FA25 Town Hall Q&A

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1	Recording for Town Hall can be found here: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/channel/ECESAC/385859822
2	Below are answers to questions we couldn't get to
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4	Course	Question	Answer	Prof. Answered
5	ECE220	I feel as though i would learn the theory tested on exams better if i had more practice with them. so i think this class could benefit from small homeworks kind of like the labs, but with an emphasis on theory and not coding. Also because exams are worth so much in this class, i feel like the homeworks being introduced could help balance out the grading away from an emphasis on exams.	This is a good idea and something we are debating internally – we don’t want to remove any of the current course grade items (CBTF quizzes, midterms, MPs & final exam). Without removing one of these items, we worry that the burden could be too much on the students. ECE 220 is supposed to be a coding class (like a mix of CS 124/128 but with an emphasis on moving back and forth between higher-level languages and assembly). One possible option is to change the labs (currently they are optional & only extra credit) into something more like mini-lectures and associate mastery-type PraireLearn homework with them. However, we will need to see how we can balance the workload – it is good to remember that ECE 220 caters to a wide spectrum of students (e.g. students who have been doing C coding since late-middle school and students who haven’t written a single line of code until ECE 120) and introduces quite a lot of topics in 15 weeks (e.g. start with intro to C coding and end up with data structures using C++ classes while covering interrupts/privilege/TRAPs, etc. on the way).	Ivan Abraham
6	ECE329	Please provide lecture notes or recordings in case a student misses lecture.	It’s wired because we already sharing lecture notes (blank and annotated slides). You can tell the student to go to lecture website, under my name, it says “Shared notes”. Also, in the supplementals page, there are a few “Past lectures” of lecture recordings. If they need help to navigate lecture recordings, they can use use an embeded AI tutor on Canvas —> ArisAI - AI, it will tell the timestamp of the topic they are interest in lecture recordings.	Victoria Shao
7	CS225	I really enjoy the POTD, I feel like I both learn the material better and prep for interviews.	Thanks! Daily practice is not something everyone enjoys (so we don’t want to make such things mandatory) but can definitely help many students solidify concepts. We hope to continue to increase the number of available PoTDs in future semesters.	Brad Solomon
8		The workload for mp is still too overwhelming even that we have two weeks to complete.	CS 225 has a significant amount of content to cover and is accordingly a high workload class. The workload is something we try to monitor closely in CS 225 through both personal experiences in staff office hours and quantitatively through submission attempts and mp survey responses. However for this semester the workload is unlikely to change. Instead, we have tried to establish policies, resources, and avenues of communication to help. As some concrete specifics that may reduce the amount of time it takes you to complete assignments (or gain extra time if needed): Ask questions early and often through the Discord or Piazza. - Stop by office hours (or faculty office hours) to get advice or one-on-one guidance through the MP. - Take advantage of the no questions asked / no reason needed assignment extension policy! Everyone gets one free extension for any reason but can still ask for more with reasonable justification, which can include things like real life time commitments conflicting with your schedule. I will end by noting that — like many classes within the ECE / CS umbrella — we are strongly considering further reductions in point values for MPs in favor of exam based assessments. The first step on this process may well be reducing the scope and scale of the existing MPs. But we don’t want to rush into these sorts of changes because practical exercises, which the MPs require you to complete, are an effective learning tool.	Brad Solomon
9		Would appreciate the transparency and releasing FRQ for exams and why grades as so.	You are freely able to review your past exams free response questions in office hours and are in fact encouraged to do so with any member of the course staff. The rubric is publicly available and the exam webpage has a direct link to a regrade request form if you disagree with the results. I personally find the current policy better than releasing the exam in full to the class for two reasons: - Individual students may be taking the exam late due to illness or real world issues. In a class of 1000 students, these exceptions are virtually guaranteed for every exam by at least a handful of students. It’s not fair to those of you taking the exam on time if late exam takers can see the exact questions being used that semester. -The current system incentivizes you to go over your example with a trained member of course staff, who can give you direct conceptual guidance on questions that you missed. However I will say this policy is potentially flexible and is something I am looking at closely as we read through the Informal Early Feedback survey, so definitely include such feedback there as well (and encourage your peers to make their voices heard as well).	Brad Solomon
10	General	How is grade inflation being combatted in between semesters?	It's useful to know that students are concerned about grade inflation; there’s often a perception that students would prefer courses to be easier. I think one possible driver of grade inflation is the unfortunate correlation between grades and teaching evaluations; it’s possible that the switch to FLEX will mitigate this. However, it’s certainly not the full story and one of my goals for the near future is to better understand grade inflation and how we might mitigate it.	Nikita Borisov
11	General	ECE students should have access to the course website for all the courses even if they are not in the course	For website availability, I think ideally at least the syllabus of the course needs to be available to all students; if you are aware of courses for which this is not the case, please let me now. I do know sometimes we restrict some of the materials to current students only because they include solutions to exams and assignments. That said, there might be a case for some materials to be restricted to all U of I students (or all ECE students); right now the Grainger courses website doesn’t support this easily but that’s something we can work on .	Nikita Borisov
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