1. Not really attending
2. Key ideas are grasped.
3. Most of time ok. Sometimes can't understand
4. Lectures are really good. It's one of the best classes i have taken in NUS.

Making lectures available via webcast has a consequence of encouraging some students not to attend lectures. However, I am of the view that the benefits of giving students flexibility and to review lessons that they missed or are not clear about outweighs the cons of having lower lecture attendence. We are dealing with adults and not five-year-old kids. Students should have the flexibility to decide how they want to learn. Whenever possible, I will always try to arrange for webcasts for my classes. :-)

It's true that I speak somewhat fast at times. Will try my best to slow down -- and I actually I think I do and repeat myself a few times whenever I come to important concepts. Students please do not feel shy about interrupting me and asking questions during lecture if there's something that they miss and do not quite understand. I will not eat anyone. :-) Learning to speak up is important. Those who are confident in public will tend to do better in their future careers.

I already make clear at the beginning of the class that I will have a lot of problems pacing the class. As I mentioned, some will find the lectures too slow and some will them too fast. This is borne out in the comments above. I'm trying to strike a balance and so I think I will maintain the current pace, since going faster or slower is going to upset some people. :-(

Students who think the lectures are too fast can watch the lectures on webcast over again or come to office hours to clarify doubts. Students who think the lectures are too slow can consider skipping lectures and watching them at 2x speed over webcast. Be creative lah! :-)
 

I did provide the class with the past year midterms for practice before the midterm. Students can get the past year final exams from NUS Library. There are also a lot of practice questions in the text. Furthermore, students can also surf the web and try out the AI exam papers/homework from other universities. AIMA is a text that is commonly used by MANY schools.

I will try to speak a little slower and I will try to improve the colour scheme for the slides to make them clearer. Long sighted student should have told me that he/she cannot see! Discrimination is a very serious accusation that should not be thrown around lightly! :-) Will left students sit wherever they want during lecture. :-P

Smaller Tutorial classes is not possible unless the school assigns me more teaching support. I am handling everything from lectures to tutorials to grading for this class of 63 students. Yes, please complain at the final survey that will be conducted by the School at the end of the semester about tutorial class size. Maybe then I'd get TA support in future semesters. :-)

W.r.t. comment on examples, I believe the student is referring to tutorials. I actually have my examples in mind before the class starts, but sometimes students say something smart and it occurs to me on the spot that there might be a better way to explain something so I fumble a bit. Apologies. Usually happens only for the first tutorial. By the third tutorial, I would have ironed out all the bugs. :-)
 

As for proofs, that's not something that we are supposed to be covering in CS3243. That's the topic of CS1231. Students may wish to review their CS1231 notes. Mini-MCQ quiz is a great idea.... unfortunately, I don't have the resources to put up something like that. Will keep this idea in mind. Maybe someday we can work something out.
 

I'm glad most students enjoyed the mini-project. Let me get this clear: there is a GOOD reason for the Mini-Project and that's to MAKE the students learn alpha-beta. :-) For this reason, I cannot allow a free-for-all project and I cannot have the tank project before Breakthrough. Quite sure that all those who spent effort on the Mini-Project learnt their alpha-beta.  :-)

I cannot release the source code by the better teams. I cannot release source code period since this assignment is likely to be used again in future semesters. In any case, the learning value of the assignment is in the coding of MINIMAX and alpha-beta and the process of exploring the evaluation functions. Learning how to play Breakthrough well is pretty pointless.

Re: point about consideration for non-SoC students, I don't buy that non-SoC students have been disadvantaged in any way. There was a note in the FAQ on getting accounts on sunfire. Students who don't have access to sunfire should have informed me and I would have dealt with it. Students are also allowed to use C++ instead of Java to complete the assignment (and many did do so). It's true that those who use Java has some minor advantage because the GUI is only available in Java, but given that I have limited resources for this class, it is clearly better to provide tools that benefit a greater number of students. One student has been kind enough to contribute his C++ game driver. Students who want to use C++ in future semesters will therefore probably be better off.
 

Glad to know that most students think that questions are fair. Be prepared to see more of the same at the Finals.
 

Students who didn't do quite so well on the midterms, please don't worry too much. The midterms aren't worth all that much. If you put in the effort, it is possible to make up for it in the Finals. The Finals will be of the same standard as the midterms, so people who really know their stuff will be able to demonstrate convincingly that they are better than the other students, even if they had messed up on the midterms.

Re: point 6. There are many ways to prove things. Some things are proven with equations. Others can be proven with diagrams. There is no general answer to your question. It all depends on the actual statement that you are trying to prove.

As for the "I got question, but I'm shy to ask" problem, I don't really have a cure. Those who are truly shy can consider sending me anonymous emails via IVLE? I guess if it's anon, then I can't respond directly, so likely what I can do is to reply on the IVLE Forum or something. Generally, it will do students good to overcome their fear of public speaking. In life, those who can talk (or dare to talk) have a distinct advantage over the shy folks. You can either choose to learn how to speak up while you are in school, or you can choose to suffer when you go out to work. Your choice. Pick your poison.

Re: point 18 on understanding algorithms. Actually, understanding the key ideas is most important. To understand complicated algorithms, the easiest way is to simulate the algorithm. Come up with a simple example and run the algorithm on it. See how the data structures change and it should be clear after one or two examples, what's going on.
 

Re: claims that there are students who already know AI and therefore it's disadvantageous to the other students. One, I have no idea why students who already know AI are taking this class. Two, so what if they know some things already? I believe that it is possible for those who come to class not knowing a thing to catch up and be even better if they put in enough effort. Quit complaining lah. It's not going to change things and there's nothing the lecturer can do about it. Cannot possibly ask these folks, even if I can identify them, to erase their memories right?  If these students know more, it only means that they had spent the time and effort earlier learning the stuff. Good for them. You do the same, you'd be as good.

Sorry about the poor student who got intimated by Martin. I must admit I was pretty shocked myself when I saw him prancing among the audience like a talk show host. :-) Consolation: material on guest lecture will not appear on the Finals. That lecture was purely for your edification. I do not however renounce the right to set a question on applying CSPs to game scheduling.... as long as anyone who did not attend the guest lecture can be reasonably expected to solve the problem. :-P

Tutorial question modelled after midterm questions? You will see some tutorial questions in the future weeks that are past year Final exam questions. Fair enough? Again, I must emphasize that it is not possible to provide you with the entire of possible questions that can appear on the exams. Tutorial questions are chosen to illustrate specific teaching points for the class. Also, I only have one hour of tutorial a week and so I have to be judicious about what exactly is important and worth emphasizing. Students who want more practice questions can find them in the text and also on the websites of other schools that also use AIMA as the text.

Re: point 20. You bet I will try to set questions on the Final Exam that are pure application questions such that memorization cannot possibly help. People have to understand the concepts before they can solve the questions. Truthfully, the concepts that people need to understand for CS3243 are quite simple and shallow (I did tell you guys this at the first lecture did I not?). Nevertheless, they are very fundamental and they are the basis for more advance AI classes and for other Computer Science classes.

What classes do I teach? For now, the only class that is confirmed my baby for the next two or three years is CS1101S (Scheme). I suspect that this will be the first and last time that I will be teaching CS3243 for a while (but one never knows). My area of research is networking and distributed systems and it is very likely that I will be teaching CS2105 and CS3103 at some point in the future. I think I'm teaching CS1101S next semester (2007/2008 Semester 1). :-P