Calendar and Coursenotes: Spring 2009

This page will show what we cover each day, including the course notes covered in class.

Reading assignments are also posted for each week. The intention is that you will have finished the reading for that week by the end of the week (that is, typically you would be expected to read material after the associated lecture). However, some folks like to read it before the lecture, so I will try to get it up by the beginning of the week if I can.

• Week 1: Introduction, WASI
  • Course introduction. Take the Whimbey Analytical Skills Inventory (WASI).
    [In-class assignment: WASI, 38 points]
    
  • Coursenotes (Introduction)
    • Analyze the WASI
      
  • Test statistics + common problems

• Week 2: Errors in reasoning, Myers-Briggs test, group problem solving
  • Errors in reasoning, Myers-Briggs test
    
  • Coursenotes (Errors in Reasoning)
    
  • Coursenotes (Myers-Briggs)
    Reading Assignment: "Does Personality Matter? An Analysis of Code-Review Ability" by Da Cunha and Greathead.
    Reading Assignment: Read about your identified type(s) at TypeLogic.
    
  • Coursenotes (Group Problem Solving)
    
  • In-Class Assignment 1 (Group Problem Solving)
    
    
  • In-Class Extra Credit Assignment 1 (Group Problem Solving)
    
    • The Fermi problems

• Week 3: Getting started with a problem.
  • Getting started with a problem; intimate engagement. Introduction to "real life" problems.
    Reading Assignment: Handout in class on intimate engagement
    
  • Coursenotes
    
  • Self-study: Verbal reasoning problems
    Reading Assignment: Whimbey and Lochhead chapter IV

• Week 4: Analogy Problems; Heuristics for problem solving "in the small"
  • Analogy problems; six myths about reading
    Reading Assignment: Whimbey and Lochhead chapters V, VI, and VII
    Today's coursenotes
  • Heuristics for problem solving "in the small". Externalization.
    Today's coursenotes

• Week 5 Heuristics for problem solving "in the small". Open-ended problems.
  • Visualize. Graph. Today's coursenotes
  • 
    
  • Problem solving "in the large". The packing example. Today's coursenotes

• Week 6: Combinatorics.
  • Heuristics for counting and probability problems. Examples. Coursenotes
    Reading Assignment: Zeitz book, chapter on Counting. Specifically, page 207 on. (see also the previous in-class lecture).

• Week 7: Heuristics for problem solving; Symmetry. Analysis of trends.
  Reading Assignment: R. McCartney, A. Eckerdal, J.E. Mostrom, K. Sanders, and C. Zander, Successful students' strategies for getting unstuck, ITiCSE '07: Proceedings of the 12th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, 2007, 156-160.
  
  • Coursenotes
    

• Week 8: The pigeon hole principle, invariants
  Reading: Chapters of the pigeonhole and invariants in the Zeitz book.
  • Coursenotes
    

• Week 9: Problem Solving in the Real World. Guest lecture
  • Coursenotes
    

• Week 10: Heuristics for problem solving: the extreme principle.
• Mock interviews. Last lecture: Post-WASI statistics.
  • Coursenotes
    

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