- 201901-CMSC435-0101-SOFTWARE ENGINEERING - James Purtilo - Instructor Report

201901-CMSC435-0101-SOFTWARE ENGINEERING - James Purtilo - Instructor Report - Spring 2019

Project Title: University of Maryland Course Evaluation -Spring 2019

Number of Students Invited: 48
Number of Evaluations Submitted: 31
Response Rate: 64.6%

Report Comments This report presents feedback received from students for the course SOFTWARE ENGINEERING and for the Instructor James Purtilo in that course. Course means are provided as well as department, college, and college course-level means (e.g., all 200-level courses in a college). Means are calculated from all responses by all students in the unit (i.e., course section, department, college, course-level in a college) on that item and exclude N/A (not applicable) responses. A grade table is included on the next page.

Indication is provided below for the Report Group if there is one affiliated with this course section, otherwise it is blank. The Report Group will be the lead section of a grouped course (i.e. multi-section lecture) and/or the primary of cross-listed courses.

Semester: Spring 2019
College: College of Computer, Math & Natural Sciences
Department: CMNS-Computer Science
Course #: CMSC435
Section #: 0101
Course Title: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Report Group:

Instructor: James Purtilo

Grade Distribution

Grade A	Grade B	Grade C	Grade D	Grade F	Grade PS	Grade W
23	10	15	0	0	0	0

Grade distribution is current as of May 29, 2019 and includes students receiving a W for the course. Some grades are not included (e.g., Cancel, Incomplete).

Administrator University-Wide Course Items Applied to All Section Instructors
Results for use by faculty/instructors and for administrative purposes.
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

By Score

Scale is Strongly Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (4) with a Neutral mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
The course was intellectually challenging.	3.45	3.28	3.29	3.42
I learned a lot from this course.	3.52	3.03	3.12	3.24

By Frequency

1. The course was intellectually challenging.

Table for By Frequency-1. The course was intellectually challenging..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	3.2%
Disagree	1	1	3.2%
Neutral	2	1	3.2%
Agree	3	8	25.8%
Strongly Agree	4	20	64.5%

Table for By Frequency-1. The course was intellectually challenging.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.45
Standard Deviation	0.96

2. I learned a lot from this course.

Table for By Frequency-2. I learned a lot from this course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	3.2%
Disagree	1	0	0.0%
Neutral	2	1	3.2%
Agree	3	9	29.0%
Strongly Agree	4	20	64.5%

Table for By Frequency-2. I learned a lot from this course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.52
Standard Deviation	0.85

How does this course fit into your academic plan or course of study?

1. How does this course fit into your academic plan or course of study?

Table for How does this course fit into your academic plan or course of study?-1. How does this course fit into your academic plan or course of study?.
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
General Education or CORE Requirement	0	0	0.0%
Major/Certificate/Minor/Program Requirement	1	30	96.8%
Elective	2	1	3.2%

Additional comments (e.g. about course content/materials, teaching style, etc.):

Table for Additional comments (e.g. about course content/materials, teaching style, etc.):.

Comments

This is by far my favorite course I have taken at the University of Maryland. Dr. Purtilo can be quiet the character and at times you're not really sure what to think, how to proceed, or if you should take it seriously. But without a doubt in my mind, I am grateful for the lessons I've learned taking this course and for Dr. Purtilo for giving me the opportunity to learn them. Change is inevitable.

I really enjoyed this class. I feel like I was able to use unstructured knowledge from my internship to actually piece together what a software engineer professional should be like. I am not sure how you decided to form groups, but whatever method you used was wonderful. I really liked all of my group members, and our conflicts were minimal if at all existent. I really enjoyed the challenge of the project and felt like it was challenging but doable throughout the entire semester. My one critique is that some in–class lectures felt like I didn't need to pay attention or know the information, but I'm not sure how to fix that.

For the instructor: I appreciated the attempts at pedagogy, but often I felt that too much info (or info not useful to the project) was being crammed in. Certainly, it's useful to know pitfalls that others have had, like with the crashed Mars rover, but other stuff like legal requirements are not as applicable to us, I think (tidbits of info like this should be in a corresponding theory class). Similarly, the textbook is somewhat useful, but only if others read it and agree to follow what it says – so it's not particularly useful in a large team.

For the administrators: Much how like ENEE 245 is the lab portion which applies theory learned in ENEE 244, CMSC 435 is a lab class, but it does not have a corresponding theory class. To make CMSC 435 more effective, I would recommend that such a class exists first, so people know how to work as a team better.

I'm not sure I really learned much from lecture, but I did learn a lot from the project. It was also a good experience to work with a bunch of people I don't know and have to deal with learning how to get along and get things done. I found the supporting readings concept confusing as how am I just supposed to pick a random textbook and expect it to contain all of the things I might be quizzed on. I also struggled with following the blog. There is no way to subscribe to email notifications so I was always anxious I'd miss something. If some kind of option to signup for notifications could be added to the blog I think that would help a lot of students.

