John M. Zelle, Ph.D.

Professor of Computer Science


Contact Information
Office
SC 353
Phone: (319) 352-8360
Fax: (319) 352-8606
Email address
john.zelle@wartburg.edu
Postal address
Department of Math/CS/Physics
Wartburg College
100 Wartburg Blvd.
Waverly, IA 50677

Class Schedule (Fall 2023)

CS 320 02 9:00 -- 10:05 MWF SC 345
CS 220 01 12:00--1:05 MWF SC 345
PHY 150 02 2:30 -- 3:35 MWF SC 244
CS 460 01 12:30 -- 2:30 TH SC 345

"Complete" Daily Schedule


Research

My current interests are mainly in the languages and environments used in computer science education. I am an advocate of extensive programming as a foundation of the CS curriculum. I am convinced that students learn better starting with very high-level, dynamically-typed, interactive language environments. At Wartburg, we use Python in our introductory (CS 1) course. If you are interested, check out my Teaching with Python page.

In a former life, I was an AI researcher. My work focused on combining explanation-based learning (EBL) and inductive logic programming (ILP) to learn search-control heuristics for knowledge-based systems expressed as definite-clause logic programs. Two specific applications of this framework are: dynamic optimization of Prolog programs (improving efficiency) and natural language acquisition (improving accuracy). For an in-depth look, see my machine learning publications.

For more info about me, including a complete list of publications, check out my vita (PDF).


Education


See also: