11. Recursive Reporters 1 (LA Review - Sp15)

[lmock]

Your Name:

Overview of Lab Comments: i.e. Was this lab good or bad? Too fast? Too Slow? Does it need something new?

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      Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, grammar, typo, lack of clarity, etc
      Severity: i.e. "prevents students from continuing", "minor inconvenience", etc
      Comments: Description of the problem, what can be done to fix it, etc.
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      Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, grammar, typo, lack of clarity, etc
      Severity: i.e. "prevents students from continuing", "minor inconvenience", etc
      Comments: Description of the problem, what can be done to fix it, etc.

[mfujimoto]

Your Name: Mason Fujimoto

Overview of Lab Comments: A very difficult but satisfying lab. I thought the exercise on subsets was especially useful for testing a student's understanding of a function's output. Despite the difficulty and expectant length of the lab, I think that every exercise is valuable and I would not cut down the lab at all. I feel that doing this lab proves and strengthens ones understanding of list functions which are vitally important for many potential student projects.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-and-efficiency.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html        Type of Issue: gives student answer

      Severity: noticable (may result in students not working through and understanding the problem)

      Comments: The page preceding this one gives hints to create the subsets block in the form of a quiz. When the student presses next page, they will immediately see the answer instead of being told to start their attempt of the block themselves. I think that even if the answer is included in the lab, students should have attempted to solve the problem before seeing it. A message to start creating the block on the previous page would rectify this issue

[anushasyed]

Anusha Syed

This lab is a great introduction to recursion. The ratio of simple exercises to more challenging ones is perfect, as mastering the structure of easier ones really helps with solving the more difficult problems (i.e. subsets). My only addition to this lab would be a few more quiz questions, i.e. about identifying base cases, etc.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html   Type of Issue: Could give more info Severity: minor Comments: I think it would be useful if there were a question at the end saying something like "how could your answers to the above quiz questions help with making your recursive call or base case?". That might make approaching this problem (which is more challenging than the others) a bit less intimidating.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-intro.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: Confusing info Severity: significant Comments: The last example about recursive calls appearing in the report directly is pretty confusing. I think adding a different example or elaborating on this particular example might clarify things considerably.

[juliaalcaraz]

Your Name: Julia Alcaraz

Overview of Lab Comments: This lab does a good job in exposing the students to more challenging recursive problems that no longer use command blocks, as were used for trees. I thought the large amount of exercises was really helpful because it allows the students to get the necessary practice they need to thoroughly understand the way that recursion works. Overall, I liked the lab.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-examples.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&novideo&noreading&noassignment       Type of Issue: repetitive information       Severity: minor-ish inconvenience       Comments: The entire information on this page is also included on the previous page, so it is slightly confusing as to whether it really is the second page. I would suggest removing it from the first page and just leaving this second page, so that the first page is not as dense, and the student can read two slightly less dense pages of information.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&novideo&noreading&noassignment       Type of Issue: suggestion       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: Here maybe add a warning for the students to remain on this page until they have attempted coding Pascal's triangle, so that they do not accidentally move on to the next page and find the solution.

[susanshen96]

Your Name: Susan Shen

Overview of Lab Comments: I think this lab, once I figured out how the scripts worked and how to visualize recursion, really helped me establish a conceptual basis for recursion that still helps me today, when I solve recursive problems in CS 61B. I think TAs should really emphasize how important it is to understand recursion because it can make some iterative problems much easier and more simplified.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-examples.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Redundancy       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: It seems that the four sample scripts that appeared on the previous slide have reappeared, and I feel it’s a little redundant to talk about these scripts again when the previous slide already asked for the students to understand how they work.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Difficulty for student       Severity: i.e. Minor inconvenience       Comments: In question 1, how the Pascal’s Triangle is set up might be difficult for the student to find out which numbers sum up to the next number on the triangle. It might be easier for the student to solve the question if the triangle were formatted in the same manner as before, with neat rows and lines.

[Meghna15]

Your Name: Meghna Dasgupta

Overview of Lab Comments: I think this lab is a very effective way to introduce recursive reporters to the students as it provides enough examples for them to practice with. One thing that I noticed was that there was only one line about mutual recursion added at the bottom of the second last page so it may be more helpful to explain it a little more in detail. Overall the lab is well-structured and fairly paced.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-intro.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Can be made easier       Severity: Minor       Comments: It would help to put the different combiners into tables so that it is easier to process.

