Opt In: Collaborative Learning Opportunity for Design Exercises 9-12

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Design Challenge 2

For the Design Exercises 9-12, we are giving students the opportunity to be part of a collaborative learning opportunity. Students must opt-in: by agreeing to be part of option, students will be held responsible for strict deadlines twice a week. In return, they will receive the ability to work in a group to discuss their assignments (asynchronously).

Note: even if you want to opt out (i.e., not opt-in) you must complete CLO Survey: Opt in or out to the Collaborative Learning Opportunity - it does count as a class survey. You must register your choice by 2pm (an hour after class) on Monday, October 28th.

Note 2: even if you opt in, you still do all pieces independently - the “collaboration” is to share your work and receive feedback from other students.

Explanation

For the next 4 weeks, we will have Design Exercises (DE) as part of “Data Challenge 2” (See Design Challenge 2 - Overview). Every Friday, there is a design exercise due that will connect to the ATUS Data for 765-24 data set. (the Friday DE deadlines are “soft” - there is no penalty for turning things over the weekend)

For students who “Opt In” to the collaborative learning opportunity (CLO):

  1. We will place you in a Canvas discussion group with 3 others (4 total) all students who opted in. If we don’t get enough volunteers (a multiple of 4), we will do something else.

  2. Each week there will be a “design discussion” connected to the design exercise. The design discussion will involve a subset of the questions on the design exercise.

  3. CLO students must turn in an response to the 3 other initial postings by Wednesday. This will provide feedback that others can use to improve their designs (and you will receive feedback from those same 3 people).

Note: we intend for the amount of work to be the same. The Monday initial submission is turning in part of Friday’s assignment early - it’s just that you will feedback to learn from, and possibly improve your answer. The Wednesday reviews will also be “questions” on the week’s design assignment. It is slightly different work. The big difference is that the CLO has tight deadlines and the opportunity to work with other self-identified students.

The downside of opting in to the CLO is that you are agreeing to the hard deadlines. We will penalize you for missing the deadlines, as it impacts your groupmates. (you need to turn in your Monday assignment so that others can respond; you need to turn in your Wednesday responses so that others can use the feedback for the Friday (soft) deadline).

The upside is that you will get an opportunity for feedback and discussion with other students who are committed to feedback and discussion (because they have opted in). And, since it is a discussion, it provides an opportunity to earn discussion Kudos. It also provides a reason for you to do part of the assignment earlier in the week (if you like to spread your workload).

As an example of how this might look.

For Design Exercise 10: My Questions - Your Questions, one of the prompts (V1) asks you to make a visualization.

For students who opt-in to the CLO: For Monday, they must post a draft of their answer for V1 to a discussion group; for Wednesday, they must provide critiques for their 3 group mates as responses to the postings; and for Friday, they will upload their answer for V1 (which may have improved from the feedback) on the survey form.

For students who opt-out: On Monday, they will receieve 3 visualizations to critique (not necessarily from other students), on Friday they upload their answer for V1 and their 3 critiques as part of the DE survey form.

In the end, everyone does one design and wrote 3 critiques (which staff will look at for assessment).

Even if you opt in, you still do all pieces independently - the “collaboration” is to share your work and receive feedback from other students. You are welcome to discuss beyond the minimums in your groups (see Design Challenge 2 - Overview (A Note About Collaboration)).

Note: more details are available on Design Challenge 2 - Overview - originally, it was my intent to have everyone do this. But I decided to make it optional.

How might this affect grading?

Everyone gets graded the same: you turn in pretty much the same work, just at different times.

CLO students should be at an advantage because they have the feedback opportunity.

CLO students also have the opportunity to earn Kudos for writing great critiques. Everyone has the opportunity to be penalized for writing bad critiques.

CLO students will be penalized for not turning their assignments in ontime.

What you must do…

To summarize, if you opt-in, to the Collaborative Learning Opportunity (CLO) you are promising to:

  1. Turn in a draft of part of your Friday assignment by Monday
  2. Turn in responses to others by Wednesday (rather than responding to generic things by Friday)
  3. Live by this rigid schedule (with penalties) for 4 weeks

In return, you get timely feedback, connection to others, more opportunity to earn Kudos, etc.

Immediately (or soon): make your choice on the Canvas survey CLO Survey: Opt in or out to the Collaborative Learning Opportunity

Note even if you want to opt out (i.e., not opt-in) you must complete CLO Survey: Opt in or out to the Collaborative Learning Opportunity - it does count as a class survey. You must register your choice by 2pm (an hour after class) on Monday, October 28th.