[sp23] mentor04: HOF/Recursion

[aaureliaw]

Overall:

• recursion problems were quite easy, and could be made a little harder
• the earlier questions were for content before the midterm; could have had more recursion problems
• no currying
• needs more recursion problems in general
• Recursion questions were standard and really good questions → good amount of difficulty, and both questions were substantially different from each other

Inception (Q1):

• Some JM's skipped this problem because of a mistake: version of the problem printed on worksheets was different
• Helpful problem and students wanted to finish it instead of moving on, but it was really long for a first problem and also confusing
• suggestion says it would be helpful if questions were shorter in terms of writing (maybe 4 frames max), instead of opening 6 frames at once—would be less confusing for students since it’s hard to understand when frames go all over the place and JM's have to write on 2 whiteboards
• IMPROVEMENT: Add line numbers especially because it's a lot of lambda functions
• IMPROVEMENT: Meta could have used a PythonTutor link for this problem

ABDE (Q2):

• Some JM's skipped because they opted to finish Q1 instead
• Took longer than expected
• Generally, students are kinda confused by the lambdas

Compound (Q3):

• 10-15 mins explaining what it is about
• Problem description is confusing
• Too difficult of a question; perhaps could be made easier
• This question seemed more advanced compared to the other two questions in HOF, especially since recursion is covered as well

Wrong Factorial (Q4):

• Nice that it covered the base case, subproblem, and calling the function on a smaller argument
• Good overall

Num_Digits (Q5):

• This question was good; used digit manipulation and simpler recursion, which made for a good intro problem for recursion
• Good pacing