[sayabe]

Your Name: Satoko Ayabe

Overview of Lab Comments: I liked how there were messages at beginning of the lab/throughout the lab like "it's highly recommended that you ask for help"/"don't go on until you understand". It helps the students feel at ease because it's hard to get a hang of recursion at first. I also like how they give examples of how to combine answers (e.g. by using operators, or by using join __ __ )

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-and-efficiency.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: To be honest, it might be better to show the solution of the apple/banana subsets code, and ask what it would do/output instead of having students figure it out. I remember struggling on this for such a long time during lab last semester.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-merge.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: The page includes the 2 questions: "Finish this definition by filling the else slot.", "Do you have to check for the two first items being equal? Why or why not?". I think it'll be helpful if the page also provides answers to these questions ("click to show/hide answer"). I think it could save a lot of time because TAs/Lab assistants won't have to go around helping everyone with the 2 questions.

[Justin-Kim72]

Name: Justin Kim Overview of the lab comments: I think the lab is excellent. The only issue is that I don't see why there are answers to some of the questions. I can see how that is benefit, allowing them to see the code and then interpret it from there, but I think it's more important for them to come up with the idea. I am afraid that formatting it the way that it is in the lab will make kids just kind of glance over the answers, instead of really delving into the coding. I just feel like making the students think and come up with the coding is more beneficial to them instead of showing the answers in the next slide. My opinion, but other than that, the lab will be solid and new challenging concept for the students.

[thorsoch]

Your Name: Charles Thorson

Overview of Lab Comments: Recursion has always been a fun concept to meddle with, because it almost feels like you are cheating when the program finds your answer. Overall, the lab is good. The exercises are thorough and the length seems just right considering how confusing the concept seems at first. Excellent explanations in the lab.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: bug       Severity: inconvenience, can cause confusion if student does not notice       Comments: Question 2, the comments that appear next to the question are correct, but it mistakenly identifies the third choice as the correct answer.

[18epedersen]

Your Name: Emily Pedersen

Overview of Lab Comments: I really like how the first page introduces the general formula for a recursive reporter. However, I think we should stress even more that the recursive case reports a "combiner" and the function with a smaller input even more because when I was going through the problems as a CS10 student I still didn't quite grasp that concept. I also like how the lab introduces sorting and merging lists because one of the CS61A labs involves solving those kinds of problems.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/plurals-of-words.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: prevents students from continuing       Comments: I think to guide the students in doing the exaggerate block, we should also post the iterative solution. I think the exaggerate block is a bit too difficult without such guidance and students may get stuck and not be able to continue with the lab.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-of-a-set.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: prevents students from continuing       Comments: I found this page and the subsequent pages regarding subsets really confusing. What is the student suppose to do? Is she supposed to make the block or simply understand the idea?

[Stantlers]

Your Name: Stanley Ho

Overview of Lab Comments: I like how the general formulas for recursive reporters are discussed in the beginning. I also really like how the answer to the blocks are given and carefully explained before you can see the answer.

[megancarey]

Your Name: Megan Carey

Overview of Lab Comments: a great, effective lab! I think that while the problems are a little difficult to sort out the first time around, the example problems in the text provide good conceptual templates to work them out.

      Just a note -- throughout the earlier labs, there would be reminder pages to have students switch off, allowing both students time a the computer. I think that since there are so many example problems in this lab it would be especially important that both students get practice working them out.

[keehansullivan]

Your Name: Sean Sullivan

Overview of Lab Comments: Lab was definitely great for recursion! I do not personally remember the subsets portion of the lab when I took the course, and think it was unnecessarily confusing for trying to teach recursion, however, if it is used to also introduce another topic then I am all for it. As stated in a previous lab review for the same lab, completing the pascals triangle block before moving on is great for practice, and I felt a little discouraged when I saw the answer on the next page. Also, explicitly mentioning the more base cases you have for a recursive problem usually makes the block more efficient. I believe it was briefly said when counting the time it took the given pascals triangle one, but I think it is an important side note and deserves a sentence or two.

