This course is designed around the principles of the "testing effect" and "spaced retrieval practice." As such, the course is designed to engage students in small practice problems several times on the same topic over a week and over the whole semester. All assessments with the same number (e.g., 01GA and 01PRE or 12GA and 12PRE) are for the same class (the first or twelfth class meeting respectively). Over the course of a typical week+, students have the following example routine (We cannot show the timing with due dates because of the portfolio nature of this demo course).
- A little more than one week before a class meeting two preflight (labeled PRE) assessments are released to students (e.g., Week 1 PRE assessments are released a week before classes start). The preflight contains < 20 minutes of short video lectures and some brief text introducing students to the topic and then provide a short set of practice problems for students based on the videos. The PRE assessment is due before the respective class meeting.
- During class time, students work in small groups on Group Assessments (GAs). These GAs take students a bit deeper into the content and engage students in more complex and real-world problems than the PRE. GAs also aim to teach students about teamwork skills using structure roles and engage students in reflective debrief activities to deepen their learning.
- Students complete two PRE and GA assessments over two class meetings each week. After these two class meetings, a homework (HW) assessment is released for one week to encourage students to return to the course material after class.
- After the two class meetings, students are assigned a 2-part lab assessment. These lab assessments take the students even deeper into the course content and engage the student in even more problems. Submissions for these lab assessments are limited so students are encouraged to think about their code and their test cases before submitting to the autograder. Part 1 of the lab is due 2 days after the second GA of the week and is designed to be done in less than one hour. Part 2 of the lab is due 3 days later and designed to be done in less than two hours. For most labs, Part 1 informs how students approach Part 2 and breaking up the lab further promotes spaced retrieval and encourage students to seek help earlier if they are struggling.
- After the lab is due, students are given a quiz on the previous week's topic (i.e., Quiz 1 covers content from Week 1). We provide example practice quizzes that are made freely available to students rather than providing actual quizzes for quiz security reasons. Instructors may contact Geoffrey Herman (glherman at illinois dot edu) to request actual quizzes.