Table of Contents

Course Info

CS111 is an introduction to the problem solving foundations of computer science. In this course, you will learn big ideas about solving problems, developing algorithms, and organizing programs.

These ideas include:

You will get hands-on experience with these ideas by reading, modifying, debugging, designing, writing, and testing Python programs. Example programs will involve text manipulation, Python graphics, music, simple data analysis, and working with files.

Problem solving and programming are skills best learned by doing, which is the motivation for hands-on lab sections:

CS111 is required for students who wish to major or minor in computer science or elect more advanced courses in the field. Consult Choosing an Introductory CS Course for more information.

Prerequisite: None. No prior computer science background is expected.

Distribution: Mathematical Modeling. Does not satisfy laboratory requirement.

Unit: 1.0

Learning Goals

The aim of this course is to enable students to solve various sorts of problems by writing programs that emphasize some of the big ideas listed above (namely, abstraction, modularity, strategies, and models). This course happens to use the Python programming language to explore these ideas. Although students will learn a lot about Python along the way, our focus is on the big ideas. Students will really be learning and practicing techniques for solving problems — techniques that apply to any programming language, and, indeed, to any discipline.

Students who complete this course should be able to:

General Policies

Responsibility for Course Material

This course has many different resources available to help you study, and we assume that students will engage with the resources that work best for their learning styles. However, when designing exams, we do assume that some resources will have been fully explored, and we also have some expectations for preparedness for each class meeting.

Accommodations and Disability

If you have a disability or condition, either long-term or temporary, and need reasonable academic adjustments in this course, please contact Disability Services to get a letter outlining your accommodation needs, and submit that letter to your instructor. You should request accommodations as early as possible in the semester, or before the semester begins, since some situations can require significant time for review and accommodation design. If you need immediate accommodations, please arrange to meet with one of us as soon as possible. If you are unsure but suspect you may have an undocumented need for accommodations, you are encouraged to contact Disability Services. They can provide assistance including screening and referral for assessments. Disability Services can be reached at disabilityservices@wellesley.edu, at 781-283-2434, by scheduling an appointment online, or by visiting their offices on the 3rd floor of Clapp Library, rooms 316 and 315.

We strive to be inclusive and provide an equitable learning opportunity for all in this class, and we believe that accommodations for disability make the class more fair, not less.

Collaboration Policy

We will do a lot of work in pairs in this class, including in lectures, in labs, and on projects. We have a pair programming guide that helps explain how pair work should happen and some of the reasons why we use it so much. However, collaboration outside of people you are working with directly on a team must be limited:

Collaborating on Exercises

As outlined above, we expect the following forms of collaboration when working on the weekly exercises:

Collaborating on Projects

Note: If you are looking for a partner to work with on a project, you can use this partner-finding spreadsheet.

All project tasks may be worked on individually, but are designed to be tackled by two people, and you will find that working together closely with a partner can be quite productive. We have some guidelines for partner work: you are not allowed to simply split the task into two parts and each do part of the task (neither of you would understand the entire task in that case).

You should write both partner's names on the "Authors:" row of your top-of-file information, and put the names of the people either of you consult with (including other classmates, tutors, and instructors) on the "Consulted:" row.

In partner work, each two-person team will create one or more solution files together for a task. Each team member will submit their own electronic copy of the solution files, and every member of a team should ideally submit identical files. Each member will be given the grade for the file they submit. (If the files aren't the same, the team members may receive different grades; it is your responsibility to communicate with your partner and make sure you each have a copy of the most up-to-date code to submit.)

Although you can work with the same partner on multiple tasks throughout the semester, we strongly encourage you to seek different partners for different tasks so that you get a better sense for the range of collaboration styles, and so you do not become too dependent on a particular partner.

All work by a team must be a true collaboration in which members actively work together on all parts of the task. It is not acceptable for team members to split up the task and work on parts independently. All programming should be done with both team members working at the same computer or remotely via a shared screen. Both team members must share the responsibility of "driving" (typing at the keyboard), swapping every so often. The only work that you may do alone is debugging code that you have written together and talking with the instructors and drop-in tutors (we understand that you may not both be able to attend drop-in hours at the same time, but when you attend drop-in hours and get help individually, it is your responsibility to explain what you learned to your partner and make sure they understand it).

