What We Learned in CS222, Spring 2021

Each of my two sections of CS222 were split into two attendance groups. In the final meetings last week, after something of a sermon on professionalism and responsibility, I led them through a reflective exercise. I prefer to do this during a final exam, with everyone present and the wall papered in giant sticky notes, but alas, the pandemic makes this impossible. I set a timer for eight minutes and invited each student to make a list of what they learned. Then, I opened Google Docs and wrote down any item that the students shouted out.

After doing this for each attendance group, I collated the lists to form a master list of 173 items. These were put into a form, through which I invited the students to vote on the eight that they thought were most important. Unfortunately, only 14 of my 28 students responded, but of those who responded, these were the top items along with their vote counts:

• Clean Code (10)
• DRY (6)
• GitHub (5)
• Red-Green-Refactor (5)
• SRP (5)
• TDD (9)

Clearly, some of these overlap. SRP is a part of Clean Code, and Red-Green-Refactor is a core practice of TDD. The overlaps do not bother me because different articulations have different meanings and connotations to the students. In their final exam, they will be able to choose one of these items and write an essay about how they learned it. These essays are always fun to read, providing me a little window into how students are engaging with the course material.

In the list this year were two items that I do not remember seeing before. One of them was "A professor who teaches differently doesn't make him bad." I was momentarily dumbstruck by the comment, and then I wrote it down and told the student that I would take it as a compliment. It's an interesting comment. It shows that the initial reaction that this student had was that because I teach differently, therefore I must be bad. By extension, then, people who teach "regular" must be good. I assume here that the student meant quality of teaching and not moral quality. Continuing the analysis, the student experienced a change of perspective: somehow, during the semester, something internally changed in the student that made them recognize that their original idea was false. To be clear, the student didn't say that I was doing a good job, only that I was not doing a bad job, but I think it's implied here that my good just looks different from what they considered "conventional good." I am left wondering what was the event or what was the catalyst that allowed the student to change their thinking and whether there are long-term gains from this shift in perspective. If there are, will the student be able to remember CS222 as a turning point?

When I put together the survey, I originally had all the elements in alphabetical order. However, this left that previous item as the first one in the list, and I got to feeling self-conscious about it. Of course there would be items on the list that a student had not seen before because no one is in all attendance groups besides me. However, it felt like I was fishing by putting this one first. I ended up rewording it to "Just because a professor teaches differently doesn't make him bad," which got no votes.

The other item that I do not remember seeing before is "About some of the people who wrote the Agile Manifesto." One of the underlying themes of the class is that software development is for and by people. During the semester, we talk about the Agile Manifesto, and we also separately talk about Robert Martin, Alistair Cockburn, Kent Beck, Ken Schwaber, and Jeff Sutherland. I'm sure I mention that these men were original signatories of the Agile Manifesto in these discussions, but the point is their other work. I am pleased to see that a student recognized that these people are part of the theme of the course. They are not just a bundle of names and facts, which I think is a common way for undergraduates to consider such things, but real people whose work made a difference.