Visa resultat

Modelling and simulation, ESS101, HT2008

Your own effort

1. How many hours per week did you spend on this course?

32 svarande

At most 15 hours/week»		3		9%
Around 20 hours/week»		13		40%
Around 25 hours/week»		8		25%
Around 30 hours/week»		7		21%
At least 35 hours/week»		1		3%

Genomsnitt: 2.68

- studied 3 courses this period (150%)» (At most 15 hours/week)
- It"s hard to estimate, but it was surely one of the more time consuming courses.» (Around 30 hours/week)
- This course took a lot of time, during the 2-3 last weeks of the course spend around 65 hours/week.» (At least 35 hours/week)

2. How large part of the teaching offered did you attend?

32 svarande

0%»		0		0%
25%»		2		6%
50%»		2		6%
75%»		9		28%
100%»		19		59%

Genomsnitt: 4.4

- I would have attended more lessons if I had more time. » (25%)
- The lectures were very useless and waste of time and just made the coruse topics more difficult to understand. » (25%)
- After a few weeks I stopped attend the lectures with Paolo, not meaningful to attend - I didn"t give me anything. The lecture was just about proof and not connected to any problems or discussion about the topics. The Problem solving sessions was not performed in a good way, the teacher never had any problems to show. » (50%)
- The tutors handwriting is AWFUL!!! I know it is his first time he teaches this course but still, the handwriting is AWFUL!!!!!!!!! Can"t take notes!!!!» (50%)
- Early exam so the last week I worked on my own. » (75%)
- Missed some exercises and a few lectures due to collisions to other lectures» (75%)
- Only some lesser lectures was satisfying. I dont know how the teacher did but he did easy things hard to understand.» (100%)
- The lectures did not provide much in addition to the course litterature. But I was affraid that I might miss some important general information about the course if I din"t attend. The lectures did give some hints about what was important in the course though, which ought to be clear from the course goals.» (100%)

Goals and goal fulfilment

3. How understandable are the course goals?

I have not seen/read the goals»		5		15%
The goals are difficult to understand»		5		15%
The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer»		12		37%
The goals clearly describe what I am supposed to learn»		10		31%

Genomsnitt: 2.84

- We have got the goals, but I didn"t read them» (I have not seen/read the goals)
- Not very well written.» (The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer)
- It was often unclear in what detail we were supposed to know the different subjects of the course. Sometimes I stuggeled frustrated with some details when we only needed to understand the concept. But in some cases it seem to have been the other way arout, which I noticed at the exam ("oh! where we supposed to know this!?"). The goals need to be clearer specified.» (The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer)

4. Are the goals reasonable considering your background and the number of credits?

29 svarande

No, the goals are set too low»		0		0%
Yes, the goals seem reasonable»		23		79%
No, the goals are set too high»		6		20%

Genomsnitt: 2.2

- I cannot really evaluate and answer very well this question because we don"t use the same system (credits) in my home university» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- As far as I understod them.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- But more repetition is needed in the start of the course. Paolo didn"t seem to have a clue of what we have studied before.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- They did not seem to show any understanding to the fact that we may have forgotten what we"ve learnt one year ago. The lecturer should not have to repeat what we"ve learnt before. Then we wouldn"t have time to learn anything new. They should be able to assume that we know what we are supposed to know. But this assumes that we know what whe are assumed to know, before we are assumed to know it. Therefore, it would"ve been good with some recommendations on what to repeat before certain topics are treated in the lectures. Otherwise we have to struggle to remember what we"re already supposed to know, and won"t get a chance to process the new information. It"s a hard course, since it builds on a lot of earlier courses. At the same time, that"s one of the things that makes it interesting.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- well, my study background is layed a bit in a different fields of mechatronics» (No, the goals are set too high)
- No, we (z-student) had a lot of shortcomings and a lot of stuf was really hard to understand. » (No, the goals are set too high)
- In the end of the course it turned out that we should have knowledge in digital control, stochastic processes and deeper knowledge in math to be able to reach the goals for this course. Unfortunately we didn"t know this in the beginning of the course. I"m very disappointed.» (No, the goals are set too high)
- Too much different aspects which would have required much more detailed explanation. » (No, the goals are set too high)

5. Did the examination assess whether you have reached the goals?

No, not at all»		3		9%
To some extent»		13		41%
Yes, definitely»		3		9%
I don"t know/have not been examined yet»		12		38%

