Syllabus

Course Information¶

Teaching Staff

Instructor: Nathan Brunelle

Instructor Email: brunelle@cs.washington.edu

Registration Questions: CSE Advisers (ugrad-adviser@cs.washington.edu)

Course Staff and Support Hours: Course Staff and Office Hours

Class Session Meeting

See Class Sessions for information on how each day of class will be run.

• WF: 10:30am - 11:20am (KNE 130)
• WF: 2:30pm - 3:20pm (KNE 220)

Other Info

• Prerequisite (Recommended): CSE 122 or completion of Paul G. Allen School’s Guided Self-Placement
• Course Website: Here! (https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse123/24sp/ or https://cs.uw.edu/123)
• Textbook (Optional; Not Required): Building Java Programs by Reges and Stepp (5^th Edition)
• Feedback: You can submit (anonymous) feedback for the class here.

Course Goals¶

Computing continues to play an ever-increasing role in today’s society. Having an understanding of computing is an essential skill for those in the 21^st century; from working in industries more reliant on technology, using computational methods to further scientific understanding, or being an informed citizen in a world with technology all around us.

This course is a third course in computer programming focused on the design and implementation of data structures. It assumes students already have significant experience with programming and understand fundamental computing concepts (such as control structures (loops and conditionals), variables and data, and arrays) as well as basic data structure (lists, sets, stacks, queues, and maps/dictionaries) and the fundamentals of object-oriented programming. Unlike CSE 122, CSE 123 does assume prior experience with the Java programming langauge. If you have not programmed in Java before, be sure to review our Java Tutorial.

In this course, students will learn:

1. How to implement compound data structures such as lists and trees.
2. The use of recursion to efficiently solve computational problems.
3. How to utilize inheritance to represent relationships among similar classes.

Learning Objectives¶

CSE 123 is designed around a set of 18 learning objectives, organized into seven major themes. At the end of the course, successful students will be able to do the following:

Computational Thinking

1. Define data structures to represent compound and complex data
2. Structure data appropriately to efficiently solve a problem
3. Define a solution to a given problem using a recursive approach

Code Comprehension

1. Trace the behavior and state of a Java program that uses inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and/or recursion through its execution
2. Predict the behavior and results of executing a Java program that uses inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and/or recursion
3. Describe the approximate runtime efficiency of a method or algorithm

Code Writing

1. Define relationships between Java classes using interfaces, inheritance, abstract classes, and references
2. Write functionally correct Java classes to represent linked data structures:
   • Linked lists
   • Binary trees
3. Write functionally correct recursive methods
4. Write programs and classes that are readable and maintainable, and that conform to provided guidelines for style, implementation, and performance
5. Implement additional methods and classes within the constraints of existing systems

Communication

1. Clearly and effectively describe the behavior of a class and its methods
2. Produce clear and effective documentation to improve comprehension and maintainability of programs, methods, and classes
3. Distinguish between details relevant to a client and details relevant to the implementer of a class

Testing

1. Determine the correctness of a class by evaluating its behavior as compared to a provided specification
2. Identify and enumerate a set of inputs or tests that are sufficient to determine the correctness of a class and its public APIs

Debugging

1. Identify errors in a class’s state or behavior
2. Define and implement fixes for identified errors

Ethics/Impact

1. Describe ethical and sociotechnical issues related to software and technology and explain how their choices as programmers can impact those issues.

Software and Textbooks¶

Most of this course will be run on EdStem. This includes readings and exercises for both class sessions and quiz sections; the discussion board; and where you can work and submit your assignments. All of the required lesson materials and access to Ed are free for students enrolled in CSE 123 this quarter. Direct links to Ed will be posted from this course website for each relevant activity in class. We recommend using this course website as your primary way of finding information and the right link to Ed.

One of the benefits of using EdStem is that it comes fully featured with an online programming environment. This means it’s not strictly necessary to install any software as long as you can work online! However, we highly recommend doing the software setup so that you can leverage a visual debugger and work offline.

There is no required textbook for CSE 123. All of our readings are available for free on Ed. If you would like a textbook as an additonal resource, we recommend Building Java Programs by Reges and Stepp (5^th Edition). Note that while this is an excellent textbook and includes all topics covered in CSE 123, some topics may appear in a different order than we cover in class. We will put references to relevant chapters of the book on the course website for students who are interested in seeing another perpsective on these concepts. The 3^rd and 4^th editions of the textbook are also reasonable if you already own them or can acquire them more easily. We are not aware of a digital version of the textbook.

