CS H195 Project 1: Teaching Computing in Society

Table of Contents

  1. Timeline
  2. Overview
  3. Topic, Group, and Media Selection
    1. Pedagogy Resources
  4. Finalize Media Selection, Lesson Plan
  5. Activity Pilot and Finalized Writeup

Timeline

All due dates are 11:59pm PT on the day listed.

Assignment Component Due
Topic, Group, and Media Selection Thu 10/10
Lesson Plan, Finalized Media Selection Thu 10/17
Activity Pilot, Finalized Writeup Wed 10/23 (before discussion)

Overview

In this project, you get to design an H195 discussion! You will build a lesson plan for a 50-minute discussion and pilot the discussion with a “student group” of your choice. The discussion should engage critically with the social context of a particular computing technology or concept. We will provide resources on pedagogical practices.

Try to decide whom you will invite to the discussion before you pick your readings. This isn’t a hard requirement, but it will probably make it easier to have an impactful conversation.

You are encouraged to do this assignment in pairs.

Topic, Group, and Media Selection

The topic can be, broadly, anything that you are interested in as long as it has a computing component and a society component.

Some of the things that you shared at the beginning of the term in response to the question “What do you want to get out of this course?” might be good starting points.

  1. Submit the Google Document you will use for this project. This document will be used for all parts of the project, including the finalized writeup.
  • Make a copy of this google doc template,
  • Update the title to include your last name (and your partner’s if applicable),
  • Update permissions to enable comments by anyone in UC Berkeley, and
  • Submit a commentable link of your copy to bCourses.

  1. In your document, write a few sentences explaining your chosen computing topic and how you plan to draw a connection to society or identity concepts.

  2. Provide at least one possible form of media (reading, movie, video, tweet, etc.) your discussion participants will be expected to look at beforehand. You aren’t obligated to stick with the media you choose at this step – this is just to give me a sense of the direction you’re planning on going.

  3. Finally, we’ll provide a space for discussing everyone’s ideas in discussion! No formal prep for this is needed, just come to class with ideas :)

For example, if Ethan were to do this assignment, Ethan might design a discussion around FOSS (free and open-source software), covering its history and sustainability in capitalism, and select the core-js README by zloirock as a possible pre-reading. If you’re uncertain whether a topic would be a good fit, please ask!

Pedagogy Resources

Before designing your lesson plan, we suggest you read the following resources:

Finalize Media Selection, Lesson Plan

  1. Finalize Media Selection: Select and finalize 1-4 pieces of media that students should read/access prior to discussion that will situate your chosen technology or concept in the context of society. A good rule of thumb is that students should take about 1 hour total to read/access the media you provided. Add links to your media and citations to your document.

    The UC Berkeley library is a good source for accessing possible readings.

  2. Lesson Plan: Come up with a rough lesson plan that should last for about 50-minutes of discussion to engage the students critically with the social context and implications of your chosen topic.

    • If you can’t get your “student group” to meet for that long it can be shorter, but make a plan for at least 50 minutes. Write the rough lesson plan in your document.
    • We suggest listing 5 discussion questions—and, of this, note 3 that you would prioritize for the actual section.
    • In a discussion (particularly a sociotechnical one), 50 minutes of discussion should have more student-talking time than you-talking time. You won’t be lecturing at the students, so you mostly need to plan to have enough interesting questions such that your students will be talking for the majority of the 50 minutes!
    • As part of the lesson plan, we also suggest noting how you will foster discussion. You may want to pair people together, then reshuffle in the next round, decide when you want to gather everyone up together for a reflection, etc. Try out discussion techniques you’ve observed working in your courses!

Activity Pilot and Finalized Writeup

  1. Activity Pilot: Try your discussion out with 2-7 people! If you are in a pair, try with 3-7 people. Make sure to ask your students to look at the media beforehand - but make the discussion in such a way that they are still able to participate even if they did not look at the chosen media.

  2. Finalized Writeup: Then, complete a one-page writeup that consists of:

    • What the background of your students are as it relates to their interest/perspective on the content and how that impacted how you held discussion
      • We only care about background as far as it impacts how you chose to hold discussion with them. For example, if their political leaning, age, etc. impact how they might think about these topics that might be relevant to mention. As always, you don’t need to reveal anything you aren’t comfortable revealing.
      • ex. I held discussion with my parents and grandparents. My parents are [blah blah] and my grandparents are [blah]. None of them know very much about technology, but rely a lot on it for their news.
    • Your learning goal(s) for the activity
    • A reflection on the pilot: What went well, what can be improved. This should be the bulk of your writeup.

  3. In-class discussion: In class, we will ask you to talk briefly about your discussion and how it went. In this synopsis you should include:

    • What are the computing topic and social context you are exploring?
    • What are your readings, and why did you choose each reading?
    • How did the background of your students impact your choices with regard to how you ran discussion and what readings you chose?
    • How did the pilot go, and what would you change or improve as part of your discussion?
    • What were your takeaways on how you communicate from this project? This is supposed to be a casual but in-depth discussion with your peers. Focus less on what the instructors learn from this and more on what you want your peers to learn about what you did.