CIS365 is entitled "Computer Applications to Commercial Problems." I was asked to modify the course content and we will be renaming it to reflect the new content, which is to cover concepts concerning computer file organization and file access. In effect, the course has changed from teaching the COBOL language to teaching about data files using COBOL as the computer language of the homework assignments. At the time we changed the course contents (the same semester the course was taped) the CIS department had no course teaching COBOL. We will be inaugurating that course at the "100" level during Spring 1996. For the meanwhile, CIS365 has two parts. The first eight one-hour lectures constitute Part 1, which teaches enough COBOL for students to master the materials in Part 2. Part 2 covers the main material of file organizations and file access. Because we plan to cover only Part 2 starting Spring 1997, we had a very hectic taping schedule. We included twenty-six hours of taping for Part 2, in addition to the eight hours for Part 1. There were many ramifications of this, mostly problematic, which I discuss later.
HISTORY
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Spring 1994 - Taped
Fall 1994 - VC
Spring 1995 - FTF & Video-Only; also taped guest lecture 2-27
Fall 1995 - FTF and VC
I decided to put up my VC conference structure for the Spring 1995 video-only class, posting the lecture notes and discussion questions described below. Although I monitored the discussion and replied to some student comments, I treated it mostly as if it were a private study group for the students, not an open classroom discussion as with my VC classes.
SCHEDULE
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Part 1 (4 weeks)
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Week 1: Lectures 1 & 2 - Tape 1
Week 2: Lectures 3-5 - Tape 2,3
Week 3: Lectures 6-8 - Tape 3,4
Week 4: Break to complete first major COBOL project
Lecture 1: Introduction to COBOL
Lecture 2: Procedure Division
Lectures 3-8: Analysis and Design of a COBOL Program, Parts 1-6
Part 2 (condensed for 2 months)
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Week 5 - Lecture 1,2 - Tape 5
Week 6 - Lecture 6,7,8 - Tape 7,8
Week 7 - Lecture 9,10 - Tape 9
Week 8 - Lecture 11 - Tape 10
Week 9 - Lecture 12,13 - Tape 10,11
Week 10- Lecture 17,19,20 - Tape 13,14
Week 11- Lecture 21,22,23 - Tape 15, 16
Week 12- Lecture 25,27 - Tape 17,18
Week 13- Lecture 26 - Tape 17
Lecture 2-1: Introduction to Data Structures
Lecture 2-2: Arrays, Continued
Lecture 2-6: Logical File Organizations
Lecture 2-7: Fundamental File Operations
Lecture 2-8: Fundamental File Operations, Continued
Lecture 2-9: In Situ Update & File Systems
Lecture 2-10: File Systems, Continued
Lecture 2-11: Variable Length Records
Lecture 2-12: Sequential File Creation
Lecture 2-13: Sequential File Update in COBOL
Lecture 2-17: Indexes
Lecture 2-19: VSAM
Lecture 2-20: VSAM in COBOL
Lecture 2-21: Hashing
Lecture 2-22: Hashing, continued
Lecture 2-23: Collision Handling
Lecture 2-25: Guest Lecture: Designing for Performance, David Mackler, QVC
Lecture 2-26: Review Session
Lecture 2-27: Guest Lecture: Igor Krugliak, MicroFocus COBOL, Inc.
VC CONFERENCE GUIDE
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I currently utilize six VC conferences to keep the class materials organized.
Contents of the first five conferences for Fall 1994 are on the attached disk.
#1: Administrative Information
#2: Homework Assignments
#3: Class Discussion/Questions
#4: Teacher Notes on the Taped Lectures
#5: Short Self-Introductions of all Class Members
#6: Uploaded Programs from the Text Book
CLASS STRUCTURE
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I ran the VC version of 365 as follows. The first homework assignment asked
students to place a short biography in the Self-Introduction Conference. To
force participation and class discussion, I have a weekly homework assignment
with three parts. First, students must email me three questions based on the
previous week's materials. This forces them to think about the class materials
on a regular basis. Next they must post their best 1 or 2 questions (based on
how many students are enrolled) in the Class Discussion conference. Third,
they must answer between two and three of the posted questions. This fosters
class discussion. To show that I am serious about this, I grade this participation
(based on the quantity of questions) weekly and post this grade weekly. An
added benefit is that this becomes a nice pool of exam questions. I also add my
own questions to this conference a few days after they post their own. I'll often
craft mine based on those of the text book. (The Uckan text poses excellent
short discussion questions.)
I post a commentary on each taped lecture in the Teacher Notes conference, and date each lecture to match the schedule posted in the Administrative conference.
I keep the grade book activity in the Homework Assignments conference. This semester I've started placing graded programming assignments in the Collaboration Lab so distance students who are on campus can come to pick them up. If a student does not regularly come to campus, I'll email him or her about the assignment grade (i.e., what I take points off for) to explain the posted grade. No one has asked me to mail back assignments, but I suppose I should offer to do so if the student supplies a self-addressed envelope.