Note that with COVID, there may be times when two people working at the same physical computer is not optimal. In these cases, we suggest the following alternative collaboration methods (pick one that works well for you):

  1. Remote pair programming. Using Zoom, it is possible for one member of a meeting to take control of the other's computer (the option to request remote control appears when someone is sharing their screen). You can therefore program together on one computer remotely. Remote control offers the advantage of easily supporting the driver/navigator model that is essential to pair programming because both partners can edit the code directly. One partner should open up a window with the particular task and then allow access to the remote partner to control that window. You can, of course, use screen sharing and discuss each task if you are uncomfortable with the remote control model. However, make sure that each partner has an opportunity to write code. This will likely require copy/pasting code back and forth or sharing/emailing python files, which is why we recommend the remote control model. Note that you cannot copy/paste code through Zoom chat, because copying from Zoom chat introduces invisible characters that will break the code.
  2. Independent work + verification. To ensure that each member of a team actually understands the full solution to a problem, if remote pair programming is not feasible (perhaps connections aren't good enough) you may work independently on a problem, and when you each have an attempt (they need not be working perfectly), you can come together to compare your code and discuss the differences between your attempts. This method of working together is more work than pair programming, but still offers some advantages over individual work, like the ability to discuss your solution in depth at the code level with another student and the opportunity to do debugging together.

Tutors

Tutors for this course are available to help you figure out the sticky parts of programming. They should help you polish your debugging skills and help spot tricky situations when you're stuck on an assignment. To ensure that your time and the tutor’s time is used efficiently, we have drafted the following policy that you should follow while interacting with tutors:

Faculty Responsibilities on Disclosures of Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct

Pursuant to Wellesley College policy, all employees, including faculty, are considered responsible employees. That means that any disclosure of discrimination, harassment, or sexual misconduct to a faculty member will need to be shared with the College's Director of Non-Discrimination Initiatives / Title IX and ADA / Section 504 Coordinator (see the Wellesley Title IX page for more info). Students who do not wish to have these issues disclosed to the College should speak with confidential resources who are the only offices at the College that do not have this same reporting obligation. On campus, confidential resources include Health Services (781-283-2810 available 24/7), the Stone Center Counseling Services (781-283-2839 available 24/7) and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (781-283-2685). You should assume that any person employed on campus outside of these three confidential offices has an obligation to share information with Wellesley College through the Office of Non-Discrimination Initiatives.

Graded Work

Getting Help

The CS111 staff expects that you will have some questions every week. You can see our whole team on the Instructors page, and see when we are available for help on the Drop-in Schedule page. We have a super talented crew of tutors who hold afternoon and evening drop-in hours (sometimes we refer to this as "help room"). You can also post a public or private question using Sakai.

Tips for your questions

Grading Philosophy

In CS111, we believe in both “growth mindset” and “mastery grading”. Growth mindset is the belief that individual attributes like talent can grow and develop through hard work, good strategies and constructive feedback. In contrast, a fixed mindset is the belief that human attributes such as intelligence cannot be changed. A growth mindset focuses on the incremental progress we all make as we learn new material.

In other words, you are not "good at" or "bad at" computer science, nor do you have a fixed "potential" as a computer scientist. You are "getting better at" computer science, and how much better you get over the course of this class, as well as what cool things you'll ultimately achieve in the long term, depends on how you spend your time.

Mastery grading is the teaching philosophy that articulates clear learning goals. Grading is based on the ability to master those goals. In CS111, we want to give students every opportunity to master the learning goals we set out for the course. Exercises, projects, and quizzes will offer multiple opportunities to complete learning goals through revisions and retakes. We want students to have the ability to continue to improve their knowledge of the material and to look at assignments as less of a judgement of their intellectual capacity and more as an opportunity to show the skills they have mastered.

For more information on both of these philosophies, please look at an article on mastery grading by Oscar Fernandez from Wellesley's math department.

Weekly Schedule

A graphical representation of weekly deadlines

During a typical CS111 week, you will complete exercises, quizzes, and one or more project tasks:

Holidays or other factors may create some deviations from this schedule, check the course schedule page for detailed deadlines.

For any and all deadlines, if you have extenuating circumstances, contact an instructor to request an extension. We also accept late make-up work for partial credit for exercises and project tasks (but not quizzes without an explicit arrangement).

Exercises

Exercises are small graded coding challenges that you will work on both in and outside of class. Both lectures and labs will typically have exercises associated with them, and there will be some extra exercises each week to be completed on your own. Exercises differ from ungraded coding examples that will sometimes be used in lecture to explain Python coding. Exercises and examples will appear in different notebooks to help you understand the distinction between them.

Use the schedule to access the exercise pages where you can find links to the code files that contain the exercises.

Submitting Exercises

Each exercise will come with testing code, and when you run the testing code, it will also submit the results to Potluck. You can resubmit as many times as you like until you get it right, and only your best submission will count for your grade. If you are working offline, this won't work, but you can still see any error messages produced by your code and can simply run the tests again later when you're online to submit then.

