Instructor: Todd Dole
Semester: Spring 2025
Meeting Times: MWF 9-9:50 AM
First Day of Class:January 13
Location: AH 204
Holidays / Breaks:January 20 (MLK Day), March 10-14 (Spring Break), April 18 (Easter)
Contact: todd.dole@hsutx.edu, Phone 325-670-1502, Office AH100
Monday and Wednesday: 2:30pm-4:30pm
Tuesday and Thursday: 9:00am-12:00pm
Other times by appointment.
Final Exams will be held from May 4-8.
An introduction to program design and development emphasizing problem analysis, logic tools, algorithm development, structured programming techniques, and documentation.
Material Used: Java: A Beginner's Guide Tenth Edition by Schildt and Coward
This course does not have a required textbook. This book is a helpful reference but purely optional.
| Week | Date | Topic | Lab/Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | January 13, 15, 17 | Introduction to the Course. Introduction to Java. Setting up the IDE |
Non-Graded Lab on Wednesday |
| 2 | January 22, 24 | Introduction to Variables. Basic Input and Output. Code Documentation. | Lab Friday. |
| 3 | January 27, 29, 31 | Basic Data Types, Basic Math Operators. Import. | Lab Wednesday |
| 4 | February 3, 5, 7 | Control Structures: if-else, switch | Lab Wednesday |
| 5 | February 10, 12, 14 | Control Structures: for, while, do-while, break, continue | Lab Wednesday |
| 6 | February 17, 19, 21 | String Functions and Manipulations | Lab Wednesday. Exam 1 Friday. |
| 7 | February 24, 26, 28 | Introduction to Classes, Functions/Methods | Lab Wednesday |
| 8 | March 3, 5, 7 | Parameters, Return Types | Lab 6 Wednesday |
| 9 | March 17, 19, 21 | A Light Introduction to Test Driven Development and Junit | Lab Wednesday |
| 10 | March 24, 26, 28 | Arrays | Lab Wednesday |
| 11 | March 31, April 2, 4 | Arrays: Continued | Lab Wednesday |
| 12 | April 7, 9, 11 | Exam Review and Exam | Exam 2 Wednesday |
| 13 | April 14, 16 | Sorting Algorithms | Lab Wednesday |
| 14 | April 21, 23, 25 | Working with Text Files | Lab Wednesday |
| 15 | April 28, 30, May 2 | Working with Text Files II | Lab Wednesday |
| 16 | May 5-8 | Final Exams |
Your grade in the course will be earned / calculated as follows:
A: 90-100
B: 80-89
C: 70-79
D: 60-69
F: 0-59
Lab sessions will take place every Wednesday, with additional lab time on some Fridays. These sessions will provide hands-on programming experience. Some weeks, there will be required pre-lab preparation. Lab session will sometimes include a peer review component, where students will have an opportunity to present their code to their peers and receive feedback.
All exams are comprehensive. The final exam will take place at the scheduled time during finals week. Exams will never be collaborative in nature, so receiving any form of assistance from anyone other than the instructor is a violation of the academic integrity policy. You may only use study aids during the exam if they are expressly allowed by the instructor for that particular exam.
An individual with a disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a “person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Any student with a documented disability may choose to seek accommodations. Eligible students seeking accommodation should contact the Director of Undergraduate Advising and Disabilities as soon as possible in the academic term (preferably during the first two weeks of a long semester) for which they are seeking accommodations. The director will prepare letters to appropriate faculty members concerning specific, reasonable academic adjustments for the student. The student is responsible for delivering accommodation letters and conferring with faculty members. Please refer to the most recent version of the Undergraduate Catalog for the complete policy. (Carol Krueger, Director of Undergraduate Advising and Disabilities, Office: Sandefer Memorial, 1st floor Academic Advising Center, Phone: 670-5867, Email: disabilityservices@hsutx.edu)
Peer-to-peer academic support (tutoring) is available for all undergraduate HSU students. The Academic Center for Enrichment (ACE) is open for virtual tutoring sessions via Zoom. To access instructions or make an appointment, open the ACE course on your Canvas dashboard. For additional information regarding academic support, contact the Advising Center at 325-670-1480 or tutoring@hsutx.edu.
In addition, all full or part-time students are eligible to receive free, confidential, and voluntary counseling services at HSU. Services include consultation, evaluation, counseling, and crisis support services for students facing issues impacting their overall well-being. To obtain any of these services, students may call The Office of Counseling Services at (325) 671-2272, email counseling@hsutx.edu, or begin the intake process by completing our online forms at https://www.hsutx.edu/intake.
Violations of academic integrity have been described to some degree in other sections of this syllabus. Cases of suspected academic dishonesty will be handled in accordance with university policies outlined in Undergraduate Catalog and in the Student Handbook. The current catalog prescribes that “no student who has violated the Academic Integrity Policy will be allowed to graduate from Hardin-Simmons University with honors.” Penalties will be assigned at the discretion of the instructor and typically range from failure on the assignment to failure of the course. A general rule-of-thumb is that a first offense (if not too major) will result in a zero on the assignment and a second offense will result in an F for the course. The current catalog states that an F earned in this way cannot be replaced by retaking the course.
There is an acceptable time and place to use large language models such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot. These tools may be used to help you learn, to answer questions you have about the algorithms or data structures we will cover, or to give you very broad help on lab assignments. However, it is never acceptable in this course to turn in work generated by AI, except for specific assignments which will be clearly designated by the instructor. This course is foundational to a career in the world of computer science. The goal of all lab assignments is for you to learn the material and skill necessary to succeed in the field. These are skills that in many cases you may have to demonstrate from memory in job interviews. Do not cut take shortcuts by having AI do the work for you. Students deemed to have turned in work generated by AI will be in violation of the Academic Integrity provisions listed above, with the same penalties.
The instructor may occasionally use email to communicate with the class as a whole or with individuals. When contacting you for this course the instructor will use your HSU email account. You are expected to check your HSU email account at least once per day and you will be held responsible for any content distributed in this way.
Regarding class attendance, the Undergraduate Catalog states:
Accordingly, absence from more than 25 percent of class meetings and/or laboratory sessions scheduled for a course (including absences because of athletic participation) is regarded as excessive, and a grade of F may be assigned as deemed appropriate by the professor.