Calendar and Coursenotes

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

Reading assignments, if any, 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.
  • Course introduction.
  • Coursenotes (Introduction)
  • Coursenotes (Interview type questions)
• Week 2:
  Reading Assignment (Before Homework 1): "Does Personality Matter? An Analysis of Code-Review Ability" by Da Cunha and Greathead.
  
  • Take the Whimbey Analytical Skills Inventory (WASI).
    [In-class assignment: WASI, 38 points]
    
  • Reading Assignment (During/After HW 1): Read about your identified type(s) at TypeLogic.
    
  
  

• A key Heuristic: Simplify.
  • Coursenotes
  • Your problem solving skills so far. Personality type test and how to use it.
    • Coursenotes (personality test)
      

• Week 3: Getting started with a problem.
  • Getting started with a problem.
  • Coursenotes (Group Problem Solving)
    
  • The Fermi problems
  • Test statistics + common problems
  • Coursenotes (Errors in Reasoning)
    

  • Week 4: Continue with "Simplify" and "Start someplace".
    • Coursenotes
    • Example: you can not solve a problem without breaking some eggs.
    • Another way to approach the problem.
    • A few more problems.
      
    • Self-study: Verbal reasoning problems
      
      • Reading Assignment: Whimbey and Lochhead chapter IV

  • Estimates of what is feasible computationally.
    • Coursenotes

    • Week 5, The "extreme" principle. .
      • Coursenotes
        

    • Week 5 Heuristics for problem solving "in the small". problems.
      • Visualize. Graph. This week's coursenotes
      Heuristics for problem solving "in the small". Externalization.
      
    • Today's coursenotes
  • For the inquisitive mind: DNA COMPUTING
  • For the inquisitive mind: DNA as (super) high capacity storage
    

  • Week 6 Principles of team work.
  • Problem solving "in the large", prep up for the project. Real world examples.
    • The packing company challenge. This week's coursenotes

  • Week 8: Combinatorics.
    • Heuristics for counting and probability problems. Examples. Coursenotes
      • Reading Assignment: Zeitz book, chapter on Counting. Specifically, page 207 on. Any combinatorics primer will also do.
      • A huge collection of college-level probability problems with solutions

  • Week 9: Heuristics for problem solving.
    • "Lateral" thinking. Coursenotes
      
      • 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.
        
    • Symmetry Coursenotes
      

  • Week 10: The pigeon hole principle, Invariants
    • Reading: Chapters of the pigeonhole and invariants in Zeitz book.
    • Coursenotes. Pigeon Hole
      
    • Coursenotes. Invariants
      

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