Class Sessions and Quiz Sections¶

Class Sessions¶

To best support your learning in CSE 123 this quarter, we will be using a hybrid classroom model. This will mean our class time will be a mix of time for lecture and time for students to collaboratively work on activities. Time in class spent on students actively participating in their learning has been shown numerous times to improve learning outcomes for students. (Email the instructor if you’re interested in reading about these studies.)

To ensure there is time in class for these opportunities for active practice, we will also ask you to prepare to come to class each day by completing a pre-class reading each day of class. The readings will have a mix of reading slides (often complemented by a video) and questions to let you practice the material you read. The readings/exercises should take about 30 minutes and should be completed before class for that day. The class sessions will begin where the pre-class reading left off after a brief review of the reading.

Attendance Options¶

Class sessions will be hosted in person. A “normal” day of class will be composed of some recap of the lesson you read before class and alternating time for group work and discussing applications of those concepts as a whole class. The class sessions will be recorded so students who cannot attend can view them later. We do not take attendance, but expect students to be attending to participate in in-class activties, or watching the recordings in the off-chance they can’t attend class.

Quiz Sections¶

Quiz sections are smaller, TA-run sessions where students work in groups on practice problems and review concepts from the previous day’s class session. On three specific days of the quarter (see calendar), you will take the quizzes for the course. See below for details on quizzes.

Quiz sections meet on Tuesdays/Thursdays according to the time you registered for. Whenever possible, please attend your assigned quiz section. However, if you need to attend a different quiz section please reach out to the TA whose section you would like to visit to request permission. On quiz days, you must attend the quiz section for which you are registered on MyUW.

Attendance Options¶

Quiz sections will not be recorded. Instead, the course staff will post all materials used in section on the course website and will also occasionally post helpful videos covering some of the topics covered in section that day. So, anything missed by not being able to attend in person, you will be able to find asynchronously on the course website. If you are sick, you should not attend quiz section.

Inclusion¶

All students are welcome in CSE 123 and are entitled to be treated respectfully by both classmates and the course staff. We strive to create a challenging but inclusive environment that is conducive to learning for all students. If at any time you feel that you are not experiencing an inclusive environment, or you are made to feel uncomfortable, disrespected, or excluded, please report the incident so that we may address the issue and maintain a supportive and inclusive learning environment. You may contact the course staff or the CSE academic advisors to express your concerns. Should you feel uncomfortable bringing up an issue with a staff member directly, you may also consider sending anonymous feedback or contacting the UW Office of the Ombud.

Required Course Work¶

Types of Assignments¶

There will be five types of course work assigned in CSE 123:

Pre-class Work (daily, ~18 total): Short assignments consisting of readings, tutorials, and practice problems for new concepts that will be discussed in the corresponding lesson. Generally, these assignments will be your first introduction to a concept, and we will expect that you have completed at least the reading prior to class. Note that, while we do not explicitly review the topics covered in pre-class work during class, we do not expect you to fully master the material just from these assignments– that will take additional instruction and practice in class. Pre-class work is not graded, though we will conduct class assuming you have completed the required work for that day.

Creative Projects (~biweekly, 4 total): Medium to large assignments in which you will practice your programming skills. Creative projects will usually include a basic set of instructions to get you started followed by open-ended guidelines for extending, expanding, or modifying your work in a manner of your choosing. These assignments are intended to allow you to explore and discover both the programming skills being practiced and your own interests within the world of computer science.

Programming Assignments (~biweekly, 4 total): Longer programming assignments that will assess your proficiency with the skills and concepts covered in class. While programming assignments will typically emphasize content introduced shortly before their release, they will often integrate content from earlier in the course as well. Programming assignments will be more structured and have more specific requirements than creative projects, but will still often include smaller open-ended components.

