Parts of Class

Overview

This class has a lot of parts to it. There is a Weekly Rhythm so you can keep everything straight…

  • Class Meetings - (Monday/Wednesday) the class meets twice a week. Attendance is required. We’ll use class time for a mix of lectures (traditional professor monologues), discussions (in various group sizes), guest lectures, in-class exercises, and group activites. See Class Meetings (attendance policy) for more information.

  • In-Class Experiences - (Monday/Wednesday) these will be small exercises, done on paper, in many of the class periods. You must bring “drawing supplies” to class. You are required to turn in your work - we will only check that you’ve made a reasonable attempt. (check/no check/not turned in) See In Class Exercises for more information.

  • Readings - (Monday - but really continuously) Each week, there will be a list of things to read. Officially, the readings are due Monday (Wednesday class meetings and surveys may rely on them). See Readings

  • Seek-and-Finds - Each week you will be asked to find a visualization in response to a prompt. There will be an online discussion where students discuss what they’ve found. See Seek and Find for more information.

  • Thematic Discussions - Each week, there will be an online discussion realted to the week’s topic. Students are required to make an initial posting in response to a prompt, and then follow up with their classmates. The goal of these discussions are to get students to think about the topics covered in the readings/lecture. See Online Discussions for more information.

  • Design Exercises - Each week, there will be a design exercise due. These are assignments turned in online via Canvas. Some of these exercises will build into multi-week mini projects (a mini-project is a sequence of smaller design exercises).

  • Class Surveys - Each week, there will be one or two surveys. We distinguish content surveys from class surveys because the latter may be anonymous (most weeks). In many weeks, there will be one of each type of survey. Note that the surveys are required: even if it is anonymous, Canvas will tell us who has completed it. See Surveys

    • Content Survey - Each week, there will be a survey to allow you to reflect on the class content. This is more to get you to think than it is to “test” that you’ve done the reading and paid attention in class.
    • Class Surveys - These are either administrative (getting information from you) or feedback (getting anonymous tips on how class is going).

Details …

Class Meetings (attendance policy)

in Parts of Class

Class meets Monday and Wednesday, 11:00am-12:15 in Room 1221 Computer Sciences.

  1. Class attendance is required.
  2. If you are going to miss class, let us know (using the Missed Class Form). Letting us know afterwards is better than nothing. If you are sick, please do not come to class.
  3. Bring art supplies to class.
  4. If you miss an in-class experience, you’ve missed the experience. You cannot make it up.
  5. The slides are designed to be used as part of the lecture presentation - they may not make sense without watching the lecture.
  6. Please come on time.

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In Class Exercises

in Parts of Class
  1. In class experiences (generally pen and paper exercises) are required.
  2. We will (almost always) ask you to turn your paper in with your name and WiscID. Please follow instructions and write your name clearly so it’s easy for us to keep track of people.
  3. “Grading” is check/no-check/not-turned-in - we keep track of who did it. Generally, if you do something and turn it in then you get a check.
  4. Bring art supplies to class.
  5. If you miss an in-class experience, you’ve missed the experience. You cannot make it up.
  6. Do not game the system - cheating is academic misconduct.

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Readings

in Parts of Class

Each week, there is a reading assignment. These will be given to you as a page. You can see all of the weeks’ readings on one page at All Readings (but be warned… readings more than a week or two in the future are subject to change).

Readings are “due” on Monday - although there is nothing to turn in. However, the Surveys (due Monday) might refer to readings, and the Wednesday class may depend on the readings. Generally, these dependencies will be described in the reading descriptions.

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Online Discussions

in Parts of Class
  1. Each week there will be on online thematic discussion, with an initial posting required by Wednesday.
  2. Students are required to make an initial posting by the deadline, and encouraged to participate in a conversation online with their group.
  3. The discussions will stay open for a week beyond the initial postings so that students can continue the discussions.
  4. Initial postings and subsequent discussions will be evaluated separately.
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Seek and Find

in Parts of Class

Each week, there will be a “seek and find” assignment where you must find a visualization that connects to the class topic of the week (we will provide a prompt of what you must find). The idea is that we want you to identify real examples of where the concepts occur in practice. You must find and post an appropriate visualization, and answer a prompt.

Seek and finds are turned in as part of Canvas discussions. They are due on Friday each week. The discussions remain open, so that you can see what other people have found (and discuss them, if you like).

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Design Exercises

in Parts of Class

Each week, we will have a “design exercise” - where you turn something in (via Canvas).

In some weeks, these will be small “written” assignments (written in the sense that you turn something in, it might be a picture not a written document).

In some weeks, these will be larger multi-week “mini-projects” where you turn in a more substantial piece of work. For these projects, there will still be weekly handins. A “mini-project” is a series of design exercises, that end up with a bigger thing at the end.

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Surveys

in Parts of Class

Each week, there will be one or two surveys. These are Canvas “quizzes” (technically, they are surveys because Canvas does not grade them). We split them in two so we can keep them separate. Almost all weeks will have a “content” survey, and many weeks will have a class survey. Some of the class surveys may be anonymous.

  • Content Surveys will be questions about the material. They will be about material covered by the readings and the lectures. The primary purpose is for your self-assessment and reflection: the questions are a way for you to check if you were paying attention and getting the main points. Evaluation (us determining how much you learned) is not the main goal with these. We would prefer that we saw “honest wrong answers” (which would help us see concepts we need to reinforce) than dishonest wrong ones.

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