Assessment Plan

SLO (c): Solution Implementation

05/14/10

1. Student Learning Outcome: An ability to design, implement, and evaluate a computer-based system, process, component, or program to meet desired needs (focus on problem solving)

2. Evidence to be Used in the Assessment:

a. Student performance on a programming assignment or lab exam.

3. Assessment Dates Spring 2011, Fall 2012

4. Assessment Activities to be Performed, When and by Whom:

a. Compose a short programming problem in a lab exam format, designed to be read, analyzed, coded, and tested during a single lab meeting (75 minute), could be extended to a final exam time period (120 minutes). Question will be drawn from the curriculum of COMP 182 (data structures such as linked lists, BSTs, hash tables, and sorting algorithms), possibly 282 (graph algorithms). Exam will be administered to students currently enrolled in COMP 380 or 450. Students can code the solution using either C++ or Java (or other language if agreement is arranged in advance).

b. Create rubric for evaluation. Rubric may address evaluation of both objective and subjective programming performance.

c. Evaluate results. Exam will be designed so that solution correctness can be determined objectively. Evaluation of programming style and practices, if relevant, may require subjective evaluation by a small group of evaluators.

d. Prepare report.

e. Two candidate problems (others may be considered):

i. Command line driven expression evaluator using infix-to-postfix translation followed by postfix evaluation.

ii. ASCII version of a simple game such as 15 puzzle or tic-tac-toe.

For whatever problem is chosen, scope of assignment can be scaled by providing code skeletons or even completed methods that the student can then interface with.