Course Objectives

In CSE syllabi, course objectives are stated in terms of intended student learning outcomes; i.e., each objective is implicitly prefaced by "The student is expected to...". We use the following terminology to describe familiarity level (most to least) with respect to various kinds of material and procedures. A student who receives an "A" in a course should have met substantially all the objectives as stated, and a student who merely passes the course should have met all the objectives at least at the next lower familiarity level.

• Master means the student will be able to exhibit knowledge of the material and/or skill with the procedure, even in a new context, and even when not instructed to do so.

• Be familiar with means the student will be able to answer questions about the material and/or to use the procedure, even in a new context, when instructed to do so.

• Be exposed to means the student will have heard the term and/or seen the procedure, but may not be able to discuss or use it effectively without further instruction.

• Reading means the student will be able to recognize a syntactically and semantically well-formed instance of the notation, and to understand its meaning.

• Using means the student will be able to read the notation, and will be able to apply the understanding to perform some task.

• Writing means the student will be able to use the notation, and will be able to create new instances of it to perform some task.

Contributions to Program Outcomes and Criterion 3 Outcomes

Each syllabus also includes two tables, one summarizing the contributions that the course makes to achieving the various CSE program outcomes, and the other summarizing the contributions to achieving EC 2000 Criterion 3 outcomes. In both tables, we distinguish three levels of contribution (most to least).

• XXX means the substance of the EC2000 criterion or program outcome is a primary theme of the course; a significant fraction of course time (perhaps 3 weeks or more, often woven through the fabric of the course) is directly related to this criterion or outcome.

• XX means the substance of the EC2000 criterion or program outcome is a secondary theme of the course; a smaller fraction of course time (perhaps 1-2 weeks) is directly related to this criterion or outcome.

• X means the substance of the EC2000 criterion or program outcome is not a theme of the course, but it is still treated in the course a non-trivial way; a smaller fraction of course time (perhaps 1-2 hours) is directly related to this criterion or outcome.