Genomsnitt: 2.77

- The examination was very hard, felt like somebackground knowledge was missing, and that"s strange since i have followed the Z-prorgam from the beginning. » (No, not at all)
- The exam was very unfair. The level was much higher than previous years and since this course should be comparable and equally difficult to the previous version of the cours ESS 101 I"m very disappointed!» (No, not at all)
- Really hard exam, not simular to the previous exams.» (To some extent)
- The course did not focus on problem solving to any larger extent. The exam basically comprises exclusively of problem solving so it would be logic to have more problem solving exercises. We had a few the second week but nothing after that until the last week, and only after mentioning it. » (To some extent)
- In general yes, some minor issues, but nothing relevant mentioning since no course could ever be perfect.» (To some extent)
- The last task was too difficult in my opinion. Non of the exercises we done before was this hard.» (To some extent)
- The exam was difficault and some questions were not clear at all. The last question was about modeling a complex mechanical system which is difficault for students with electrical eng. background » (To some extent)
- The exam mainly tested wheter we could use the mathematical tools used in this field of study. But I feel that much of the course is about gaining more general insight. Maybe I have missunderstood the goal of the course?» (To some extent)
- The hand-in assignment was good, but the information around it was poor.» (I don"t know/have not been examined yet)

Teaching and course administration

6. To what extent has the teaching been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		9		28%
Some extent»		17		53%
Large extent»		5		15%
Great extent»		1		3%

Genomsnitt: 1.93

- I think Paolo did a poor job: *Unstructured lectures *Poor explanations *Did not explain how the different subtopics was linked ("why should I learn this" and "when should I use this" was not answered) *Difficult to read what he wrote on the board *Too few exampled» (Small extent)
- The lectures were useless. All theory without any practical things to apply it do. Very abstract when tought that way.» (Small extent)
- The lectures were useless. The teacher can"t teach in a proper way and he became very upset when students asked questions in class.» (Small extent)
- The tutor is not clear in his explanations of problem solvings. Gives me the feeling that he wants to be as general and abstract in his explanations as possible only to confuse and make it difficult for me. Sounds silly but it"s my honest oppinion. I visited his office for help and he gave me the most useless explanation ever and also when I asked if I could take the notes he wrote with me for guidance he coldly answered: NO.» (Small extent)
- Hard to see what the lecturer wrote on the blackboard, hard to distinguish between several letters. He stood in front of the text while writing and then started to talk too soon so one had no chance both to take notes and listen. He had problems explaining some "hard to understand" things in a simple way or trying to explain in a diffrent way.» (Small extent)
- The lectures were often unstructurized and a bit confusing.» (Some extent)
- the classes seemed to be very hasty put together, like he had not read through his paper before class. The excercises should have at least one or two examples made on the whiteboard, not just working alone. » (Some extent)
- It was often hard to get the content of the lectures. Clearer structure and presentation of the lecture goal(s) together with examples would probably have made it easier.» (Some extent)
- No problem solving sessions in the last part of the course is not good.» (Some extent)
- Was very difficult to understand what paolo said and wrote on the board, and you cant interrupt every two seconds to ask what it says on the board...» (Some extent)
- It seems like our lecturer has good knowledge and understanding for the subject he teaches. But he is not good at explaining things. Or, he seemed to be better at explaining when he we"re asked to explain something explicitly, when he had to stop and consider something. So maybe the lectures just have to be better prepared pedagogically. You"re probably not allowed to comment on the language skills of the lecturer. I wouldn"t have done any better. Still, it was an obstacle. It might not have been a problem if he"d spoken and written clearer. Another thing that I may not be allowed to comment on is the attitude of our lecturer. He sometimes had a supperior and condescending attitude towars us students. It"s more encouraging when a lecturer believes in your abillity. He also had a tendency to spend a lot of time explaining simple things very thoroughly, but rushed through the hard topics. This was hard to cope with when we didn"t know if the details were important or not.» (Some extent)

7. To what extent has the course literature and other material been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		1		3%
Some extent»		8		25%
Large extent»		20		62%
Great extent»		3		9%