I thought Dr. Purtilo was a great teacher. He was always available and responded to any questions very quickly. His teaching style was great– he tried his best to keep the class engaged and taught not only course material but lessons to carry through our life. I learned a great deal from the class, and I believe I did so because of how he structured it.

I would have preferred some consistency among the reading materials. Not all suggested reading materials addressed all the topics in our class so it was confusing to bounce between multiple books to find the relevant chapters.

This class was absolutely a learning experience. In that, I thought I got a lot out of it. However, the workload was insane. It was discouraging in the final class to hear one group say their coding was "trivial" and they got that part of the project completely out of the way just from forking a repository. Members of our team spend an immense amount of time coding as there were a ton of interacting and moving parts, none of which we had experience dealing with. Of course we do not know the difficulty of other projects, but comments such as that one from class are worrying. I am not trying to make excuses, but it seems that certain projects were easier to get working and bug–free, and final deliverables were perhaps not accurate reflections of effort put into the projects.

Many of the course mantras I found really applicable to our project and I definitely agree that there should be more courses like this in the curriculum since it provides more hands–on experience. I think our team had success mainly because we had a relatively strong team relationship which made it easier for us to communicate with each other and continually make progress and meet the deadlines we laid out for ourselves. One suggestion I have is I felt that there was some miscommunication between our clients and professor about what the requirements and expectations should be for our project. Their platform seems to still be at a very early stage where they had not fleshed out how they want the platform to be organized. Also, our clients had strongly insisted to only focus on web, even though a mobile component would have likely made more sense to be part of the requirements.

The class is basically playing a mind game with the professor, jumping through useless hoops to get to points where you still don't really learn anything. The lectures were boring and don't relate to the projects in the class.

It would have been nice if lectures covered materials that were wanted on the proposals before the proposals were due. Things like cost estimates were never explained and so we were left to flounder and figure them out on our own

Class may have been frustrating at times but perhaps that's just the difficulty of working within a team on a big project. In general I think the class taught solid principles. Lectures could be more engaging (though I know you tried)

Overall I enjoyed this course and found it valuable. However, there were times when I wished the lectures were more interactive (such as the ethics lecture) or more relatable to the issues our team was encountering. I do wish my team had met with the professor more, but it was difficult to balance two team meetings, one client meeting, and other classes every week. I wish that when the professor gave us "team time" in class he would have stuck around and met for a few minutes with each team.

I though the class was well organized, however I feel that my group was set up to fail. I was put on a team with other students who also did not complete one or two assignments and given one of the hardest available projects. I feel like we were set up to fail from the start.

The scrimmage at the beginning of the semester helped set up the tone for the course. I got a really good group and the project was interesting.

Exams usually give students a reason to pay attention in class and learn the course material. I understand that we should be interested in learning the material for our careers not just for academic purposes but sometimes students need a push. Since we didn't have any exams, and quizzes were rare and unpredictable, there was little reason to pay attention and learn the material. On a similar note I wish you had covered how to complete a cost estimate in class. There are lessons to be learned from researching a topic on your own but I would have learned much more if someone with experience had explained it. We can't learn everything in life by trial and error. We need to learn from other's experiences.

The course ran smoothly, and I thought that the Professor and class policies were fair and well defined. It would have been nice to have had more time on the final projects overall.

Dr. Purtilo was a decently interactive teacher hampered by a particularly unresponsive audience. Dr. Purtilo always had plenty of feedback even if it sometimes conflicted with his own previous feedback. The class period was frequently subbed out to "team time" which was helpful in getting the project done on–time, but sometimes felt like it was being used as a crutch for not having a lecture prepared.

Administrator University-Wide Instructor James Purtilo Items
Results for use by faculty/instructors and for administrative purposes.
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

By Score

Scale is Strongly Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (4) with a Neutral mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
The instructor treated students with respect.	3.74	3.44	3.48	3.53
The instructor was well-prepared for class.	3.52	3.35	3.23	3.39
Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher.	3.10	3.04	2.95	3.08

By Frequency

1. The instructor treated students with respect.

Table for By Frequency-1. The instructor treated students with respect..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0.0%
Disagree	1	1	3.2%
Neutral	2	0	0.0%
Agree	3	5	16.1%
Strongly Agree	4	25	80.6%

Table for By Frequency-1. The instructor treated students with respect.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.74
Standard Deviation	0.63

2. The instructor was well-prepared for class.

Table for By Frequency-2. The instructor was well-prepared for class..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0.0%
Disagree	1	0	0.0%
Neutral	2	2	6.5%
Agree	3	11	35.5%
Strongly Agree	4	18	58.1%

Table for By Frequency-2. The instructor was well-prepared for class.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.52
Standard Deviation	0.63

3. Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher.

Table for By Frequency-3. Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	3.2%
Disagree	1	2	6.5%
Neutral	2	4	12.9%
Agree	3	10	32.3%
Strongly Agree	4	14	45.2%

Table for By Frequency-3. Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.10
Standard Deviation	1.08

Overall Score

Averaging the following five scaled Administrator items (from above, repeated below) results in the Overall Score.

