TITLE: Teaching a New Course in the Fall
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 14, 2020 2:35 PM
DESC:
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BODY:
I blogged weekly about the sudden switch to remote instruction starting
in late March, but only for three weeks. I stopped mostly because my
sense of disorientation had disappeared. Teaching class over Zoom
started to feel more normal, and my students and I got back into the
usual rhythm. A few struggled in ways that affected their learning and
performance, and a smaller few thrived. My experience was mostly okay:
some parts of my work suffered as I learned how to use tools effectively,
but not having as many external restrictions on my schedule offset the
negatives. Grades are in, summer break begins to begin, and at least
some things are right with the world.
Fall offers something new for me to learn. My fall compilers course had
a lower enrollment than usual and, given the university's current
financial situation, I had to cancel it. This worked out fine for the
department, though, as one of our adjunct instructors asked to take next
year off in order to deal with changes in his professional and personal
lives. So there was a professor in need of a course, and a course in
need of a professor: Database Systems.
Databases is one of the few non-systems CS courses that I have never
taught as a prof or as a grad student. It's an interesting course,
mixing theory and design with a lot of practical skills that students
and employers prize. In this regard, it's a lot of like our OO design
and programming course in Java, only with a bit more visible theory.
I'm psyched to give it a go. At the very least, I should be able to
practice some of those marketable skills and learn some of the newer
tools involved.
As with all new preps, this course has me looking for ideas. I'm aware
of a few of the standard texts, though I am hoping to find a good
open-source text online, or a set of online materials out of which to
assemble the readings my students will need for the semester. I'm
going to be looking scouting for all the other materials I need to
teach the course as well, including examples, homework assignments, and
projects. I tend to write a lot of my own stuff, but I also like to
learn from good courses and good examples already out there. Not being
a database specialist, I am keen to see what specialists think is
important, beyond what we find in traditional textbooks.
Then there is the design of the course itself. Teaching a course I've
never taught before means not having an old course design to fall back
on. This means more work, of course, but is a big win for curious
mind. Sometimes, it's fun to start from scratch. I have always found
instructional design fascinating, much like any kind of design, and
building a new course leaves open a lot of doors for me to learn and
to practice some new skills.
COVID-19 is a big part of why I am teaching this course, but it is not
done with us. We still do not know what fall semester will look like,
other than to assume that it won't look like a normal semester. Will
be on campus all semester, online all semester, or a mix of both? If
we do hold instruction on campus, as most universities are hoping to
do, social distancing requirements will require us to do some things
differently, such as meeting students in shifts every other day. This
uncertainty suggests that I should design a course that depends less
on synchronous, twice-weekly, face-to-face direct instruction and more
on ... what?
I have a lot to learn about teaching this way. My university is
expanding its professional development offerings this summer and, in
addition to diving deep into databases and SQL, I'll be learning some
new ways to design a course. It's exciting but also means a bit more
teaching prep than usual for my summer.
This is the first entirely new prep I've taught in a while. I think
the most recent was the fall of 2009, when I taught Software Engineering
for the first and only time. Looking back at the course website reminds
me that I created this delightful logo for the course:
So, off to work I go. I could sure use your help. Do you know of model
database courses that I should know about? What database concepts and
skills should CS graduates in 2021 know? What tools should they be able
to use? What has changed in the world since I last took database
courses that must be reflected in today's database course? Do you know
of a good online textbook for the course, or a print book that my
students would find useful and be willing to pay for?
If you have any ideas to share, feel free to
email me
or contact me
on Twitter.
If not for me, do it for my students!
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