Curriculum Review; Survey for the Alumni; Electives

01.Blogs :

Being part of the curriculum committee of the university is taking a lot of my time these days. We just had a presentation of the proposed core subjects to the University President. He was quite happy with it having a balance of Social Sciences, Humanities, Science and Technology, Philosophy and Theology subjects for all students.

On to our next task - review the professional subjects for each program offered. My task is to review the BSCS, BSIT and BSIM programs.

Last month, I ran an online survey for our BSCS alumni. The questions revolve around how they found the BSCS curriculum when they were students, what they want to improve, and so on.

Here's a summary of the results:

30 respondents, 93% are employed fulltime in an IT firm
The respondents were satisfied with the Computer Science program in terms of preparing them for a career and graduate school.
The respondents felt that the Computer Science program somewhat prepared them to apply computer science principles and concepts, use research methods, develop software, use/apply the scientific approach and critical thinking skills, work in teams, interact with people from diverse backgrounds and cultural perspectives, and express themselves in writing and oral communication.
In general, the respondents identified all the courses offered by the Computer Science program to be beneficial in terms of preparing them for a career. Among the different courses offered by AdDU, a majority identified to be very beneficial were:

Fundamental Computer Concepts
Object-Oriented Programming in C++
Object-Oriented Programming in Java
Basic Web Development
Web Database Development
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computer Networks
Organization of Databases
Systems Analysis and Design
Practicum
Independent Research

The topics that they wish AdDU offered as electives:

Multimedia Courses
Animation and Game Development
Robotics / Artificial Intelligence
Network and Computer Security
.NET technology
J2EE
Project Management

Most of their comments and suggestions centered on course content, instructional procedures and use of the laboratory. They felt that an in-depth coverage of theories and their practical applications is useful. They also suggested an open laboratory use.

So, based on the results, we are now looking at our curriculum and find out how we can address these suggestions.

Your thoughts?

posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 10:48 AM by dawn3a

# re: Curriculum Review; Survey for the Alumni; Electives @ Friday, February 16, 2007 12:21 AM

I actually suggested that teaching students the processes taking place behind a certain technology (in web development for example, the process behind processing requests from a browser and etc) would give them a more thorough understanding on the subject at hand. It would also influence their perspective on the subject and how they apply it in real world applications. Rather than just teaching them how to do something. Based on experience, this actually was more effective for me when I try to learn something new because I get to learn how it actually works. :D

bele04

# re: Curriculum Review; Survey for the Alumni; Electives @ Friday, February 16, 2007 8:32 PM

First, let me say, welcome back, Ma'am She! We missed you.

I have a some questions relating to curriculum.

First, how large a student population do you have? If you have a lot of students and they are allowed a number of electives, then you can open up a lot of electives and you can fill them without a problem.

Second, does ADDU offer different tracks or minors for the CS majors? I ask because our students are often lost when choosing electives. Tracks give them directions. We don't have any official tracks ourselves, but we're considering them. In lieu of tracks, though, there has to be some effort made to harmonize the electives, to at least group them into areas of interest. Within the electives themselves, it's important to show connections between topics, to take an integrative approach.

Finally, is your faculty comfortable in offering the requested subjects?

I don't know if that helped at all. These are the sorts of questions we ask when planning electives.

Didith

# re: Curriculum Review; Survey for the Alumni; Electives @ Friday, February 16, 2007 10:13 PM

Maam Didith! Thank you for the comments.

Population-wise, we think we can afford to offer 1-2 electives per semester only. But of course, we still have to study this thoroughly.

We are looking into the "tracks" that you mentioned when we started doing the review. Some students have expressed their interests like system administation, database administration, network security, software development, etc. and we don't think we are giving them the chance to hone their skills in those areas. I agree, we really have to harmonize the electives, if ever we decide to offer them at all.

The last question, that is easy to answer. NO. hahaha The curriculum review will actually help us identify our needs and how our faculty development funds will be spent - more efficiently. We have also tap industry practitioners who are willing to teach part-time, if ever. :)

Thank you so much. Your thoughts affirmed what I wanted to happen and it has motivated me even more.

dawn3a

03.UPDATE CALENDAR :

04.CATEGORIES :

06.Archives :

07.Subscriptions :