[server_bot]

Are you sure that you should be focusing on your lecture style/content?

I recently graduated from a top tier CS school that emphasizes systems programming (C/C++, OS concepts, embedded systems, etc) and found that the overwhelming majority of learning happens when working through implementations and actually writing code (10+ hrs/week). Lectures (2-3 hrs/week) are really just a supplemental overview of concepts, the quality of a course is largely a function of the quality/rigor of the projects – the exception may be courses for students new to CS, who need lectures to understand fundamentals.

Well designed projects with detailed writeups, built-in tests, and live scoreboards created an effective curriculum. As did factoring program performance (runtime, memory utilization, cycle count, etc) into the grade (in addition to correctness).

Really appreciate your willingness to take feedback and your desire to improve, especially given that you already have a wealth of experience. Your students are lucky to have you! Best of luck.

[geophile]

There were five lengthy assignments, three of which involved programming. I think that could be stepped up a little, but what I've already concluded I need more of next time is more rapid feedback through smaller, quicker assignments.

[makmanalp]

I want to second this idea - usually not getting feedback quickly is one way students don't realize how far behind they are. In this regard, I think it's worth it to take a look at your assignments and see how you can make them easier on you (e.g. an automated test suite / well defined inputs and outputs or goals that runs on shared infrastructure and unambiguously tests "works or not" goes a long way)

[bpye]

Even just splitting the longer assignments into distinct parts so that feedback could be attained part way through would help. That said, 5 for I assume one semester is still pretty good, at least compared to my experience where it would often be 1 or 2.