During this process, you will be asked to list the names of people in your group (since we will typically work in groups of 2-3 in both lectures and labs). Make sure to enter everyone's username correctly so that everyone gets credit. Please also remember to share your code with any partners you work with so that they can revisit it later (e.g., if they need to resubmit).

On the Potluck server near the top of the dashboard, an overview of submitted exercises will be shown; you can click to expand the individual exercise groups and see details of which ones you've completed or not. Your code must pass the associated tests to count as complete, although you will get partial credit if it passes some of them.

Your average score across all weekly exercises (in terms of % completed) is one portion of your grade (see the grade calculation section).

Projects

There are weekly projects in CS111. Projects will typically be due on Thursday at 11pm of each week and will come out the week before. You may work with a partner on projects, but you may only work with one partner in each week (see the project collaboration section for more details).

You will normally have a few choices each week about which task to work on, although in some weeks certain tasks may be required. Normally, your project grade for each week will be based on the best score you receive on a single task. But during some weeks, you may be required to complete more than one task. However, if you plan on being a CS major or minor and want to deepen your understanding of the material, you are encouraged to complete more than one task each week. Doing more than one task per week will prepare you for subsequent programming classes.

Task scores will be available via the Potluck submission server shortly after you submit a task, and you can re-submit as many times as you like until you are happy with your score. We will check whether your code works correctly, is properly documented, and is submitted to the server on time.

Each task within a project will come with a rubric that explains in detail how we will grade that task. The rubric has core goals and extra goals. The core goals are the concepts and tasks that we feel are most pivotal to your understanding of the project material. Extra goals are the concepts and tasks that provide additional learning and challenges beyond the basic material; the extra goals are not worth any points.

You can receive one of four scores on each task of each project task:

On top of the 100 coding points for a project task, there are 10 additional timeliness points for timely submission (so project task scores are based on a total of 110 points, not 100 points).

Some examples:

Note that you may submit a "revision" even if you didn't submit anything by the initial deadline (all you'll lose is 5 timeliness points). We strongly suggest that you take the time to submit a revision if you score 75/100 or lower on a task, in order to make sure that you understand the concepts from that task going forward.

If you know you will miss the initial deadline, you can take a 24-hour extension by requesting an extension (through the submission page) before the deadline. See the extension policy. Alternatively, you can still submit by the revision deadline for full credit minus 5 timeliness points, even if you do not have an initial submission.

Submitting Projects

Submission of projects in CS111 is entirely electronic.

Use Potluck for all actions involving projects: submitting initial and revised tasks, declaring a 24-hour initial submission extension, reviewing feedback on your submissions, and reviewing task solutions.

Quizzes

Quiz Philosophy

CS111 uses an approach to quizzes that may be unfamiliar to you. We use a mastery grading approach that is designed not just to assess your learning but to enhance your learning.

A study guide (with solutions) will be provided roughly once a week on topics covered that week in class. We strongly encourage you to review the study guide and solutions when preparing for the weekly quiz, and to have a filled-out copy of the study guide on hand as part of your notes when taking each quiz.

There are two versions of every quiz:

  1. The regular quiz (graded): This quiz is taken in Gradescope (see details below) and will generally test the material from the previous week's lectures + lab. You should also be nearing completion of that week's project by the time you take the quiz.

  2. The retake quiz (graded): This is a second graded version of the quiz, with the same learning goals. It is optional but we expect you to take it if you did not score well on the regular quiz, and it can be used to improve your score on the regular quiz in the week following the regular quiz. The regular quiz may highlight areas where your understanding could still be improved (see details below on Retaking Quizzes).

Quiz Mechanics

The regular and retake versions of a quiz are graded by the instructors. Quiz solutions will also be made available once grades are released.

Honor Code Policy

Quizzes are open-notes, but you may not consult other students or look things up on the internet during a quiz or retake, nor may you consult other students who have already taken the quiz. Using Thonny or a Jupyter notebook or anything that runs Python code is explicitly forbidden during quizzes and retakes. Doing so is considered an honor code violation.

You should not talk with other students about a quiz even after you have taken it and/or the deadline has passed, because they may not have taken it yet if they have an extension due to special circumstances. The instructors are happy to answer any questions you might have about quiz scores or other details.

Learning Goals

Each quiz will assess a series of learning goals to test students’ comprehension. Each question is designed to target one or more learning goals. Each quiz question will be labeled with the learning goal tested. Upon receiving feedback, we strongly suggest that students examine their performance on each learning goal so they have a complete understanding of what they know and what they need to improve on.

