E4: My Progress in Programming

13 Apr 2023

My programming skills have greatly improved in the following ways: I am able to reason through problems and think of solutions more quickly and easily. I have found that I am getting more used to the code so I can now mentally pull up what I need to do and the precise steps I can take to achieve that. I need to work on the following to improve my programming skills: I need to work on reading the manual and familiarizing myself with different basic Javascript functions since when we do new functions in class I’m always slightly confused because I’ve never seen or heard of them before. I also need to work on my logical thinking about I feel like I can tend to confuse myself trying to think of a solution so I need to be more forward-minded. I have learned a lot from doing WODs and I can do them without copying the screencast: I think the WODs have been the most helpful learning tool for me in this class so far because of how they challenge me to not only be able to do things on my own smoothly, but also explain exactly what I’m doing to show my understanding. During the later WODs when we did not have a screencast available to reference, it forced me to really go out and troubleshoot problems and do a lot of thinking on my own because I didn’t have anything to fall back on. The labs have help me learn and I am able to complete them with confidence: I sometimes feel like the labs are difficult and I do not feel fully ready to complete them on my own without assistance. I feel that I need to review the screencasts and lecture readings more carefully in order to do so. I learned a lot from my experience doing Assignment 1 and feel ready to work on Assignment 2: Assignment 1 taught me a lot, particularly the value of starting earlier so I can identify where I have problems and be able to ask Professor Port for help. However I am not sure that I feel ready to work on Assignment 2 at this point because it feels like there are unfamiliar concepts that we have to learn in order to properly execute the required tasks in Assignment 2. I think the class can be improved to help my learning in the following ways: I wish more labs were a bit more relevant to the Assignments (specifically 2) in this way, or we had some kind of WODs that were related to what Assignment 2 is. I would also like it if we could go a bit more quickly in class especially with the labs, as I tend to zone out sometimes when it gets slow if we are not actually doing anything (although I do recognize the importance of Professor Port explaining the concepts). What helps me the most in class are (WODs, Labs, class website, screencasts, readings, quizzes, one on one help, working with classmates, etc.): The WODs are very helpful because I am conceptually able to understand what it’s asking me to do and doing them repeatedly in order to ensure it’s under the Rx time has also helped me familiarize myself with the concepts and flow of everything. I also appreciate the one-on-one help from Professor Port, as I feel he is able to go more in depth on concepts that we were not able to cover in class. Working with classmates is also helpful because we can troubleshoot together if we may be experiencing the same problems.