the thm itself will be on a cheat sheet)
I have just uploaded to the usual place an Final Exam template with examples.
At this time, there may still be significant changes, but I hope to have a version which resembles your actual final exam in the sense that the types of questions are the same.
This ought to help you practice the skill which I would like you to have acquired (or be in the process of acquiring: there are some questions relating to the remaining 3/2 weeks).
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9875302/Teach/1P67/index.html
An early version of your final exam cheat sheet is also there.
There are two English language issues in the current assignment #3:
* In the 1st question, replace “rest” by “remainder”
* In question 2, replace “assignment” by “question”.
Exercise 4.3 #36 will be marked?
Possibly. (As it says on top, only a subset of the questions will be marked, but #36 might be among them, hypothetically.)
The assignment says that question 2 will not be marked….then why have on the assignment? Also hypothetically what if one does not have K.H Rosen, how could one then solve question exercise 36? Hypothetically.
Download or borrow the book ^^
You can hardly expect anyone to make provisions for you when buying the book is mandatoryyyyyyyyyyyyy
The library has several copies.
Could you please also post solutions to the examples problems in the final Exam problem doc? Questions without correct solutions is not very useful.
Thanks!
That would be helpful.
I’ve updated the file and added example questions and solutions for several of the items.
Would it be possible to get an extension for Assignment #5 (maybe due next week?) for the entire class considering we have 2 assignments and a final exam within 2 days of each other this week. Some breathing room would be nice!
That won’t be necessary: the 5th assignment will be direct preparation for the final exam. So there’s no extra work (except writing your name on the paper).
What is on tonight’s quiz exactly? Just one question on solving a simple second-order homogeneous Recurrence?
Yup. Too easy?
nope
For Wed class could we just go through every question & solution on the example exam step-by-step as review?
That’s what I had in mind. However, we need to do lattices — apparently you cannot survive without. So reviewing time will be cut a bit shorter.
Will lattices be on the final exam… please say no.
No
What is exactly on our last quiz?
I give a relation, you decide (irr)reflexive, (anti)symmetric, transitive, equivalence relation.
Assignment 4 #3 First part has a typo. It says S(0) = 1 , S(1) = 2 , ****T(n) = 2S(n-1) + S(n-2)****
Is that T(n) supposed to be there?
YES!!!
Check out the new list of functions as example to possible-exam-question #2 !!!!! !!!!!!
If one were to only study the Final Exam example pdf, would they still get a good mark?
Should we print out the cheat sheet and bring it to the exam?
No, I’ll provide printout of the cheat sheet. You need a pen/pencil.
Is the second example of question 2 in the example final not supposed to have an answer? Because it doesn’t.
Didn’t have time to write a solution yet — I’m too busy making the final exam shorter / easier
I think you can figure these out on your own. There’s nothing new, just different.
on the final exam review #4, how do you go from
g(m) − 6m2 + 12m − 14
to
g(m) = g(m−2)+6m2−12m+14
I mean how did you switch the signs infront of 6m2 + 12m − 14 ?
Just one question about it then, is :
6 * n^0.99 ≺ n^0.99 ≺ n < n^0.99 * log n
or
6 * n^0.99 ≺ n^0.99 ≺ n^0.99 * log n < n
NO, log always grows more slowly than any n^(0.00000000001) so n^0.99 log n grows more slowly than n^0.990001 and of course also more slowly than n^1
question 2 has a solution…
@Joe Biden, if you look it actually says
g(m-2) = g(m) − 6m^2 + 12m − 14
Which if you rearrange for g(m) you get
g(m) = g(m-2) +6m^2 -12m + 14
Pew!
Ah thanks Dirk
Pleasure, Joe.
Thanks final, my mistake
READYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I’m so ready my scouter reading is over 9000.
Where’s WCDVIS?
When will our final marks be posted?
Final Exams are done marking, the last 2 assignments & last quiz is being marked as we speak/write.
So, to answer your question: early next week, in any case before Wednesday (that’s the deadline for submitting the final results to …… somewhere official)
Thanks! Have a great summer!
Will you be posting our final exam mark in Sakai?
Yes!
Our final exam mark hasn’t shown up in Sakai yet.
will you be posting the solution for the exam and assignment 5?
Exam: No; Assignment #5: Thanks for pointing that out!
The final exam marks are now on the sakai.
I also corrected the weight of Quiz #3: It was out of 30, and I don’t know how to tell Sakai that it is 4% of the final grade, so I multiplied everybody’s marks by 4/3 and made it out of 40. The result is in the “Quiz 3 – scaled” field. Please make sure that your marks in this field are correct!
The grade you see on the sakai is final [except in the case of J.S., whose 4% of Quiz #7 will be moved to the final exam, and again, I don't know how to do that on the sakai, so I'll do it by hand].
Upon my departure from Canada, the unclaimed quizzes and assignments and the final exams will be stored for ever in Prof Babak Farzad’s office MC J-404. After Aug 1, please contact him if you wish to view your final exam or claim quizzes or assignments.
I enjoyed teaching this class. All the best for all of you!
Thanks Dirk, you were a good instructor!