Research and other Scholarly Activity
My research focuses primarily on educational issues in computer science; I am particularly interested in issues related to teaching Computer Science Theory courses, such as identifying and correcting student misconceptions in these courses and also discovering concept inventories. I am also interested in more general issues involving the scaling of class sizes and making efficient use of resources for student learning.
In the past, my computer science research touched on computations on large datasets, machine learning, approximation algorithms, streaming algorithms, and data mining.
For access to my recently published research, please see
Michael Shindler's Google Scholar page.
Teaching
For every class I teach,
all students are responsible for all material and due dates in the class, even those that occur prior to their enrollment. If you are planning to add the class after day one, please contact me at the start of the quarter, preferably at the conclusion of the first lecture. You should plan to attend every lecture starting at day one, even if you are not yet enrolled. Students who are not enrolled may still submit assignments and take exams.
For the remainder of the 2025-26 school year and for the 2026-27 school year, I am tentatively set to teach the following courses. These courses will be offered on-campus and in-person.
Students should plan their schedules with the expectation that attendance at both lecture and discussion is required.
- Spring 2026:
- CompSci 162: Formal Languages and Automata
- Fall 2026:
- CompSci 161: Design and Analysis of Algorithms
- CompSci 260P: Algorithms
- Spring 2027:
- I&C SCI 46: Data Structure Implementation and Analysis
- CompSci 162: Formal Languages and Automata