Genomsnitt: 2.78

- No examples in the book. » (Small extent)
- Due to the few (and poor) examples on the board, I was hoping that the book would have contained a lot more examples.» (Some extent)
- The book sucks, everything is written in general and alot of the material in the course is not covered in the book. So the only way to solve some problems are either to be a born genius or to ask the tutor or assistant tutor, but the tutor is not helpful, and the assistant tutors were GREAT but they were not always available, which is understandable. » (Some extent)
- The book was alright.» (Large extent)
- The course literature was good and the exercises were good. » (Large extent)
- It was great that most of the lectures where carried out with slides that where made available on the course homepage. This way you could focus on listening instead of copying what was being written on the black board. It was good that a text about DAEs where published on the home page. The text was very hard though. It would"ve been nice with some info about other good books and sources of information. It would also have been interesting to know whether the methods we learn about are commonly used, if they are the only ones used, or if there are a lot of others which we do not learn about.» (Large extent)
- Very good course book!» (Great extent)
- Since I didnt understand during the lectures I had to read on my own» (Great extent)

8. How well did the course administration, web page, handouts etc work?

Very badly»		1		3%
Rather badly»		12		37%
Rather well»		13		40%
Very well»		6		18%

Genomsnitt: 2.75

- Bad schedule, often important information was told during lectures and not put up on the homepage. for example a mandatory problem solving session was just mention during a lecture and was never mention in course pm or homepage. Important ps sessions was never announced on the homepage etc. » (Very badly)
- I went twice at the university whereas courses were cancelled without writing it on the webpage» (Rather badly)
- There were schedule-changes that were not good advertised on the course home page, and day when we had no lectures but no one reminded us or told us so (we could only read in in the course memo).» (Rather badly)
- The teacher did not want to upload solutions to old exams on the web page until a few days before the final exam. It is very bad that the hand could not be submitted through the webpage.» (Rather badly)
- The information about the examination was poor. The things the examinator said was not corresponding to the to the information in the course description.» (Rather badly)
- The directions were never clear. Like the first presentation, no one knew that it wasn"t mandatory or how to present it.» (Rather badly)
- The lecture slides are totally useless. What"s the point of lecture slides with just three words on them??? Are we supposed to guess what they mean? And if the answer is that they are supposed to complement the tutors notes on the lectures my answer is: HIS HANDWRITING IS NOT READABLE!!!!!!!!» (Rather well)
- Preferable to get access to the Lecture-notes before the lecture so one could print it and bring it to the lecture and making notes in it.» (Rather well)
- There were some minor confusions about where to be and when, since the TimeEdit schedule apparently was not valid. The one in the course PM was apparently the right one. It"s good if the lecture slides are made available before the lectures. If you"ve looked at them before a lecture, it"s much easier to take in the information, since it seems more familiar. It was also unclear about how much was demanded of the hand in assignment. We spent a lot of work on ours, much more than was needed it seemed afterwards. I did learn a lot though, but nut much that I had any use for on the exam.» (Very well)

Study climate

9. How were the opportunities for asking questions and getting help?

Very poor»		2		6%
Rather poor»		8		25%
Rather good»		13		40%
Very good»		9		28%
I did not seek help»		0		0%

Genomsnitt: 2.9

- When students asked questions they were often answered in a rude way. The teacher approach to the course and student was really bad. The relationship between the teacher and class was often “,cold”,. The teachers handwriting was so bad that most of the time you couldn’,t read the text on the board. His English was really bad and he talked to quick and without pronouncing the worlds.» (Very poor)
- When I wanted help I turned to the course assistance. » (Very poor)
- *No exercise-PSS the last weeks (just PSS in comp. rooms) *The TA (at least one of them) was unable to help me with some of the exercises. » (Rather poor)
- sometimes we had computer exercises with only one person to ask for help. » (Rather poor)
- The teacher was not happy at all to answer the questions we had. Not in class and not even at his office. Well, he took his time but he was definitively not happy about it. Thanks to the TA:s, which were great, at least half of the students in class will pass the exam! » (Rather poor)
- The TA"s were good to answer my questions. Pablo had more troubles. He often didn"t understand the questions asked by me and other students.» (Rather poor)
- Most of the time the supervisors didn"t have time enough to help everyone on the PPS» (Rather poor)
- The assistant tutors were GREAT, really nice and easy to get help from, much props to them for doing a great work.» (Rather poor) (den här kommentaren har blivit redigerad i efterhand)
- At some of the lessons there were to many people making the queue to speak to teachers too long.» (Rather good)
- Even though there were at least as much opportunities to get help as in other courses, it wasn"t enough. There were so many people who had questions and too few to answer them. There just wasn"t time to ask questions both about the hand in assignment, computer programs, and the general exercises. The course assistants did a good job at answering the questions though, and seemed to have answers to most questions. If the lectures had been better, there probably had been less questions.» (Rather good)
- Excellent with a lot of problem sovling sessions!» (Very good)