Retaking Quizzes

As indicated above, a week after taking a regular version of a quiz, students have the option to take a retake version of the quiz if they want to improve their understanding and/or score on the quiz.

In the retake quiz, students do not need to complete the entire quiz; they only need to complete the questions with the learning goals that they would like to improve. There is no grade penalty or grade limit for retake quizzes.

To illustrate: suppose that Wyeth Wellesley takes the regular version of Quiz 1 during the third week of classes. They are satisfied with their score on Question 2, but would like to improve their score on Questions 1 and 3. Before the next week's retake deadline, they can take Quiz 1 Retake, ignoring Question 2 and answering only Questions 1 and 3.

For each Quiz question your final score on that question will be the maximum of the two scores for that question across the two graded versions (regular and retake) of the quiz.

For example, suppose that on a regular version of a quiz, Wyeth scores 3 out of 8 points on Question 1, 11 out of 12 points on Question 2, and 8 out of 10 points on Question 3. On the retake of this quiz, Wyeth submits only Question 1 (earning 6 points) and Question 3 (earning 7 points), but does not submit Question 2 (earning 0 points). The following table shows the result of the maximization procedure for this quiz. Wyeth's final quiz score is 6 out of 8 points on Question 1, 11 out of 12 points on Question 2, and 8 out of 10 points on Question 3, for a total of 25 out of 30 points on the quiz.

Quiz Version Question 1 Score (max 8 points) Question 2 Score (max 12 points) Question 3 Score (max 10 points) Total (max 30 points)
Regular 3 11 8 22
Retake 6 0 7 13
Final Quiz Score 6 11 8 25

Note that the unit of maximization for a quiz is an entire question. If a question has subparts, you must submit all the subparts of that question on a retake if you want to improve your score on that question.

Exams

Exams are graded collectively by the CS111 instructors. Many questions require us to use judgement, and we do our best to be both consistent and fair. If you think we made a mistake grading your exam submit a regrade request in Gradescope.

You should not communicate with any other person about the contents of any CS111 exam before, during, or after taking it except CS111 instructors (again, your classmates may have extenuating circumstances that warrant taking the exam later than usual). Any violation of this policy will be brought before the Honor Code Council.

In-Class Midterm Exams

There will be two in-class midterm exams during lectures (see the Schedule for the exam date).

These are both pencil-and-paper exams; you are not allowed to use any computers or other electronic devices (including smartphones or tablets!).

This is an open-notes exam: you may bring with you any of your own notes, as well as hardcopies of any course materials from the semester. However, your time to consult notes during the exam will be limited, so we encourage you to make a one- or two-page summary of key notes you may want to consult as part of studying for the exam.

Final Project

Details of the final project will be announced later in the semester.

Extension Policy

General Policy

We recognize that this academic year is likely to be influenced by the ongoing COVID pandemic. We strongly encourage you to speak with any of the faculty for CS111 for any reason --- whether COVID-related or not --- that might inhibit you from successfully completing your coursework. We are empathetic to the many hardships that students will face as we learn together during this crisis. Do not hesitate to reach out!

Extension Policy for Exercises

If you need extra time to complete exercises, contact an instructor. You should be making some progress on the weekly exercises in lectures and labs each week and then finishing up any leftover exercises as homework.

Extension Policy for Projects

The initial submission for a project is typically due at 11pm Thursday with revisions typically due 5 days later (check the schedule. If you submit an attempt that receives at least "partially complete" before the initial deadline, you will receive 5 of the 10 timeliness points, and if you submit an attempt that receives at least "almost complete" any time before the end of the revision period, you will receive the other 5 timeliness points. During both periods, you may submit as many times as you like, with each submission replacing the previous one.

In any (or even every) week, you can declare an automatic 24-hour extension for the initial due date. In order to receive the extension, you must declare it via the Potluck submission server before the 11pm deadline. If you feel that you need more than an extra 24 hours, please contact one of the CS111 faculty members directly.

Taking the automatic extension for the initial deadline does not affect the revision deadline.

Grade Calculation

Your course grade will be based on the following components:

Your combined course grade must be at least 75% to pass the class.

Additionally, you must individually pass each of the six core components of this course (quizzes, projects, exercises, midterms, participation, final project), by earning 75% or more for that component (or 70%* or more for the midterms).

*You must score 70% or higher for at least one of the two midterms, but you don't have to do so for both. However, both midterms contribute together to your overall course grade, which as stated above must also be 75% to pass, so you cannot simply ignore the second midterm if you do well on the first one. We reserve the right to lower (but not raise) the percentage required to pass a midterm based on actual midterm performance if the midterm turns out to be more difficult than we intended.