Homeworks

Collaboration

• Collaboration is encouraged while thinking through the homeworks; you may wish to use the dedicated Wednesday evening meeting time for this purpose. Problems will take time to understand and solve, and you will benefit from developing ideas and solutions in small groups. 

• You must write your own solutions, and no collaboration is allowed while writing the solutions. Writing solutions on your own will cement understanding of the problem and demonstrate mastery of the solution. Looking at solutions from other students or any other source (including the web), or collaborating to write solutions, is considered a violation of the honor code. All suspected violations will be referred to the Honor Code Council. For more detail on what constitutes an academic violation of the Honor Code, please see the Student Accountability webpage.

Submission

• You must submit written homeworks through Gradescope. Refer to the Tools page for details.

Feedback and grading

• Homeworks are a chance for you to engage with the material and the process of learning as well as receive feedback. To this end, you will be evaluated on a mixture of self-assessment and reflection along with more traditional "grading" done as an audit by myself and/or the TAs.

• Each problem on the homework will be graded on a 3 point scale, analogous to the self-assessment rubric. The grade for the entire homework will be weighted with 75% calculated from the average of the problems and 25% from the quality of your self-assessment/reflection.

To receive any credit, you must include a self-assessment and reflection.
Click here to see a sample from a prior CS 312 submission.

• Self-assessment. Assess and reflect upon your submission. For each problem, you must:

  • Give yourself an assessment mark. (These are based on Mark Talbert’s EMRN rubric; here is a link to a flow chart illustration of the rubric).

    • E - (3 points) The work meets or exceeds the expectations of the assignment. Communication is clear and complete. Mastery of the concepts is evident. There are no non-trivial errors. This work could be used as a classroom example.

    • M - (2 points) Understanding of the concepts is evident through correct work and clear, audience-appropriate explanations. Some revision or expansion is needed, but no significant gaps or errors are present. No additional instruction on the concepts is needed.

    • R - (1 points) Partial understanding of the concepts is evident, but there are significant gaps that remain. Needs further work, more review, and/or improved explanations.

    • N/? - (0 points) Not enough information is present in the work to determine whether there is understanding of the concepts. The work is fragmentary of contains significant omissions. Or, there are too many issues to justify correcting each one. Or, no self-assessment was provided.

• Reflection. 

  • Provide a short and specific reflection as to why you earned your self-assessment mark, such as:

    • “In problem 2, I was confused by the definition of ….”, or

    • “For the proof of problem 1, I incorrectly assumed that …”, etc.

  • Note activities that contributed to your understanding of the content:

    • "In problem 3, I was very confused until I went back to the notes...", or

    • "I found that talking with peers in the class clarified that I did not have the correct definition for...", or

    • "In my original attempt, I would have assessed my work with an M. After reviewing the solutions and spending an evening digesting them, I revised my work. I feel confident that I deeply understand the problem now."

  • Ask specific questions that still remain, such as:

    • “Is this also a counterexample?” or

    • <circle a part of a proof you’re unsure of> “I didn’t know how to phrase this – how can I be more technically accurate?”

  • [Optional] Provide one hint for the problem (to your past self or future student).