Syllabus

Learning to make and making to learn — situated in the Fimbel Maker & Innovation Lab, this course will challenge students to engage in both. A sequence of hands-on workshops on electronics basics and microcontroller programming will provide the surprisingly minimal level of comfort and background required to produce prototypes of interactive technology products. These tangible activities will be leveraged to prompt students to reflect on factors and strategies that impact effective learning. For example, programming a device to mimic a music box parallels the cycle of self-regulated learning, while building a greeter robot grounds discussion on the role of belongingness in a learning environment. No prior experience with electronics or computer science is assumed.

Contents

Schedule

Requirements

Title IX/Responsible Reporter

Audio/Visual Recording Policy

This course will engage you in reflection and discussion around topics from inclusive and effective pedagogy, including: self-efficacy, mindset, self-regulated learning, sense of belonging, active listening, emotional intelligence. To help prompt reflection around how you learn, you will work with tangible projects founded in basic electronics (circuits) and microcontroller programming (Arduino).

Schedule

The semester is broken into roughly two halves. During the first half, you will engage in the material through weekly reflections and design projects. For approximately the second half of the semester, you will pitch, design and develop a final interactive technology project. Your pitch process will include a 90 second “elevator pitch” as well as a written pitch document.

Part 1: Am I in a (dis)comfort zone?

Self-Efficacy & Mindset through Paper and Soft Circuits

Part 2: Am I up for the challenge?

Self-Regulated Learning through Arduino

Part 3: Is this for me?

Sense of Belonging through Woodworking

Part 4: Can I adapt?

Cognitive Flexibility & Feedback through new components & Elevator Pitches

Part 5: What could go wrong?

Emotional Intelligence through EmotoBots

Part 6: Project launch!

Resilience through a Final Project

Requirements

Because of the hands-on and discussion-based nature of this course, it will be hard to succeed without attending each meeting time, particularly during the first half of the course. If health & safety or extenuating circumstances result in your needing to miss some or all of a day, you remain responsible for any material or announcements covered in class. Your best strategy is to first check with a fellow student to see what you missed. Except in extraordinary situations, I will not be able to re-create class sessions for individual students.

For the first portion of the course, you will have short reflections and weekly tangible projects. You will conclude with a final project of your choosing.

Grading overview

Discussion and reflection (in-class) 12%

Independent reflections (written/spoken) 12%

Design projects 36%

Final project 40%

Logistics

You will submit all your work by creating a web site (you can choose any platform, such as a google site or wordpress).

Independent reflections

You will be given a prompt to reflect on how each topic factors into your own learning strategies and journey. After the first week, you can decide whether to engage in the reflection through a written process (2-3 paragraphs) or through a short video (1-3 minutes). Your reflections will be graded according to this rubric:

Design projects

Projects are a chance to experience and reflect on your learning process in a tangible way. You will demo your weekly tangible projects in class as well as document them on your web site. Your projects will be graded according to this rubric:

Final project

You will use the resources of the Fimbel Maker & Innovation Lab to complete a tangible interactive tech project. This final project will be graded on:

- (15%) Presentation of a 90-second elevator pitch
- (50%) Design, development and documentation of the project
- (35%) Final demo and reflection

I will use this rubric:

Attendance

As noted before, class attendance is extremely important due to the hands-on nature of the course. You are responsible for material presented in class and should be engaging in discussions. If you miss a class or part of a class, please ask a peer for notes and see me with any subsequent questions on covered material.

Lateness and Resubmission Policy

You can submit (or resubmit) reflections and design projects any time up until the last day of finals. That being said, be aware that it can be hard to catch up, and the schedule is there to provide a manageable pace. In addition, maintaining the same schedule as your peers will lead to building a community of learning as well as more effective support from the instructor and TAs.

Honor code

Mount Holyoke College is a community of students, faculty, staff, and administrators committed to free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge in the tradition of the liberal arts. The decision to join this academic community requires acceptance of special rights and responsibilities that are essential for its effective functioning and the realization of its mission. All members of the community share the responsibility to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity.

I expect all your work to abide by the MHC Honor Code: “I will honor myself, my fellow students, and Mount Holyoke College by acting responsibly, honestly, and respectfully in both my words and deeds.” Any work that does not will be reported to the Honor Code Council. For more detail on what constitutes an academic violation of the Honor Code, please see theStudent Accountability webpage.

Do:

Talk to your peers about the labs, projects and topics
Organize study groups
Consult other books or the internet for inspiration and clarifications
Ask the instructor or TA to help you find bugs in your code
Acknowledge peers or TA that you worked with for anything you turn in
Since I expect that you will use the internet heavily for tutorials from the “makerspace” community, you MUST acknowledge any tutorials/resources you consulted or followed for your projects by providing a list of URLs. If you used or adapted code, place a comment at the top with the source of the original code.

Don't

Submit work that isn't yours: it is against the honor code to have somebody else do work for you (including TAs or tutors) or to copy it from somewhere else (including books or the internet).

If you are at all unsure about what is acceptable, just ask!

Accommodations

Disability Services is the office on campus that determines academic accommodations for students with disabilities. If you need official accommodations through Disability Services, you have a right to have these met and kept confidential. Please contact Disability Services, located in Mary Lyon Hall 3rd Floor, at 413-538-2634 or disability-services@mtholyoke.edu. If you are eligible for academic accommodations, you will be provided with an accommodation letter. Once you receive your accommodation letter, I would like to meet with you and discuss these approved accommodations and our class. For more information on who might be eligible for accommodations and the application process please see the Disability Services website (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/disability-services).

Title IX/Responsible Reporter

If you or someone you know has been a victim of discrimination, harassment or violence based on sex or gender and you would like to talk to someone about our resources, please contact the Title IX Coordinator, Shannon Da Silva at titleixofficer@mtholyoke.edu.

As a faculty member, I am a responsible reporter for any information I learn that may be a violation of our Gender-based and Sexual Misconduct Policy. This means that I will need to share this information with our Title IX Coordinator, Shannon Da Silva. This could be anything related to sexual assault, dating violence, stalking or sex or gender-based harassment. If you are experiencing any of these things and you want to talk with someone who is not a responsible reporter, I can help direct you to private and confidential resources on campus (Counseling Service, Health Services, and Alcohol and Drug Awareness Project. These offices have a legal mandate for confidentiality. These offices are not required to turn over identifying information to the Title IX coordinator but may provide anonymous data to the Title IX coordinator for reporting requirements of the Clery Act).

Audio/Visual Recording Policy

To encourage active engagement and academic inquiry in the classroom, as well as to safeguard the privacy of students and faculty, no form of audio or visual recording in the classroom is permitted without explicit permission from the professor/instructor or without a letter from AccessAbility Services, signed by the faculty member, authorizing the recording as an accommodation. Authorized recordings may only be used by a student who has obtained permission and may not be shared or distributed for any reason. Violation of this policy is an infraction of the Mount Holyoke Honor Code and academic regulations and will result in disciplinary action.

Page updated

Report abuse