Day 16

Today

• • Final project ideation and team formation

  • Get started on project proposal

For Next Time

• Data science feedback survey

  • YOGA phase 1

  • Finish project proposal

  • Read ThinkStats2 9.1 - 9.3 and complete DataScience16/ThinkStats2/chap09_companion_part1.ipynb (this companion is meant to be read and completed while you are doing the reading as opposed to after it.)

Small Group Discussion of YOGAs

Form small groups with people that you have historically *not* worked with.  A good group size is 3-4.  Within these groups, take turns sharing the goals from your YOGA.  When sharing these goals you want to make sure to communicate what the goal means specifically, how it is measurable, and why it is important to you.  When listening to the goals of others, you should feel free to ask questions to help better understand the learning goals of your peers.  Once everyone has had a chance to share their YOGA, you should take some time to pull out a few interesting similarities and/or differences between these YOGAs.  We will briefly share these with the rest of the class. [Timeline: 3 minutes per person per YOGA, 3 minutes for generalizable lessons, 5 minutes for sharing among groups, total: 20 minutes]

Project Ideation

In your same small group, write down 3-4 of your favorite project ideas on a post-it note (one per project).  Create a matrix that describes the alignment between each of these project ideas and your learning goals.  An example of this might look like is this (I used + to indicate that the learning goal and the project are well-aligned, - to indicate that they are not well-aligned, and ? to indicate that it was uncertain how well they were aligned).

Once everyone has done this, take turns describing your project ideas.  The goal of this activity should be to help shape / refine each others' ideas and to discuss the alignment with learning goals.  Interesting questions to probe during this session: project scope, feasibility, etc.  After having this group discussion, write down your top 2-3 ideas on post-its. [timeline: 3 minutes for writing down your own ideas, 15 minutes for group discussion, total: 18 minutes ]

Reading Faculty Proposed Projects

At this point, if you are one of the people that is interested in working with an Olin faculty advisor, you should check out the project descriptions.  I'll go ahead and start a cluster for each of these faculty members in the affinity grouping step we will do next.

Affinity Grouping

Next, we will try to cluster the project ideas together.  On the front whiteboard, place your post-its.  If you see two post-its that are related, move them closer together.  If a cluster starts to emerge, go ahead and circle it with a pen and write a descriptive name next to it.  If you really like someone's post-it, put a +1 next to it.  Once you've put all of your post-its on the board, take a look at other project ideas.  You should be aiming to find a cluster of ideas that you think it is interesting.  [timeline: 15 minutes for clustering / finding first affinity group]

Group Brainstorming

Interested students that congregate around a cluster will form a group for brainstorming.  You are not committing to this project topic yet, however, it should be one that you are seriously considering.  Once a group of students has coalesced, go ahead and find a corner of the room.  In this small group you should start sketching out what a project in this space might look like.  For instance, you may want to brainstorm on the following topics.

• What is the main idea of the project?

• What interesting design decisions might arise during the project?

  • What would an MVP be?  What would the stretch goals be?

  • How would would a project align (or not align) with various learning goals?

  • What would be the biggest risks / showstoppers for the project?

Once you have had a chance to do this brainstorming, we will do one more round of this activity.  Find another cluster you are interested in, and repeat the activity above. [timeline: 15 minutes for brainstorm 1, 5 minutes to find next affinity group, 15 minutes for brainstorm 2, total: 35 minutes]

Team Formation

Now, you will be forming your actual team.  Key criteria to consider for teaming: alignment of learning goals, interest in similar project topics, schedule / working style, etc.  [timeline: until the end of class, hopefully we will have at least 20 minutes]

Once you have found a team, use this spreadsheet to register your team / project topic.  If you are open to having another person join the team, please indicate that on the spreadsheet.  If you do not have a team, you can find one by either looking for openings on existing teams, or adding yourself to the looking for a team section of the spreadsheet.