Background and History of FIT 100:
Look at the course
web site from Winter 2002.
Course focus is around what everyone needs to know
about information technology
broken into skills, concepts,
and capabilities
ex. a capability is the
ability to think logically and the ability to debug
Larry Snyder was a leader in constructing this course
Co-taught with the Information School
culture clash, what should
be taught (programming or no programming)
emphasize information over
programming?
Course Structure
Three 1-hour lectures per week, Two 2-hour closed
lab sections each week
Student demographics: 50% freshmen, not focusing
on course as a stepping stone
Laboratories
Same laboratory exercises used quarter after quarter
Martin changed the projects [same projects used
to be used quarter after quarter]
Style of lab not familiar to Martin
very step-by-step recipe-oriented
labs
Martin did not like step-by-step procedures
consequences: students could
not make the leap to do the projects
argument: step-by-step procedure
could be comforting to students new to computers
Projects
Project 1
About HTML and misinformation
Students liked the
project
Project 2
Cyptographer's Assistant
VB project
Even with sample solution,
students still didn't know what to do
didn't know how to solve problems
Martin thought if they could
do the labs, they should be able to do the projects
Project 3
Access
Grace lectured about databases
and set the project
Lectures were based on projects
Surprises to Martin:
Students are very comfortable with shortcut keys
Students are comfortable with event handling in
VB
We did a group activity to find themes in student evaluation forms and discussed these themes and possible solutions during class.
Lori, Doug, Hannah, and Tammy's group found the following themes:
1. There was no coordination between labs and lecture
2. Too much content covered in course
3. Don't keep changing the due dates on projects
4. Reduce emphasis on programming
5. It's impossible to get an A in this course if you want to get As
in your other courses.