[morganewing]

Your Name: Morgan Ewing

Overview of Lab Comments: Overall, I think this lab is challenging yet manageable. I think one of the most helpful parts of this lab is the first page because it gives the students a template and multiple examples which are similar to the recursion problems they see in the rest of the lab so they are able to go back and reference this page. I think the most difficult concept is about the subsets but the finished block is provided so students shouldn't be stuck for too long. I also like how the students can think through how to build some blocks by answering specific questions.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-merge.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: code bug       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: The merge block in the starter file does not have the list1 variable in the base case.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive- reporters/subsets-of-a-set.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: I think the use of the word "meaningfully" in this sentence: "A list is an ordered sequence—you can meaningfully ask "what is the third item of this list?" But we'll agree that when using a list to represent a set, order doesn't count." makes it a little confusing.

[eurieoh]

Your Name: Eurie Oh

Overview of Lab Comments: I think that this lab was a good way to further help students understand recursion. I liked the examples used because many of them are about making blocks they already know how to use with HOFs. This makes the problem more understandable and also forces them to think of recursion as another way to solve the same problem.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/even-number-filter-without-generalization.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: Too much information Severity: Moderate Comments: I think that instead of giving the code for the students to copy, it may be a better idea for them to figure it out themselves.

[ilinabg]

Your Name: Ilina Bhaya-Grossman

Overview of Lab Comments: I think that the beginning of this lab is extremely important to cement student understanding of recursion and maybe it could be a little clearer? However, I think that the examples that are laid out will really help with comprehension. I also think that the self test multiple choice before Pascal's triangle is really helpful and for future labs there should be brief self tests before challenging questions (I remember having a lot of trouble understanding what Pascal's triangle set up was last semester).

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-even-odd.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: This slide mentions mutual recursion very briefly but I think maybe that should be a topic that is a little more explained? I feel like mutual recursion is tricky to understand and should be described a bit more in this slide.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-of-a-set.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. lack of clarity,       Severity: i.e. moderate       Comments: The definition of subset is really confusing and awkwardly worded.

[papratt]

Your Name: Paige Pratt

Overview of Lab Comments: I think this lab is pretty good. Recursion is a tough concept and if students actually try to answer every question they should get a pretty good idea of how to use recursion. I also like how future slides help explain and give hints to the exercises that preceded them. Also I feel like this lab covers most of not all the cases of recursive reporters students will encounter in CS10. I didn't have any specific problems with this lab.

[carolinekim]

Your Name: Caroline Kim

Overview of Lab Comments: The lab definitely gives a very thorough explanation and demonstration of different ways students can use recursion in snap. The only concern is that too much is given, and there could be more problems that are given to the students for practice. A lot of information seems to be given in this single lab, so making sure that the students understand the material (during lab check offs and discussion) is going to be important.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Unnecessary parts       Severity: May prevent students from continuing       Comments: The explanation of Pascal's triangle in terms of binomial expansion seems unnecessary (especially because the lab even states that the students can skip the section). I think it might just confuse some students with words like binomial expansion and combinatorics along with complicated equations being thrown around. It might just be easiest to get rid of the last section on this lab page.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-and-efficiency.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: The answer is given       Severity: Minor inconvenience       Comments: The answer to finding the subsets is given without really giving the students a chance to try it themselves. I think the lab should tell the students to try the problem and let them know that the answer is on the following pages so that the students can practice writing the code themselves and consult the answer later.

[KamikazeTomato]

Your Name: Henry Chung

Overview of Lab Comments: The lab seems extremely dense. Some examples to convey the topics of recursion at hand seem to difficult to understand in and of themselves. To have examples using Pascal's Triangle and MergeSort in a single lab seems like it would be daunting an quite possibly overwhelming to students as they have to familiarize themselves with both the recursive ideas and the added complexity of the examples themselves. It strikes me as a bit counterproductive as these examples may reduce comprehension rather than aiding it.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-intro.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html        Type of Issue: Lack of Clarity Severity: Minor Inconvenience Comments:

While the example of the "recursive reporter" blocks serve as a great example of illustrating the small differences between "recursive command" blocks and "recursive reporter blocks" and the example of the factorial block serves to further illustrate this, I feel as if students would benefit with interacting directly with Snap to build the factorial block themselves rather than simply seeing it in its completed form.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/plurals-of-words.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html