10. How well has cooperation between you and your fellow students worked?

Very poorly»		0		0%
Rather poorly»		1		3%
Rather well»		9		28%
Very well»		20		62%
I did not seek cooperation»		2		6%

Genomsnitt: 3.71

- Very few assignments for the whole class as team. I just worked with those I knew from before.» (Very well)
- The only way to understand the course was to comunicate with others and hope that they understood at least something» (Very well)
- To have to form the groups yourselves is like a slap in the face for unsocial people like me. I guess I"ve only got myself to blame, but it feels unfair. For someone not that social, it always feels like you"re missing out on a lot of knowledge that the others get by talking to eachother. If the lecturer and assistants have answered a question once, they may assume that everyone will get that information. It"s good if questions that are asked a lot, or are of importance, are highlighted on the lectures. But again, maybe this is my problem.» (I did not seek cooperation)

11. How was the course workload?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		1		3%
Adequate»		18		56%
High»		11		34%
Too high»		2		6%

Genomsnitt: 3.43

- Hand in (work and report) took lots of time. The exercises were good but very time consuming to finish without solutions (just short answers, to most of the exercises).» (High)
- Yey! I survived, barely.» (High)

12. How was the total workload this study period?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		2		6%
Adequate»		15		48%
High»		10		32%
Too high»		4		12%

Genomsnitt: 3.51

- It was a tough period. Luckily the other course (Intro to Discrete Event Systems) was not hard at all.» (High)
- I"m probably not the right person to consider for this question :) dubbel studies and half time work is rather much.» (Too high)
- My bad, I"m taking more than 2 courses this study period.» (Too high)
- This is due to another course. » (Too high)
- But I took 3 courses this period.» (Too high)

Summarizing questions

13. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		5		15%
Fair»		3		9%
Adequate»		13		40%
Good»		11		34%
Excellent»		0		0%

Genomsnitt: 2.93

- Interesting course but a bad teacher teaching us.» (Poor)
- The course and the design of the course is good - the teacher and the way he teached was terrible.» (Poor)
- 4 days before the exam they went through new exercises. This could have been done much earlier instead of having so many computer exercises. Since the teacher didn"t make any examples on the board so this was absolutly new to us. » (Poor)
- I"m very disappointed about how the course turned out. I had high expectations and thought it should be an exiting course which I had looked forward to take. The lectures were useless, you did not get the help from the teacher in class and the students were not prepared for the exam which was very hard.» (Poor)
- Lecturer couldn"t explain and was hard to understand. Lectures were often too skin-deep to do the exercises. » (Poor)
- The lectures were sometimes hard to follow because of unclear handwriting. Especially the c:s,a:s,m:s,n:s and u:s and mu:s are hard to recognize and see the difference between.» (Fair)
- The course content is "good/excellent". The way the course was carried out was "poor/fair". » (Adequate)
- Nice course, good to know about this. Falcone"s expactations about what we already knew and what hi had taught was to high.» (Adequate)
- The teacher should improve his pedagogical performance and work on his way of teaching. That should include more structure in general and a more proper board usage.» (Adequate)
- Paolo should get more insight in how students work on chalmers. Like not handing out the solutions to the old exams?!??! And write clearer on the board. And make a research in what knowledge the students have when they start this course.» (Adequate)
- The subject is very interesting. So it"s a little bitter that the course wasn"t better. I have no major complaints about the contents of the course, only the teaching.» (Adequate)
- It would have been nice to see some of the results from the other students"s hand-in-assignment. Both the physical modeling and the simulation - to get some other point of views and other possible solutions.» (Good)
- System identification was very interesting» (Good)
- The course is good, it is and interesting course and very educative. I just wish we had the tutor from last year.» (Good)
- Very good outline of the course.» (Good)

14. What should definitely be preserved to next year?

15. What should definitely be changed to next year?

16. Additional comments