At the start of the Spring 2021 quarter, it is important to recognize that this continues to be a trying time for all of us, in all areas of our lives – school being just one. Your safety and well-being (including mental and emotional well-being) are our highest priorities and we will try to be as flexible and adaptable as we can while moving through this academic quarter together.
This course has always had online sections – the main difference between this year and previous years is that the entire course will be uniformly online. For some of you this will be familiar, for others it will be new. We will be using a number of collaborative resources (Zoom, Piazza, etc) to help create an online course community and facilitate learning.
What is most important for your learning in this course is doing the assignments, of which there will be one assigned every week (and due the following week – see the course syllabus for details and policies). Necessary background for each assignment will be provided via pre-recorded lectures, course notes, and other resources as specified. The lectures will be a combination of long-format, traditional classroom lectures (recorded in class last year) and shorter, focused, tutorials. In addition, when each assignment is released, I will do a walkthrough of it on Zoom (which will be recorded). Online office hours (also through Zoom) throughout the week will be available for you to ask questions. You can also ask questions on Piazza.