ESE 4090-Systems Design for Social Good

Description

This 1-credit seminar course accompanies significant project or capstone work for students enrolled in the Systems Engineering for Social Good minor program by creating space for them to explore the social dimensions of engineering systems they are investigating.

The course meets for one hour weekly to discuss the social implications and challenges related to students’ project or capstone work. Parallel to this, students will be equipped with relevant skills through workshop-style content featuring a diverse range of academic and professional voices.

The course concludes with presentations and extended discussion on the social dimensions of student project or capstone work. Students complete a “capstone/project retrospective” as their final assessment detailing and evaluating the social impacts of their project work.

The course has (loosely) three sections:

I. Space-shaping & community building
II. Systems design and social good
III. Capstone/project focus.

Timings

• Class: TBD in TBD.

• Office hours: TBD.

Resources

The course will draw from many resources listed on Canvas and (to a more limited extent) in the course schedule above.

Safe + Brave

This is a discussion-based course where we will all commit to cultivating a safe and brave environment for all students to participate in. We use the five pillars of Arao and Clemens to frame what such a space consists of:

• “Controversy with civility” where varying opinions are accepted,

• “Owning intentions and impacts” in which participants acknowledge and discuss instances where a dialogue has affected the emotional well-being of another person,

• “Challenge by choice” where participants have an option to step in and out of challenging conversations,

• “Respect” where participants show respect for one another’s basic personhood,

• “No attacks” where participants agree not to intentionally inflict harm on one another.

You can also feel very free to call me out on words or actions that hinder these aims. Here is an anonymous google form where you can let me know about any concerns.

Assessment

• Mini-projects (25%)

  • • HCD Project Proposal (12.5%)

    • Causal Loop Diagram (12.5%)

• Participation (25%)

  • • preparing for and engaging in discussion (10%)

    • self-reflections (10%)

    • attendance (5%)

• Presentation (25%)

  • • during the weeks of 4/9 and 4/16

• Capstone/project retrospective (25%).

Completion:

• Missing one reflection won't impact your grade. After this point, each missed reflection counts as -1.5% up to -10%.

• Three unexplained class absences won't impact your grade. After this point, each unexplained absence counts as -1% up to -5%. 

Virtual testing: I will offer a virtual option for attending class, presentations, and other sharing moments in circumstances such as quarantine due to sickness or potential exposure to covid-19. It's helpful if these requests can be communicated with reasonable notice :-)

Late submission: Any deadlines are soft in the sense that work can still be submitted up to one hour after the deadline has passed but may receive a 10% scalar penalty (i.e. if you score 90% it may count as 81%).

Makeups: Because of the features above makeups are not a part of this course.

Resources

• Center for Socially Engaged Engineering and Design at UMich

Integrity

• Attempting to cheat in this course is unacceptable and will be strongly penalized. A first offense will be penalized with a zero grade on the relevant piece of assessment. A second offense will be penalized with an immediate fail grade.

• Collaboration is permitted (actually encouraged!) on homework assignments, however each student must write up solutions in their own words.  Please write the names of any other students you have collaborated with at the top of each assignment. Significant similarities between submissions from different students that fail to mention any collaboration counts as an act of cheating and will be penalized as such.

Other Information

• This is a 1 credit class.

• There is no online option for the class except as described above for assessment.

• Prerequisites: ESE 3590 - Signals, Data, and Social Good OR Permission of Instructor.

• Final letter grades will be distributed according to the scale A- 90%, B- 80%, C-70%, D-50%. There are no minuses in the course and pluses will be distributed at discretion of the instructor to recognize outstanding academic engagement and/or contributions to class community.

• Attendance to class or recitation is not required but, as with any advanced STEM class, will usually impact your learning. Notes from class will be posted each week.

• I encourage you to discuss with me, my department chair, or your academic advisor(s) about any concerns you have around classroom dynamics.

Relevant Policies

• In all academic work, the ideas and contributions of others (including generative artificial intelligence) must be appropriately acknowledged and work that is presented as original must be, in fact, original. You should familiarize yourself with the appropriate academic integrity policies of your academic program(s).

• Instructors expect to be evaluating your own independent thinking. While in this course you may use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, you should keep in mind that instructors expect to be evaluating your own independent thinking. Remember that AI-produced content is essentially crowd-sourced information and may or may not be accurate or appropriate—it is your responsibility to assess its credibility, relevance, and accuracy. Ultimately, you are the final author of any products of this class and are thus accountable for their accuracy, credibility, and rhetorical usages. In addition, it is ethically necessary to provide attribution for original thought by citing sources. Thus, whenever you use an AI tool to assist you, you must cite it, including the prompts used. Please follow the appropriate citation guidelines for citing GenAI tools in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian Style.

• Except as otherwise expressly authorized by the instructor or the university, students may not record, stream, reproduce, display, publish or further distribute any classroom activities or course materials. This includes lectures, class discussions, advising meetings, office hours, assessments, problems, answers, presentations, slides, screenshots or other materials presented as part of the course.  If a student with a disability wishes to request the use of assistive technology as a reasonable accommodation, the student must first contact the Office of Disability Resources to seek approval. If recording is permitted, unauthorized use or distribution of recordings is also prohibited.  

• WashU supports the right of all enrolled students to an equitable educational opportunity and strives to create an inclusive learning environment. In the event the physical or online environment results in barriers to your inclusion due to a disability, please contact WashU’s Disability Resources (DR) as soon as possible and engage in a process for determining and communicating reasonable accommodations. As soon as possible after receiving an accommodation from DR, send me your WashU Accommodation Letter. Remember that accommodations cannot be applied retroactively.

• If you are a victim of sexual discrimination, harassment or violence, we encourage you to speak with someone as soon as possible. Understand that if you choose to speak to your instructor, they must report your disclosure to their department chair, dean, or the Gender Equity and Title IX Compliance Officer, which may trigger an investigation into the incident. You may also reach out to the Relationship & Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) Center to discuss your rights and your options with individuals who are not mandatory reporters -- further resources are available here.

• To ensure that accommodations may be made for students who miss class, assignments, or exams to observe a religious holiday, you must me over email before the end of the third week of class, or as soon as possible if the holiday occurs during the first three weeks of the semester. For more information, please see the university's Religious Holiday Class Absence Policy.

• Before an emergency affects our class, students can take steps to be prepared by downloading the WashU SAFE App.  In addition, each classroom contains a “Quick Guide for Emergencies” near the door.

• WashU provides many resources to support services that address academic, personal, and professional needs.  You can explore resources that might help you here.