One way that my programming skills improved is that I’m able to look at blocks of code and understand what the code does. However, sometimes when it come to writing the actual code myself, I tend to struggle. I would say I have a good understanding of the basics such as when to use tags, the importance of correct punctuation & grammar, understanding how HTML and CSS work with each other. However besides these, I cannot say I am confident in much else, however I hope I do get there one day. I am not too confident with JavaScript yet. However I found commenting on my code going through labs and the assignment 1 has definitely helped me grasps some of the concepts better.
There is always room for improvement. I feel like there are still some concepts that I still don’t fully understand. I need to go back, review, and study to make sure that I am more solidified with them. I found throughout the semester that if you don’t understand one thing, you will have trouble moving forward with the topics and concepts moving along. This can cause you to fall way behind. I cannot let this happen moving forward so if I don’t understand something I should either ask for help or watch videos that can simplify the concepts.
Doing the WODS, have definitely taught me a lot. I was able to do one of the WODS without relying on the screencast. However I always attempted to do the WOD first and only watched the screencast when I was really struggling. From here, I got to watch what I was doing wrong while Port or Kazman explained the concept a bit more.
Yes, I would say the labs have definitely helped me to learn however I was not able to complete them with confidence. Since the labs are new material, I need to go over each exercise thoroughly. Since we had to finish the labs on our own a lot of times, I would say I was not able to properly understand the concepts as much as I liked to.
Though assignment 1 was difficult for me, I definitely feel I got a lot out of it. Getting to work on assignment 1 really brushed up on a lot of skills and concepts that we learned throughout the semester. With this project I, I realized that there are still some things that I have to go back and review as I may not understand some things as well as I thought I did. I am not sure if I feel confident to begin Assignment 2, I would say I feel more anxious about it because of how hard I found assignment 1 to be.
One way I think the class could be improved is updating some of the WOD screencasts. Some of the screencasts had different directions to what we were doing in our assignments. I would always attempt to do the WOD before watching the screencast and end up watching the video if I run into any issues. From my experience I learned more from the screencasts that had similar directions to our WODs compared to screencasts that were completely different. Another way to improve this class is offering open office hours consisting of different TAs at a scheduled time every week. My ICS 101 class offered something like this and I found it extremely helpful getting help from people who took the class before.
Working on the WODs have definitely been the most helpful aspect of this class for my learning process. Getting to work on weekly WODs have allowed me to improve my programming skills through trial and error. Even if I did have to watch the screencast, which for the most part, were always helpful, attempting the assignment first allowed me to understand concepts and where I was going wrong. At times the WODs could be frustrating because I would tend to redo them a handful of times, but the consistency and extra practice allowed me to learn more than the labs, quizzes, and readings. Another helpful aspect of this class is the class website because of calendar which allowed me to keep track of upcoming assignments which allowed me to prepare my week accordingly. I tend to make calendars like these on my own for all my classes so it is nice to have one made for all of us. The calendar helped my time management skills which in return led to me always turning in assignments on time and fully completed.