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ESS101 - Modelling and simulation, autumn 2012, ESS101

Your own effort

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

48 svarande

At most 15 hours/week»		6		12%
Around 20 hours/week»		16		33%
Around 25 hours/week»		11		22%
Around 30 hours/week»		10		20%
At least 35 hours/week»		5		10%

Genomsnitt: 2.83

- Especially for the Lab and the exam» (Around 20 hours/week)

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

48 svarande

0%»		0		0%
25%»		0		0%
50%»		2		4%
75%»		13		27%
100%»		33		68%

Genomsnitt: 4.64

- Had another course in the same block so the lectures were always at the same times.» (50%)
- because of collision with some other courses» (75%)
- This was a huge mistake since it was the worst teacher I have ever had during my Chalmers time for 4 years. But I kept hoping that the teacher would get better, unfortunately that was not the case.» (75%) (den här kommentaren har blivit redigerad i efterhand)

Goals and goal fulfilment

3. How understandable are the course goals?

I have not seen/read the goals»		9		18%
The goals are difficult to understand»		5		10%
The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer»		20		41%
The goals clearly describe what I am supposed to learn»		14		29%

Genomsnitt: 2.81

- Not so many practice..» (The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer)
- As always. You check the goals the first lecture, and you dont really understand them at that point. Then you forget them.» (The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer)

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

43 svarande

No, the goals are set too low»		1		2%
Yes, the goals seem reasonable»		36		83%
No, the goals are set too high»		6		13%

Genomsnitt: 2.11

- The goals are perfectly fine, but I thought that the teacher were supposed to help you reach the goals, not only throw you into the dark and wish you luck.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- I have a mechanical engineering background so I don"t expect anything else» (No, the goals are set too high)

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

No, not at all»		0		0%
To some extent»		28		60%
Yes, definitely»		16		34%
I don"t know/have not been examined yet»		2		4%

Genomsnitt: 2.43

- I hade the feeling this was a somewhat more practical course, but felt the exam was fairly theoretic.» (To some extent)
- The exam do cover most of what you"ve learned during the course.» (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»		13		27%
Some extent»		23		47%
Large extent»		10		20%
Great extent»		2		4%

Genomsnitt: 2.02

- I would say no extent, Paolos philosophy was that the students were supposed to learn everything the hard way. In the midterm coarse evaluation many wanted the teachers to solve more problems on the board, but Paolo refused to let the other teacher help us. Why are we having a course evaluation if the teacher ignores it to every extent? There is no point in that.» (Small extent)
- The teaching was one of the worst I"ve experienced.» (Small extent)
- Just powerpoint slides. Too much talk. We cant remember everything he says and write it down. It goes too fast» (Small extent)
- Paolo is only teaching with power-point slides which he very fastely changes and doesnt give any chance to understand the lectures. It would be better if he had written more examples of the theory on the board.» (Small extent)
- I have had a hard time listening during lessons and it is much hard to do that when the english is bad or have a difficul accent. I also think that the powerpoints can be easier to understand if some changes are done by explaining methods/laws/equations with one sentence on it. » (Small extent)
- The fact that the lectures was mainly based on power point slides made them redundant, considering that the slides are available on the course homepage. A course dealing with calculations should, in my opinion, have lectures that use the blackboard as the prime medium of teaching. The equations presented on the slides were not even in the slightest proved and very sparsely explained. As a result of this the lectures contributed almost nothing to the understanding of the subject. I think I did good on the exam (probably getting a 4 or 5), but that was only because I realized early that the course book and the lectures were almost useless and instead focused on doing old exams from old course homepages. The old exams were, sadly, the best way of getting understanding of how to solve the problems. Had the book and the lectures not been as bad as they were, this would not have been the case. Note that the lectures were bad because they only presented the material in a shallow way and not because Paolo was a bad lecturer.» (Small extent)
- More important results were not highlighted in the course, and more examples in the course could have helped to understand.» (Small extent)
- The lectures were pretty ineffective, too much material was covered too quickly, without much in the way of examples. » (Small extent)
- Too few exercises and tutorials, but I appreciate not having the complete solutions.» (Some extent)
- Only going through general theory on skides does not give very much. Examples would be goood.» (Some extent)
- It would have been good if Ricardo gave more examples. » (Some extent)
- He (paulo) rushes thru the lectures, and asume that everone understand what understand. When he goes thru the basics/things we know from old courses he takes alot of time, but for the new abstract things he is too fast! The totorial teacher seemed nervous, and couldnt"t really keep track on time.» (Some extent)
- The problem is that the lecturer and the TA:s are both really bad when it comes to teaching during the lecture but when you ask them yourself during breaks and so on they explain it much better and slower.» (Some extent)
- I would like him to give more examples and not just say that this is simple and you should already know that and then just go on.» (Some extent)
- Even though it been hard to follow the lectures» (Large extent)