PROBLEMS
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I've had two major problems with this course. The first is chronic low
enrollments. In my first VC section in Fall 1995, I ended up with eight or nine
students. My Spring 1995 video-only class had three students enrolled. This
semester's VC class (Fall 1995) has six students. With the two VC classes, only
about half the students participate in the discussion. (The rate was lower before
I started providing weekly grades for the weekly questions.) I find this incredibly
frustrating, and attribute this to the poor performance of many students. VC
classes need a critical mass to foster excitement, commitment and discussion,
and I've never had this critical mass.
My second problem was teaching COBOL in the first part of the class. For the class being taped, we used the COBOL on the TESLA computer system on campus which had no documentation. It was a disaster. For the first VC class we used the COBOL that came with the textbook, with about the worst documentation I've ever experienced. I didn't realize how bad it was until after about two weeks---half the first module. I then realized in retrospect that we needed to have a FTF orientation session for the computer language in addition to the FTF orientation session. This semester I found another COBOL (MicroFocus COBOL) which has good documentation and a good tutorial. This worked out much better. In fact we didn't really need an orientation, though in retrospect, one of the tutorial chapters needed some more guidance. Here's another mistake in retrospect. To save the students some money, I thought we could skip getting a separate textbook just for Part 1 of the course. I thought that the tutorial and the 500 page manual would be adequate. I was wrong. Much of the class needed a textbook for doing the assignments, mostly for little things here and there. I covered the major things in class or they were covered in the tutorial. None of this would be a VC problem as such, except, that given the lack of critical mass, problems on-line seem to take longer to congeal than FTF because it takes me longer to figure out both that there is a problem and what exactly it is. This delayed response time caused other problems to linger, as I describe later.
I've encountered other problems as well. The semester I taped the class was my first teaching the course (and indeed the first time the course was offered in its revamped format). If I were to tape it now, I would do the lectures much differently. One should never tape in the first semester! Also, the very quick pace to squeeze the extra month's materials in on tape (i.e., 26 hours of Part 2) took a great toll on the FTF class being taped. We had very little time for anything except the taped lecture, resulting in very little discussion time in class. Also, had this not been my first time teaching the course, I believe that I could have structured the non-taping time more constructively. Of the nine students enrolled I failed 4 and gave low grades to one or two of the remaining students.
During the video-only semester, the EIES system hit a glitch on *only* my account, meaning that for about 5 weeks, we had no conferencing system available. Furthermore, due to the low enrollments, it wasn't clear to me until about the third week that there was a problem at all. I thought the students just were not responding. In fact, no one got my messages. I only got theirs. Then, the EIES staff did not believe that the problem existed. They thought I was just mixed up. Finally when I convinced them that there was a problem, it took a week to fix. The three students in this class got a very late start.
This current semester, the company handling the tapes decided to spread them out, and only sent out lectures 1-6, assuming these would suffice. The COBOL assignments assumed students had lectures 7 and 8 as well. We had about two weeks where the students did not have enough information to complete the homeworks for part 1. This exacerbated the COBOL learning problems described earlier. And again, being on-line, it took me about two weeks to figure out that some of the tapes were missing. It amazes me that no one posts critical information like this until weeks after the problem occurs!
This semester, for some reason, two or three students decided not to follow my abridged schedule (which I posted twice, in addition to dating the lecture notes clearly in the subject line). They viewed all the tapes, including the lectures I skipped and provided no notes for, and fell behind.
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
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I've only tried one collaborative programming project. This semester I split them
up into groups of three and gave design criteria as part of the homework
assignment. What a disaster. Although I only assigned students who were
answering the questions, several dropped out during or just prior to the
assignment, leaving two of my three groups with a single active member. Some
group members did most of their work in person and thus didn't communicate
solely on-line, so I couldn't monitor their discussions and progress, and therefore
couldn't give the guidance I had planned. It was a disaster. My FTF class,
which had the same assignment, did much better.
Also, in my FTF class, I do many short group exercises that last 3-10 minutes. I need to figure out a good way to do these on-line.
CONCLUSION
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Despite these problems, I strongly believe the VC methodology has much to
offer (as long as you have a critical mass of students). Shy students can
participate freely. Students have time to think over answers to questions, and
can answer in detail. This results in a deeper discussion, and one that everyone
can keep up with. Face-to-face discussions benefit from immediacy and quick
follow-up questions, which the VC environment unfortunately cannot provide.
My lack of success with CIS365, given VC's many benefits, frustrates me. I normally come away from my FTF classes feeling that we've had a great discussion and that the materials are clear. I come away from monitoring my VC class depressed that so little is happening. I believe this is because of the critical mass. A third of my FTF actively participates in discussions and makes the class lively. A third of twenty-five is eight. Half of my FTF class still is silent (except for reciting their best weekly question when I call upon them), and do poorly in the assignments. For some of the shy members of this silent group, I believe VC would be a better teaching medium.
I'm looking forward to taping the COBOL course next fall, after having taught it FTF the semester beforehand. CIS365 - Bieber - Page 30