[cse891] The Course, It Is Over.

C. Titus Brown ctb at msu.edu
Thu Apr 29 12:08:09 PDT 2010


Thanks, all; have a great life/career/etc.!

--titus

--

Here's a tag cloud of your comments, followed by the comments  
themselves.

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CSE 891 / Bioinformatics course objectives
------------------------------------------

Goals:
------

Teach process of interdisciplinary inquiry
Encourage skeptical inquiry
Expose people to some really neat (and recent) science
Make people give a public presentation
Make fun of Owen
Make course enjoyable

NOT:

teach detailed methods.
teach biology or algorithms.

Problems:
---------

No course outline, homework due dates, etc. up front ("Don't worry, be  
happy" apparently doesn't work.)

Busy-ness/lazyness => lack of organization

Occasionally really bad lecture preparation (although it's quite  
hard... waaah)

Poor follow-through on homework

Insufficient homework?


NOT:

failure to teach basic biology
failure to teach basic algorithms

and, not IMO, (general) lack of knowledge on my part (breadth!)

----

Comments from students:

--

1. Teaching a class on interdisciplinary communication => good
2. Class on how to give a presentation was helpful

--

Lack of organization needs to be fixed
Fix bad lecture preparation - important.  Only 30 minutes of lecture  
required per week, but it should be better than it was.

--

Laid-back discussion-oriented class - good.
After presentations by students, a short blurb from you (good, bad)  
would be nice.

--

Liked: variety of different topics; not too much pressure (HW was just  
right)

--

General quality of discussion was quite high
You were fun to watch

Some of the student talks were boring or pointless; could change it to  
be more of a journal club discussion led by the presenter, to discuss  
and critique the science.

--

Like:
- made me understand larger context of my research
- pointed out what to watch for in bioinformatics
- gives background (theoretical) on what the research subjects are about

Bad:
- lecture notes would be (would have been) nice
- no clear grading policy
- homework feedback!  what about data analysis exercises instead of  
just reading?
--

I would have liked more of a detailed methods introduction in some  
areas. (CTB - maybe guest lectures?)

--

When doing a topic (metagenomics, next-gen sequencing...) would be  
helpful to have a summary or conclusion to know what knowledge to take  
away.

More direct feedback on presentation and homework.

I thought it was a great course overall.

--

Things I liked:

The discussions that arose from the relaxed format of the class.
I feel like I have a better ability to communicate with computer  
people regarding analysis of large data sets.

Things I disliked:

Lack of structured syllabus/hw schedule.
Even if you don't like ANGEL, some central place to retrieve HW and  
papers would have been good - so use ANGEL.

It would be nice if you provided resources that evaluated different  
algorithms for different purposes.  For example - 16s alignment tools:  
silva, greengenes, RDP pipeline.  How do we know what to choose?

--

Liked:

broad discussions
broad papers/topics enhanced learning

Disliked:

poor organization
more background would have been good
in some cases this was the first time I ever saw a particular topic

--

Liked:

organization of course (I know, crazy, right?)
topics - they flowed very nicely from one week to the next
you interrupted the presentations to make sure people would get the  
best/most information

Overall, I loved this course.  I don't think there was one thing I  
didn't like about it.  I took another similar course through the CMB  
department that did everything wrong you did right.  So overall, GOOD  
JOB!

--

- apathy on the part of the instructor encourages apathy on the part  
of the student
- HW should be assigned on the papers being presented by students to  
encourage discussion during presentations


--

re bad lecture preparation, much time could be saved if you didn't try  
to get so specific with complicated examples and miss the main point.

--

more basic references provided at the beginning.

--

Liked:
- working through scientific problems with SCIENCE
- getting to see neat stuff in biology
- watching presentations

Disliked:
- Insufficient schematic for biology concepts (but not too bad)

--

Liked:

Amusing and informative at same time.
Excellent cynicism and critiques
Didn't mind the lack of a course outline

Disliked/to be improved:

Homework overview/discussion/comments afterwards would have been nice.
Definitely would have liked comments on improving presentations

--

Liked:

Recent, relevant articles and discussion about it
Very interesting topics!

Dislikes:

You talking more - would have liked more talking/explaining
No way to give feedback to presenters that sucked
Computer scientists sucked at explaining simple comp or stat stuff but  
always explained the science stuff well

--

Liked:

focus on big picture, not relentless details
relaxed atmosphere: learn as much (or little) as you want

To improve:

Some kind of outline would be nice, even if it is just a skeleton
Many of your concerns were accurate

--

Like:

You encouraged participation, by participating enthusiastically --  
opposite of other seminars I've taken.


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