Quizzes (~triweekly, 3 total): Collections of short, independent problems completed in section on the assigned day. Quiz problems will take a variety of forms, and will assess course learning objectives. Each quiz will generally focus on content introduced since the last quiz, but may include any content previously covered. Quizzes will be taken during your quiz section on a device and will be timed for 45 minutes. Each quiz’s content will be randomly generated from an equivalent set of problems so there is no benefit to taking a quiz later in the day than someone else. Quizzes will be considered open note and open internet, but you should complete all quiz problems individually without communicating with other students. You will need to bring a laptop or other computing device to section on quiz days– please contact the course staff immediately if that will not be possible to make alternate arrangements.

Final Exam (during exam week, 1 total): Similar to quizzes, but with more problems and assessing all content from the course. The final exam will be given during exam week. Details on exam logistics will be posted closer to the end of the quarter.

The final exam will be held on Monday, June 3 at 12:30pm.

Late Work¶

In general, late work is not accepted without extenuating circumstances and pre-arranged accommodations approved by Nathan.

• If you are unable to turn in a programming assignment or creative project by its initial submission due date, you will be able to use one of your weekly resubmissions in a future week to turn in the assignment.

  Remember, there are 8 assignments and 8 resubmission opportunities, so using a resubmission to turn in an assignment you missed earlier means you will be able to make fewer resubmissions. This means it benefits you the most to try your best to turn in as much of your work as possible before the initial submission date, so you can get feedback on that and iterate on it in a future resubmission, rather than using that resubmission to get your first piece of feedback on that assignment.

• Quizzes must be completed in-person during the scheduled times (usually in your regular quiz section). If you are unable to attend section on a quiz day due to extenuating circumstances (see below) please reach out to Nathan immediately.

• The final exam must be taken in-person at the scheduled time, except in unavoidable extenuating circumstances.
• Make-up opportunities for quizzes and the final exam will generally not be granted for avoidable and foreseeable conflicts such as travel, appointments, or inconvenience.

Course Support Structures¶

Getting Help from Staff & Peers¶

Having questions or getting stuck on something is entirely expected in the learning process. If you find something challenging with your studies, that is a sign you are learning! Learning is not something that you need to do alone though! In fact, connecting with your peers or asking a member of the course staff for help can add extreme depth to your knowledge.

• Synchronous Help (Office Hours): One place to go to get help is our Office Hours hosted throughout the week. TAs staff office hours for many hours a day to provide you the help you need when you need it! This is a great place to go if you want to review a particular course concept, work on a practice problem with the help of a TA or your peers, or get help on a Creative Project or Programming Assignment if you are running into difficulties.

  Tip

  A common misconception is that you can only go to office hours with specific homework questions. That is not true! If you have any questions about course concepts (e.g., from class that day), you are super encouraged to go work on that concept with a member of the course staff at office hours! Getting help with a concept earlier, when you first are feeling unsure, is much better than saving it until you need it on the homework.

• Asynchronous Help (Ed Discussion): With a class of our size, directly emailing a member of the course staff is not always recommended. There are many of you and only few of us, so if you email one person directly we can’t make a guarantee how quickly we can respond! To alleviate this one-on-one communication of email, we have a course discussion board that will be a much more lively place for discussion and a way to make sure you can are helped more quickly. The message board is set up so that all of the course staff can help you, which will make it more likely for you to receive a quicker response!

Revision and Resubmission (Programming Assignments/Creative Projects)¶

Learning from mistakes is an important part of mastering any skill, especially for novices. To enable this, you are allowed to revise and resubmit your work on programming assignments and creative projects to demonstrate improved mastery after your initial submission. Resubmissions are subject to the following rules:

• A maximum of one Programming Assignment or Creative Project can be resubmitted each week (more on this below).
• There will be 8 opportunities for you to make a resubmission after receiving feedback on your work.
• You may not make a resubmission until feedback on the initial submission of that assessment has been released (generally one week after the due date).
• Resubmissions must be accompanied by a form describing the changes made. This will both support you in being deliberate about the changes you make and ease grading of resubmissions by making the changes clear.
• An assignment may only be resubmitted in the 3 resubmission cycles after feedback for the assignment has been released.
• An assignment that has been found to involve academic misconduct may not be resubmitted (see below).

Resubmissions will be graded and the new grades will fully replace the previous grades. The new grade will be based entirely on the resubmitted work, meaning that your grades may go down when resubmitting. In addition, while every effort is made to identify all areas that could be improved when grading, feedback is not guaranteed to be exhaustive. Be sure to consult all available resources and materials to ensure your work meets all guidelines. Please see the Programming Assignments and Creative Projects pages for information on how to make resubmissions and when they are due.

