Curriculum Update Request - BEW 2.1

[sidneyarcidiacono]

Overview

While the overall technologies and concepts taught in this course are very valuable to students seeking a career in Backend Development, the methodology through which these concepts were taught provided little engagement, challenge, or motivation to dive deeper. Additionally, the heavy use of tutorials was quite frustrating to students, and in my opinion, was detrimental to some students' ability to understand the material.

Course Details

Back End Web 2.1, Advanced Web Patterns in Node.js

Taken Term 4, 2021

This concern or request:

[] 1. Has to do with a learning outcome or tool I don't see in this class but would like to
[x] 2. Has to do with a learning outcome or tool I see in this class but would like to see improved
[x] 3. Has to do with the course itself (i.e: pacing, format, etc.)

IF about a learning outcome or tool that you don't see in this class but would like to, please provide an explanation about why this would be valuable:

N/A

IF about a learning outcome or tool you see but that should be improved, please provide a brief outline about what improvements you'd like to see and why:

I would most definitely like to see the integration of the skills taught in this course into a project that students create themselves. While tutorials are a great starting ground to introduce new skills or technologies, I don't believe that they should be used as the sole avenue for teaching these skills.

I see this class greatly benefiting from deeper dives into the course material, with less tutorials, and potentially one application students concept, design, and integrate new skills into as they go throughout the course. This would likely require key checkpoints with solid due dates, and maybe a way to schedule 15 minute 1:1s with the instructor during lab time should students need help considering how to design their application architecture or get de-bugged.

An accountability buddy would be a great way to keep students motivated and working on their project, and have one other student as the go-to voice for simple problems. Making students each other's "first line of defense" when stuck is a great way for students to learn and help each other learn through teaching and solving problems together.

Additionally, having students build their own applications provides them with a full portfolio piece at the end of the term, as well as a better understanding of how to design systems, and the "why" of many of these technologies (web sockets, serverless architectures, and node modules).

IF about the course itself (pacing, format, etc.) please describe what you'd like to see changed and why:

I was quite disappointed in the overall structure of the course this term. While we're a project based school and I know we don't want to focus solely on lecture, this course had virtually no lecture, and no hands on experience outside of tutorials. The tutorials used as materials in this course provided all of the code, leaving little reason for students to do anything but copy and paste code. This kind of a course structure was highly demotivating to me as a student.

I am:

[] Willing to help staff work on this, and have resources in mind to provide direction
[x] Willing to provide resources, but don't have the time to help at the moment
[] Don't know where to start

[droxey]

Thanks for your excellent feedback! I have passed this on to our curriculum team and hope to collaborate to integrate your concerns this term and make this course stronger in the future. 👍