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

Small extent»		8		16%
Some extent»		14		29%
Large extent»		22		45%
Great extent»		4		8%

Genomsnitt: 2.45

- I think the book has almost been useless, been able to find some things but not much. » (Small extent)
- The course book didn"t have as deep explanations as expected. It was not good to only have answers to the problems, this made it a lot harder to work on your own. For not so complex questions it"s a lot easier to look at a solution instead of asking a TA or lecturer for help.» (Small extent)
- The book was probably the worst I"ve had yet.» (Small extent)
- The book doesn"t help, it"s more like an repeat of what paolo says on the lectures. there should be a book with more examples in it.» (Small extent)
- Didn"t use the book, but the exercises was good.» (Some extent)
- Boken är sådär» (Some extent)
- The book is a good read.» (Some extent)
- Given how hard the lectures were to following, full solutions should have been provided with the exercises given for self-study.» (Some extent)
- This has been the only way to learn something, Glad and Ljung may not be the best writers but I doubt there is any better book on the market.» (Large extent)
- Need to find better wrapping on the literature as they fall apart after 4 weeks.» (Large extent)
- Great book, easily understood.» (Great extent)

8. Are tools like, e.g., the Mathematic handbook necessary or useful for the final exam?

Small extent»		24		61%
Some extent»		10		25%
Large extent»		3		7%
Great extent»		2		5%
No opinion»		9

Genomsnitt: 1.56

- What need to be memorised are not in Beta, but some of formulas would be nice to have.» (Small extent)
- I would say that a physics handbook would help in a larger extent, especially for the physical modelling and bond graph creation.» (Small extent)
- Almost no of the formualas that you need are to be found in Beta.» (Small extent)
- I have never used Beta on any exam but sometimes I can see the point of using it.» (Small extent)
- Didn"t open it!» (Small extent)
- Not really.» (Small extent)
- I don"t even think I used it. Some other people may have.» (Small extent)
- Could not find all of the relevent formulas, but it was needed» (Large extent)

9. Is the difficulty level of the final exam appropriate for a closed book and notes type of exam?

No»		10		25%
Yes»		29		74%
No opinion»		8

Genomsnitt: 1.74

- I think the difficulty on the exams varies from time to time and that this exam was hard. I think formulas could be given on paper. » (?)
- Too much Formulas ro remember. Would be better to have a formula table and an exam which you were supposed to demonstrate how the different tools and formulas work.» (No)
- But memorize the formulas should not be the aim of the course. Could give a sheet with many formulas, and not specify which should be used in specific questions» (Yes)
- It was surprisingly easy. I regret spending so much time studying.» (Yes)

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

Very badly»		1		2%
Rather badly»		6		12%
Rather well»		32		66%
Very well»		9		18%

Genomsnitt: 3.02

- Deadlines and where to send the hand-ins was very unclear. lecture slides online were mixed with old ones. Would also be great to not have the repetition slides from every lecture uploaded again and agian.» (Rather badly)
- The material could be uploaded earlier » (Rather badly)
- Too much beuracracy around the hand in. For an example: for the "challenge" hand in, the maximum number of pages was 3. However when some students had written a 3 page report and added a front page with name and course-name, Paolo actually did not accept the hand in with the argument that it was more than 3 pages long (even though the actual hand in was exactly 3 pages long). This is for me quite bureaucratic, and it didnt feel like the teacher Paolo was reasonable at all.» (Rather badly)
- Course handouts were always on time.» (Rather well)
- There were some probelms in the beginning of the course, but then it was good.» (Rather well)
- Please add information on the course web page on when and where the exam review is» (Rather well)

Study climate

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

Very poor»		2		4%
Rather poor»		11		22%
Rather good»		20		41%
Very good»		8		16%
I did not seek help»		7		14%