      Type of Issue: Lack of Clarity       Severity: Minor Inconvenience       Comments: In the case that a student is struggling with concepts basic to Recursion from the last lab, it would be helpful here to take an extra block of text under the "words (plural)" block to explain: (1) how the recursive call shortens the list (all but first of___) (2) joins the items of the list with a combiner (3) how the base case works.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-how-long-does-the-computation-take.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Clarity       Severity: "minor inconvenience"       Comments: When including the "count" incrementing to show students how many times the recursive function is getting called, the student is told to "Modify your pascal script to keep count of recursive calls". The wording suggests that the student is supposed to figure it out, but then the answer is provided immediately. If the answer is to simply be given, some explanation as to WHY the change incrementation happens in the beginning of the function, separate from the base case and the else case in order to make sure that every instance of the call is recorded would be useful.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/even-number-filter-without-generalization.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: In the example with the "even numbers" block, the lab states that this case is different as it offers 3 distinct cases (1 base case, and 2 recursive cases) instead of the accustomed two. I feel as if could be much more clearly presented with a bullet point for each possible case and the reasoning for each under each bullet point, instead of one solid mass of text.

[JaysanM]

Your Name: Jaysan Maolinbay

Overview of Lab Comments: Overall, this lab would be extremely difficult to complete without a partner. There is a lot packed into one lab. In my belief, there should be more simple, given examples so students can build to the more difficult examples. Without a solid base understanding of the lab, students won't have much direction when it comes to the more difficult problems. However, some students may find the challenge rewarding and may come out with more in the lab because of the difficulty. Overall, this lab is kind of difficult, maybe some more elaboration or examples should be given to the students before the really difficult problems. I imagine this lab will be rewarding when finished, however. --- For each specific Issue (Copy this section as many times as necessary) ---

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-of-a-set.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Difficulty       Severity: Minor-Little       Comments: There is no technical problem with this link. However, I do believe here many students will get stuck because the problem is a little too difficult for the amount of information learned beforehand. I recommend moving this problem to the end of the lab, or maybe having this replaced with something that is more manageable.

[xmhjch]

Your Name: Jiachen Hu

Overview of Lab Comments: This is a pretty hard lab especially with only one hour and a half to finish, even with a partner. The explanations and instructions for recursive reporter are reasonable, but the exercise is definitely more difficult, for it involved contents from before that they might forgot already. The second part of the fib is pretty clear, since all necessary codes are provided it would not be so bad. The third part however, for merge list. It would be really challenging for the students especially since they had nearly no knowledge of sorting means. The subset part is also tricky. I think it would be helpful is some helper selection of code or pseudo code is provided.

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• [ ] Page Link:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-merge.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html

      Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor       Comments: It would be much more helpful if there are animations or gifs illustrating how merge sort work. Since merge sort first appear in cs61b, it might be a bit hard for them to understand the scheme of how merge sort work.

[amy97]

Name: Amy Vatcha

Overview of Lab Comments: Great lab, integrates important concepts of computer science while giving students many opportunities to practice making blocks with the concepts learnt throughout the lab.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Llack of clarity       Severity: Minor inconvenience       Comments: In the last line, defining combinatorics would be helpful and would improve clarity.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-of-a-set-fast-soln.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Incomplete       Severity: Minor inconvenience       Comments: The lab finishes very abruptly. In my opinion, the last page should sum up the concepts learnt and how it relates to the previous and/or future labs. For example, comparing the concepts learnt in this lab to those learnt in the previous recursion lab would be helpful.

[lizapraprotnik]

This is a challenging, yet very informative, lab. The mergesort and subset parts of the lab are pretty challenging, and I think that if more basic examples were included before introducing these two problems, the students would be more prepared to solve them. I also think it would be helpful to remind students to think about the runtime of their code, since that topic was already discussed in a previous lab.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-even-odd.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: lack of clarity in instrucitons Severity: minor Comments: I think that this page should encourage students to try to create the sort block on their own before giving them the answer on the next page.

[frankyguerrero]

Your Name: Rocio Guerrero

Overview of Lab Comments: This lab was very informative and helpful regarding recursion. Although there are quite a number of exercises, I think the exercises are of a good difficulty level in preparation for the midterm and the final. I also think it's actually good to put a lot of exercises because not all of them are required for lab check-offs but are good practice for the students to fully understand recursion.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/%7Ecs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: seems like a pretty confusing concept at first. I'm certain a lot of the students will ask questions about this. But solutions are found in the next pages so those will be very helpful in explaining the concept.

