How the Course Works (10m)

 

COURSE ORGANIZATION

COURSE DESIGN 

This is a hybrid-online course. You are expected to keep up with the weekly requirements and deadlines. The plan is to release a week's content on the Friday before the week and have the deadlines be due the Monday after the week 10 days later.  In principle that means that on any given weekend you can be working ahead, or catching up as you need. On the first Monday after the material is released we will meet in person and go over the work for the week and address any educational issues that arise.

The modules are designed to be completed in order.

MODULE STRUCTURE

Modules are comprised of several repeating major components. Though some modules will have additional components, you will regularly see:

  1. Outro/Intro.  This will provide you with a summary of what happened the last week and introduce an overview of what is expected from you for the week including readings, lectures to view, quizzes, and discussions to contribute to.

  2. Lecture Videos.  These lectures are broken down into modular videos for each week's lesson.  We encourage you to watch the lectures and take notes just as if you were sitting in a face-to-face lecture hall.  Taking paper notes helps you to learn better and faster (summary Links to an external site., actual research Links to an external site.) Each video will be followed by an assessment that will have questions or exercises to encourage you to work with the information presented.  Some videos are lecture style.  Some videos are coding tutorials.  For the coding tutorials I recommend watching them on high-speed to get a sense for what is going on.  Then based on what the assessment is, go back to the video and follow what I am doing on your own computer, pausing and rewinding as necessary.

  3. Off-site tutorials.  We will also leverage some tutorial sites not on Canvas to help work with the technologies that we are introducing in an interactive way.

 

REQUIREMENTS

  1. Go through each element of the module in order.
  2. View the online lectures.  Ensure you have a high-quality reliable computer and network connection.  On most online video players it is possible to speed up, slow down and repeat playback to improve your learning experience.
  3. Complete the assessments associated with the lectures.
  4. Complete technical assignments that leverage the cumulative material presented up to that point.
  5. Complete peer review assignments designed to expose you to alternative approaches to assignments, foster creativity and to build rapport amongst your cohort.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

You need access to a personal computer (Mac or Windows or Linux - iPad is not okay - check with me) for major amounts of time for this course. You need Internet access for this course. You must be able to save word processing files in a .doc or .docx (Microsoft Word) or .pdf format for sharing and submitting files to the instructor. You are expected to have working knowledge and capability with your computer before entering this class.

Class information and announcements will be communicated through Canvas, slack and through your Westmont email address.