6.090 2005 Postmortem

Material:

Material coverage was pretty good.  Classes 1-5 went very well.  The
quiz worked out well too.  The after-quiz part for class 7, along with
classes 8 and 9 need work.  [Ben started burning out by this point]

By class (with results from index cards: Understand, Don't Understand)

Class 1 - Peg game works well [foam poster board & thumb tacks]
          Cut down handout a little bit and move the cut bits to
          homework 1 (where they ended up).
U: expressions !!!!!!!
DU: if !!!, edwin !!!!!

Class 2 - Cut Biggie-Sizing example.  Add hands-on demo?
U: if, recursion !!!!!!!, lambda !!
DU: recursion !!!!!, lambda, remainder, fibonacci

Class 3 - Towers of Hanoi doesn't work terribly well.  Without
          mutation it is very hard to represent the movement of the
          discs.  Look for a different example.  The guessing game has
          a complicated setup (requires I/O)
U: where not to put parens, recursion !!!!!!
DU: hanoi !!!!, recursion !!, writing plans

Class 4 - Long but good
U: desugaring !, lists !!!!!!!, recursive vs iterative !!
DU: lists !!, recursive vs iterative !!!!!!!, recursive list procs !!

Class 5 - Abstraction stacking lost some people, especially the figure
          business.  Assistants taught abstraction.
U: abstraction !!!!, recursion, lists !, iterative
DU: recursion !, abstraction !!!!!, abstraction contracts, let vs
    define, iterative!

Class 6 - Nimrod went over rather well.
U: and/or !!, abstraction !!, testing, abs violation, ! HOP 
DU: abstraction !!, HOP !

Class 7 - Quiz was a little on the easy end, but that's a good thing.
          The post-quiz material on sorting went over people's heads
          (insertion)
Quiz difficulty:  easy 7 medium 10 hard 2
U: lists
DU: insert sort !!!, value vs type, HOP

Class 8 - Ow. Ow. Ow.  Tags (using strings) and Alists (primed by the
          previous night's homework) went well.  Trees were a
          disaster.  The animal guessing game is a little complicated
          without mutation.
U: tags !, alists, (1-2 get trees)
DU: trees!!!, guessing game

Class 9 - No real information conveyed.  Most students not really
          motivated to put in energy at this point. Henderson Picture
          Language a little too far out there for the students to just
          swing into.

Grades:

Everyone passed, with only two cases which were iffy (more assignments
only minimally done).

Concerns:

* Failed to reach some of the lower end students
  - at least one student didn't take 001 due to not doing wel in 090.

* Lab hours should be held later in the evening (perhaps closer to
  student dorms)

* Better filter for excluding clueful people

* Earlier lottery / two sections

* More lab assistants (4 was a little slim due to scheduling)