• The professor made the course more interesting than any previous professor I've had. I enjoyed the anecdotal facts and information that applied to the course material ... It also helped to reinforce the material. However, I am concerned about the course load, which made me feel like I didn't have the time to absorb all the material. At the same time, the project provided a nice opportunity to thoroughly understand how a computer works. But, I would have appreciated more feedback at each stage of the project.
• If this was not a required class, I wouldn't have taken it. I care nothing at all about the subject material--I think it is useless. There are several areas of focus for CS grad students and one of them is architecture. The ones that focus in the area of architecture are the ones who should have to take this class. Forcing the atrocity of this class on the rest of us is inexcusable. The argument that since this is an area of focus in the degree, this class should be required makes no sense. Machine learning is also an area of focus and there is no corresponding required class for that. Another comment is that the work load for this class is absolutely ridiculious. To the professor's credit, he did relax the requirements toward the end of the semester because of student complaints about the workload, but that was far too late for me--by that time I already hated this class and was completely not open to any of the material that was being taught. In the end, I am an applications programmer. I don't
• Professor Kaisler was an excellent and _extremely_ knowledgeable teacher. He as enthusiastic about the subject and lectured in a way that conveyed the course concepts clearly and effectively. I can easily say that I am very happy to have had Professor Kaisler for CS211. I can imagine learning as much as I did from any other instructor. That being said I did feel that the course load was a little too heavy. I would recommend eliminating the term paper requirement. The programming project took up a tremendous amount of time, while I did learn a great deal from the project, it did detract from my other classes. Additionally, professor Kaisler was slow to respond to email outside of class and despite requiring the term project to be turned in in phases, he provided no feedback to guide us in the next phase, or let us know if we were on the right track.
• As of a week before the end of class, Prof. Kaisler has not graded or given feedback on anything we have turned in. He is extremely knowledgeable in this field, but has re-organized the syllabus such that we have not learned anything useful. Most of the lecture time has been spent discussing computer systems from the 1960's, which is interesting but not the intended topic of this course.
• The project was too much work. I enjoyed the course though!
• The course was far more Java-intensive than the course description led me to believe. It would have been useful to receive feedback about each project before the next project was due. Please eliminate the team aspect of the programming project. This is a graduate-level evening course, and most students have very busy work schedules. Working with a team adds nothing to the learning experience, and the logistics are very difficult. Even if the scope of the project remained the same, it would take far less time if it were not necessary to try to work with teammates, even in the unusual situation where every team member actually pulls his own weight.
• This class's project forced me to learn a lot about a wide variety of topics. I am not sure that the project necessarily was focused as much as it should have been on Architecture. We did more assembly language programming and debugging than anything else. The workload for this class was far too high and there has been no feedback on assignments handed in throughout the semester. I believe this is a huge flaw in the course because feedback is one of the major things that students pay for in courses. With no feedback, we have no idea what we are doing right, wrong, or that should be done differently. Overall, this class has taught me more than most classes, however, I am not sure that it taught the things that it necessarily aimed to teach. Professor is clearly very knowledgeable, but should be careful about the tangents that he goes on during lectures.
• Dr Kaisler is possibly the best professor I have ever had (including undergrad and grad studies). His enthusiasm for the material makes the course extremely interesting. His knowledge of the material is complete, and his ability to relate the material to the students is excellent. I learned a great deal from him, and I feel that his unique approach of teaching has allowed me learn much more than an average class. I feel that I will be able to use the material he has taught me in my professional career. I really hope he will be teaching more classes, because I will take every one of them. Dr Kaisler interacts with the class every lecture, and constantly made sure we understood the concepts he was teaching us. I would rate the performance of Dr Kaisler as a 10/10.