Since there are a limited number of weeks in the quarter, it is very important that you stay on top of your work as much as possible. Our resubmission policy is designed such that you should only be using a single resubmission on any particular assignment throughout the quarter. This means that it is imperative for you to complete as much of each assignment as you can by the initial submission date, so that you can receive feedback on more of that assignment before using a resubmission on it later.

Note that there are 8 assignments this quarter and we plan to have 8 resubmission opportunities. While you may resubmit any assignment whose due date has passed in a given resubmission cycle, it is strongly recommended that you only resubmit each assignment once. By resubmitting an assignment multiple times, you are effectively forfeiting the opportunity to resubmit another assignment. You have a finite number of resubmissions this quarter - so use them wisely!

Ignored Problems (Quizzes/Exam)¶

Quizzes and exams can be stressful experiences, and students sometimes make mistakes not due to lack of proficiency or understanding but due to avoidable errors such as misreading a problem, running out of time, or simply not feeling well on the assessment day. Because of this, we will ignore your two lowest-graded problems across all quizzes and the final exam. These two problems will have no impact on your grade whatsoever– you will not be harmed if you perform poorly and you will not be helped if you perform well. We will, essentially, pretend that they do not exist for the purposes of computing course grades (see below). This will happen automatically when course grades are computed.

Course Climate¶

Extenuating Circumstances: “Don’t Suffer in Silence”¶

We recognize that our students come from varied backgrounds and can have widely-varying circumstances. We also acknowledge that the circumstances of this particular quarter may bring unique challenges. If you have any unforeseen circumstances that arise during the course, please do not hesitate to contact the course staff or the instructor to discuss your situation. The sooner we are made aware, the more easily we can provide accommodations.

Typically, extenuating circumstances include work-school balance, familial responsibilities, health concerns, or anything else beyond your control that may negatively impact your performance in the class. Additionally, while some amount of “productive struggle” is healthy for learning, you should ask the course staff for help if you have been stuck on an issue for a very long time.

Life happens! While our focus is providing an excellent educational environment, our course does not exist in a vacuum. Our ultimate goal as a course staff is to provide you with the ability to be successful, and we encourage you to work with us to make that happen.

Disabilities¶

Your experience in this class should not be negatively-affected by any disabilities that you may have. The Disability Resources for Students (DRS) office can help you establish accommodations with the course staff.

Religious Accommodations¶

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW‘s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Grades¶

Grading Scale¶

Work in CSE 123 will be graded using the following scale:

It is important to note that, under this system, it is the work that is assessed as a proxy for the student. This is an imperfect system, but is necessary to manage a course of the size and scale of CSE 123. It is in your best interest to ensure that your work accurately reflects your proficiency by being careful and diligent in following instructions, meeting deadlines, and understanding requirements.

On occasion, a grade of U (Unassessable) may be given for work that does not enable a proper assessment of the assignment’s learning goals. This may include, but is not limited to, work that is missing, does not demonstrate meaningful effort, does not provide enough evidence to determine proficiency, uses disallowed features or concepts, or violates other major course rules.

Assignment Grading Schemes¶

Pre-class Work: Pre-class work is not graded.

Creative Projects: Creative projects will be assigned a single ESN grade according to the Creative Project Rubric.

Programming Assignments: Programming assignments will be assigned four ESN grades according to the Programming Assignment Rubric

Quizzes/Final Exam: Each problem on a quiz or the final exam will be assigned a single ESN grade. Across the 3 quizzes and final exam, there will be 15 total graded questions (9 from quizzes, 6 from exam).

Course Grades¶

Course grades will be computed as follows:

1. Base grade: Identify the highest minimum grade for which the student meets all requirements (see below).
2. Additional S+’s and E’s: Count the number of additional S+’s and E’s beyond the requirements for the base grade identified in the previous step.
3. Adjustment: Multiply each of the above counts by a multiplier and add the result to the base grade. Additional S+’s and E’s may each use a different multiplier. These multipliers will be determined by the course staff at the end of the quarter and will not be published.

Minimum requirements for each grade are below. Note that all requirements for a particular grade must be met to guarantee that minimum, though failing to do so does not mean that grade cannot be earned.