Genomsnitt: 3.14

- The teacher expected to much from the class so general feel of the class was that "there is such thing as a stupid question"» (Rather poor)
- Since we hade to book a meeting with paolo he wsn"t much help. However Maliheh was very helpfull.» (Rather poor)
- Lab session on monday morning were quite inefficient. One teacher for two rooms... only during the compulsory lab of collecting data we were able to get help from the teacher.» (Rather poor)
- Scheduling time with paolo is a bit hard and the TA:s in my opinion were not so good at explaining.» (Rather poor)
- As mentioned, few exercises, but good email conversations.» (Rather good)
- Paolo was not very open for questions but the supervisor where good and helpful. » (Rather good)
- It was a little bit difficult to find persons to ask for help at the institution. For example 2 more hours per week in order to ask questions are needed!» (Rather good)
- Enkelt att få tag på Paolo som gärna hjälpte till. Mycket bra!» (Very good)

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

Very poorly»		0		0%
Rather poorly»		0		0%
Rather well»		13		27%
Very well»		35		72%
I did not seek cooperation»		0		0%

Genomsnitt: 3.72

- really great that you could seek and find laboratory/assignment partners thru the groups on the course homepage» (Very well)
- without the help of fellow students I would never made it through this course» (Very well)

13. How was the course workload?

Too low»		1		2%
Low»		3		6%
Adequate»		21		43%
High»		19		39%
Too high»		4		8%

Genomsnitt: 3.45

- But the dumb part is that all of the work comes during the last week before the exam which is bad. They should aim on getting things like the lab assignment to be done at least during the sixth week.» (Adequate)
- The challenge increased it a lot, but it was great anyway» (High)
- Since the Robot arms used for gathering measurment data were crappy alot of time went into just figuring out that the data was bad. The time involved did not reflect the amout of learning!» (High)
- The Challenge was said to be optional but in reality you felt you had to it, since you could get so many extra points to the final exam. 5 ponits out of a total of 25 points is 20% which is a lot. The worload increased a lot due to this challenge.» (High)
- Very high at the end of the course.» (High)
- The lab assignment took too much time to seemingly no use.» (Too high)

14. How was the total workload this study period?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		2		4%
Adequate»		19		39%
High»		20		41%
Too high»		7		14%

Genomsnitt: 3.66

- 3 courses. 1 of them in starts 17-20. Get too tiered. And too many labbs, handin etc for 3 courses» (Too high)
- I took one course extra...» (Too high)
- studied at 125%» (Too high)
- since lp 3 ive been in school 7 days a week approx 8-11 h per day.» (Too high)

Summarizing questions

15. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		4		8%
Fair»		12		25%
Adequate»		13		27%
Good»		18		37%
Excellent»		1		2%

Genomsnitt: 3 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

- This is quite sad since the course in itself is really interesting, but the way it is taught is beneath contempt. I mean, power point slides in a math intensive course? At a serious university?» (Poor)
- Paolo is only teaching with power-point slides which he very fastely changes and doesnt give any chance to understand the lectures. It would be better if he had written more examples of the theory on the board.» (Poor)
- the lab was not great, the work stations worked poor. » (Fair)
- The teacher did not convey the material well. It amazes me that he still uses slides from last year when I"m pretty certain, unless he was worse last year, that the last years "teacher evaluation" he probably didn"t get good remarks both the slides and how he conveys it. His method in the exercises is the worst kind for this kind of course that needs a really BROAD knowledge of different materials. He wants us students to show up (We were about 100 I think) to an exercise class where there is one TA. The TA has direct orders not to solve any more than 2 examples and the rest we should do our selves. The second period of exercises were supposed to be used to ask the TA questions about problems... with 100 students.. this is impossible for one TA to handle!!» (Fair)
- The subjects described in the course was interesting, but the planning of the course was not good. Splitting the Physical modeling part and treating the SysId part in between made it hard to see "where the course was going". Maybe it"s better to change the handin so that the Physical modeling part can be completed before the SysId part. After we got bad data from the lab session it felt like a total waste of time. Too much time was used for choosing sampling time and calibrating the equipment, so you didn"t have time to find out why you got bad data. When we asked for good data for the first task we received for the wrong task which we didn"t understood after working with the data for a couple of hours. » (Fair)
- I think the course misses to show why we need to learn this stuff. Needs more practical stuff.» (Adequate)
- Liked the more hands-on elements like Comsol, Simulink and SITB.» (Good)
- The tutorials of the softwares has been really good» (Good)
- Sometimes topics in both lectures and exercises was really confusing.» (Good)

16. What should definitely be preserved to next year?

17. What should definitely be changed to next year?

18. What master programme are you enrolled on?

48 svarande

Systems, control and mechatronics»		29		60%
Biomedical engineering»		15		31%
Other»		4		8%

Genomsnitt: 1.47

- Exchange» (Other)
- Mechanical engineering» (Other)

19. Additional comments