Ways to improve the course

Changes to the structure of the course

• Allow more time for some things. Some or all of the following:
  • Cut out UD?
  • Compress first couple weeks (the "easy" parts)
• Put students in pairs for each language: especially if it means each pair has someone with Ling background and someone with CS background
• Allow people to choose a major language with Apertium / GT / previous Ling 073 resources to translate to/from?
  • Downside: they have to learn to deal with that other language (if it's not English or one they know), and don't have someone who's already an expert
• Hold consistent "lab hours" instead of just one-on-one office hours
• Have a [student] course assistant who can help in class and also hold consistent lab hours
• A little(?) additional explaining of each topic ahead(?) of time, structured by outlining both the linguistics and the computational resources, and explaining how they relate.
• More strongly discourage students from working on languages that don't have good amounts of text.
• Provide "simple exercises" to make sure people are on track after the introduction of a new topic.
• Invite Roberto for a class to guide people in finding resources for their languages. E.g., he presents for a bit, and then the students spend the rest of the class looking for resources, with him and the instructor and the course assistant available for consultation.

Additional resources to help students

• A one-page overview of "big picture" of the course. Like a more visual syllabus?
• A page that's just command reference
• A list of common errors and how to deal with them
• A page that's just links to resources for the various steps of the course