Participation & communication

Participation

This course will be quite hands-on (hands on keyboard specifically!). I know from experience how much faster people become comfortable with programming when they can practice with “training wheels” during class before they complete exercises on their own. As such, most “lecture” during class will be code-along, so that you can follow along with me on your own computer while I demonstrate concepts for the first time.

Participation may involve, but is not limited to:

  • Coding along with me
  • Answering poll questions to check your understanding and brainstorm new ideas
  • Group work to peer-review code and solve exercises

You are much more likely to succeed in independently applying concepts and skills on problem sets and your final project if you take advantage of participation opportunities during class. While participation will not be formally graded, because I don’t want you to feel like you must participate for the sake of participating, I hope you will participate for your own benefit, and for the benefit of your peers!

Communication with teaching team

I’m looking forward to getting to know you this semester!

Emails

When you email, please help me sort your email in my inbox by writing the subject line as “COURSE NUMBER: [topic of email].” I will try my best to respond to emails within 48 hours. Please note that I will not be able to respond to emails between 7pm-9am, or anytime on Sundays.

Office hours

I would love to chat with you during office hours–I can of course answer questions about problem sets and course content, but we can also talk about lab research, course planning, careers, and more.

Please book an appointment to my office hours using this appointment page. You can book appointments day-of. If it’s on the calendar, I’m available!

Finally, I know it can feel a little awkward to talk to your instructor, but I promise coming to office hours does NOT mean you’re in trouble.

Getting help with code

While we will work on troubleshooting/debugging skills throughout this class, sometimes you will still run into errors or other code issues while working your problem sets. That’s okay!

When you’re asking for help with code, please provide the following pieces of information, either via email or during office hours:

  • Which problem set question you’re working on
  • A conceptual description of what exactly isn’t working
  • The code that isn’t working
    • Include the relevant code either as text or as a screenshot
    • Clarify any variable names in the code that are specific to your data
    • If code fails with an error message, include the text of the error message
  • What you’ve tried already to solve this
    • If you tried solutions in any Stack Overflow posts, R user blogs, etc, include links to those pages
    • Include any solution code you tried, explaining variable names and including error messages if applicable

I will only be able to answer code questions if you can describe at least one thing you tried on your own to solve the issue. When you do this work beforehand, it helps me help you faster! And sometimes, writing out this information helps you discover the answer on your own.

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