Scale is Strongly Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (4) with a Neutral mid-point

Table for Overall Score-1st Scale.
Competency	Course
The course was intellectually challenging	3.45
I learned a lot from this course	3.52
The instructor treated students with respect	3.74
The instructor was well-prepared for class	3.52
Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher	3.10
Total Score	3.46

The standards the instructor James Purtilo set for students were...

By Score

Scale is Too Low (0) to Too High (2) with an Appropriate mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
The standards the instructor set for students were...	1.16	1.13	1.15	1.15

By Frequency

1. The standards the instructor set for students were...

Table for By Frequency-1. The standards the instructor set for students were....
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Too Low	0	0	0.0%
Appropriate	1	26	83.9%
Too High	2	5	16.1%

Student University-Wide Course Items Applied to All Section Instructors

Results for use by faculty/instructors and students.
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

By Score

Scale is Strongly Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (4) with a Neutral mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
Course guidelines were clearly described in the syllabus.	2.94	3.19	3.04	3.23
The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material.	1.79	2.83	2.61	2.87

By Frequency

1. Course guidelines were clearly described in the syllabus.

Table for By Frequency-1. Course guidelines were clearly described in the syllabus..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	2	6.5%
Disagree	1	2	6.5%
Neutral	2	5	16.1%
Agree	3	9	29.0%
Strongly Agree	4	13	41.9%

Table for By Frequency-1. Course guidelines were clearly described in the syllabus.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	2.94
Standard Deviation	1.21

2. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material.

Table for By Frequency-2. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	3	10.3%
Disagree	1	10	34.5%
Neutral	2	9	31.0%
Agree	3	4	13.8%
Strongly Agree	4	3	10.3%

Table for By Frequency-2. The required texts (e.g., books, course packs, online resources) helped me learn course material.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	29
Mean	1.79
Standard Deviation	1.15

Based on the quality of my work in this course, the grades I earned were

By Score

Scale is Too Low (0) to Too High (2) with an Appropriate mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
Based on the quality of my work in this course, the grades I earned were	0.86	0.80	0.84	0.82

By Frequency

1. Based on the quality of my work in this course, the grades I earned were

Table for By Frequency-1. Based on the quality of my work in this course, the grades I earned were.
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Too Low	0	4	13.8%
Appropriate	1	25	86.2%
Too High	2	0	0.0%

Given the course level and number of credits the workload was

By Score

Scale is Too Low (0) to Too High (2) with an Appropriate mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
Given the course level and number of credits, the workload was	1.29	1.20	1.18	1.13

By Frequency

1. Given the course level and number of credits, the workload was

Table for By Frequency-1. Given the course level and number of credits, the workload was.
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Too Low	0	0	0.0%
Appropriate	1	22	71.0%
Too High	2	9	29.0%

How much effort did you put into the course?

By Score

Scale is Little (0) to Considerable (2) with a Moderate mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
How much effort did you put into the course?	1.84	1.47	1.44	1.51

By Frequency

1. How much effort did you put into the course?

Table for By Frequency-1. How much effort did you put into the course?.
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Little	0	0	0.0%
Moderate	1	5	16.1%
Considerable	2	26	83.9%

Student University-Wide Instructor James Purtilo Items
Results for use by faculty/instructors and students.
N/A responses have been excluded from the following calculations.

By Score

Scale is Strongly Disagree (0) to Strongly Agree (4) with a Neutral mid-point

Table for By Score.
Question	Course	College (CMNS)	Department (CMNS-Computer Science)	Course Level (CMNS_400)
Question	Mean	Mean	Mean	Mean
The instructor was effective in communicating the content of the course.	3.26	3.07	2.98	3.11
The instructor was responsive to student concerns.	3.71	3.25	3.23	3.32
The instructor helped create an atmosphere that kept me engaged in course content.	3.00	2.98	2.88	3.02

By Frequency

1. The instructor was effective in communicating the content of the course.

Table for By Frequency-1. The instructor was effective in communicating the content of the course..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	3.2%
Disagree	1	0	0.0%
Neutral	2	4	12.9%
Agree	3	11	35.5%
Strongly Agree	4	15	48.4%

Table for By Frequency-1. The instructor was effective in communicating the content of the course.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.26
Standard Deviation	0.93

2. The instructor was responsive to student concerns.

Table for By Frequency-2. The instructor was responsive to student concerns..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	0	0.0%
Disagree	1	1	3.2%
Neutral	2	1	3.2%
Agree	3	4	12.9%
Strongly Agree	4	25	80.6%

Table for By Frequency-2. The instructor was responsive to student concerns.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.71
Standard Deviation	0.69

3. The instructor helped create an atmosphere that kept me engaged in course content.

Table for By Frequency-3. The instructor helped create an atmosphere that kept me engaged in course content..
Options	Score	Count	Percentage
Strongly Disagree	0	1	3.2%
Disagree	1	2	6.5%
Neutral	2	4	12.9%
Agree	3	13	41.9%
Strongly Agree	4	11	35.5%

Table for By Frequency-3. The instructor helped create an atmosphere that kept me engaged in course content.-Statistics.
Statistics	Value
Response Count	31
Mean	3.00
Standard Deviation	1.03

End of Report