[cynthiaha]

Your Name: Cynthia Ha

Overview of Lab Comments: Overall I think this lab was great and very informative. Although challenging, students are able to really practice executing recursive functions and hence reinforce the ideas they learn in lecture. The pascal's triangle and merge functions are tricky and it is definitely useful to encourage students to work in pairs.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursive-reporters-intro.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html

      Type of Issue: Lack of Clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: There is a lot of code on the screen, which may be difficult for students to understand on one page. The examples, especially the last one, may not be clear to some students and so it may be better to include a short description of what the block does (or providing example inputs and outputs). Furthermore, since students are advised not to proceed until they understand how the 4 scripts work, it may be useful to add a few multiple choice questions to test their understanding.

[danielduazo]

Your Name: Daniel Duazo

Overview of Lab Comments: I found this lab to be one of the most difficult out of all of the CS10 (also happens to be one of my favorites). I think it is a lot of information to digest from some students. For others, it may seem too long for the amount of lab time allotted.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&noassignment&noreading&novideo       Type of Issue: formatting       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: For some who may not be comfortable with pascal's triangle, the formatting of the question (specifically, pascal's triangle looking more like a right triangle) makes it really tricky and confusing to understand (especially when looking at rows, columns).

[benlsmith]

Your Name: Benjamin Smith Overview of Lab Comments: This lab is extremely helpful for building upon recursion however seemed really dense for some parts, and was fairly challenging. The subsets portion was pretty difficult, and seemed like a bit much to ask given the time that the students have. Also, i felt that for the more difficult sections, a bit more helper code would be convenient and help cut down a lot of busy time, while still helping them grasp the concepts of recursion.

[soham14]

Your Name: Soham Kudtarkar

Overview of Lab Comments: This was a very helpful but very dense lab. I feel that although recursive reporters are a very heavy and very important topic, the lab could have included less challenging and more intuitive problems. I found that the fact that multiple base cases could occur in a recursive reporter problem was not as emphasized as it could have been. I felt that there was a lot of work, both conceptual and practical, for some of the problems that sometimes wasn't necessary to understanding the fundamentals of recursive reporters.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-of-a-set.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: I don't believe that the subsets problem is one that can be easily solved recursively for students who are just starting out with recursion. I feel that more guidance should be given here.

[JiazhenChen]

Your Name: Jiazhen Chen

Overview of Lab Comments: This lab is a really nice one. Recursion is an important and useful idea in computer science and I think this lab gives a very good introduction. The examples are very infromative and are at the right difficulty level. I think the suggestion at the bottom of the first page is really a good one. The best way to understand recursion is indeed writing out the logical process behind by oneself. The examples on the first pages serve as great practices.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/subsets-self-test.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: The hint questions for the subset question are actually nice. I've already done the lab before so I can easily understand that Question 3 acutally encourage the students to think about dividing the subsets into those have the word "Apple" and those that don't have. But the students may not be able to understand this hint. Maybe adding one more sentence like "Think about dividng the subsets into two parts." may help a bit more.

[bitofbreeze]

Your Name: Florin-James Langer

Overview of Lab Comments: I like the part where it's optional to skip the rest if you don't like math. It starts getting really tricky at the end, so I like that you give answers the page after.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-selftest.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity       Severity: not severe       Comments: Question 1 is a bit confusing the way it's worded. I would color coat the "and"s, so that it's easier to tell what's going on.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/pascals-triangle-how-long-does-the-computation-take.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: missing picture       Severity: is confusing       Comments: The bottom image is not working; it just has a question mark.

[jesslarson]

Your Name: Jessica Larson

Overview of Lab Comments: I loved this lab! Another one of my favorites!

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• [ ] Page Link: snap code bug       Type of Issue: code bug       Severity: prevents student from continuing       Comments: every time I click on the "_ in front of" it drags over the "item _ of list" block.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/recur/recursive-reporters/recursively-sorting-even-odd.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Frecur%2Frecursive-reporters-part1.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: starter file       Severity: annoying       Comments: Give the starter file at the beginning, it is hard to save a lab in one cohesive file if we get starter files towards the end of the lab.