Hongxia Xiong

I took her class in Spring '06.

She teaches off of slides that are pretty much borrowed from other DS 412 lecturers/professors. Even so, she knows the material inside and out and was always able to answer all my questions about the content that day. Print out the slides and review them just a bit before coming to class... take notes on them if you need to.

I highly recommend taking her 4 hour class that meets one day a week. She gives you homework that doesn't get graded, but it is highly recommended that you at least try the problems out and ask questions about them during class or contact her via e-mail for it. This gives you more time to focus on other heavy-duty classes that involve graded homework or extensive group work.

Her handwriting on the board is legible but a little small, so it would really help a lot of you would try to sit up front.

The class size was fair at the start of the semester but it shrinked down by a fair amount.... which is good because now you can get your questions to her and have her answer them with enough time.

The textbook is pretty straight forward as well, i didn't really need to look in it as much though because her slides cover pretty much everything. Probably the only things that i needed to look at were a few formulas, definitions, and an example application of concepts here and there.

Xiong also does some in-class assignments once in a while where you're paired up with another classmate to work on a few small problems (3 or 4). These aren't graded, but they REALLY REALLY help you understand the material in the end. Keep the handouts she gives you, write notes and corrections on them as they serve as models for exam questions/problems.