To be guaranteed a particular minimum grade, all requirements for that grade must be met. Failing to meet any of the requirements for a particular minimum grade does not preclude the possibility of receiving that grade, but does mean that grade cannot be guaranteed. Estimates of students’ final grades beyond the requirements listed above will not be provided before final grades are released.

Academic Honesty and Collaboration¶

Philosophy

Much of the following language was borrowed or adapted from Kevin Lin.

Education is about shaping your identity as much as it is about learning concepts and skills. In school, the consequences of making mistakes are relatively small. But the habits you form now—repeated over days, weeks, months, or years—will determine who you become in the future. While taking shortcuts now may seem relatively harmless and easily justified, doing so runs the risk of developing bad habits that will make it difficult for you to act more earnestly or honestly in the future when the stakes are higher and the consequences are more severe.

Academic honesty reflects the trust (or the lack thereof) between students and teachers. We have worked hard to design this course in ways that engender trust and that encourage honest and earnest behavior. We hope that, when you are struggling, you will take advantage of the resources and policies that we have provided (e.g. consulting course resources, posting on the message board, attending support hours, utilizing resubmissions and reattempts) rather than resorting to dishonest conduct.

For more information, consult the Allen School policy on academic misconduct.

Policy

The academic honesty policy for CSE 123 is summarized as follows:

• Predominantly means that the vast majority of the work you submit on any given assignment must be your own. Submitting work that includes many components that are not your own work is a violation of this clause, no matter how small or unimportant the pieces that are not your work may be.

• Substantially means that the most important parts of the work you submit on any given assignment must be your own. Submitting work that includes major components that are not your own work is a violation of this clause, no matter how little work that is not your own you include.

Both of these terms are naturally open to interpretation– when in doubt, we encourage you to ask the course staff for guidance. Misalignment between your and our definitions of these terms will not be considered grounds for excusing violations.

A good rule of thumb for conforming to this policy is that, if you seek out outside resources or help, you search for examples or resources that are not directly tied to the course or the assignment. For example, searching for “how to split a string into words” or “how to add an element to an ArrayList” is likely acceptable. Searching for “CSE 123 Assignment 1 solution” is likely not.

In addition, the more code you directly copy, the more likely you are to violate the policy. As much as possible, utilize outside resources to help you understand the concepts necessary to write your own code rather than directly including outside code in your work.

Note that this policy only applies to graded work– you are free to collaborate in any way and utilize any resources on work that is not graded. However, keep in mind that ungraded work is often your best chance to practice the skills that you will need for graded work, so it is generally in your best interest to avoid taking shortcuts even on work that is not graded.

Violations

Violations of this policy will be referred to the UW Community Standards and Student Conduct office. Students found responsible for violating this policy will, at minimum, receive no credit for the assignment on which the violation occurred (regardless of whether that assignment was later resubmitted or reattempted). Additional penalties may be imposed for repeated or egregious violations.

Examples of Actions

The following are examples of activities that are encouraged, potentially permitted with caution, and prohibited. These lists are not exhaustive–- there are many actions not included that may fall under any of the three headings. When in doubt, we encourage you to contact the course staff proactively for clarification.

Instead of utilizing forbidden resources, we hope you will submit whatever work you have, even if it is not yet complete, so you can get feedback and revise your work later. If you are ever in doubt if a collaboration or resources is permitted or not, please contact a member of the course staff.

Withdrawal Clause

This policy is heavily inspired by CS50 at Harvard University.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we all take actions we regret. Looming deadlines, outside pressures, and feelings of desperation can conspire to cause us to exercise poor judgment in a variety of ways. In the moment, it can seem as though these actions are justifiable, or even necessary, but upon reflection we wish we had made a different choice.

In recognition of this, we offer the following opportunity:

Any previously submitted work may be withdrawn, no questions asked, within 72 hours of submission by written request to the instructors, as long as the work has not already been flagged as a possible academic misconduct violation. Work that is withdrawn under this policy will receive no credit (as though it were not submitted), but there will be no further penalty or action taken. You will not be asked to describe why you are requesting to withdraw your work. Requests to withdraw work will not be shared outside of the course staff or be part of any academic record, except in cases of repeated acts or abuses of the policy.

To invoke this policy, you must send a written request to the course instructors. Your work will not be considered withdrawn until you have received written confirmation from the instructors of your request.