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CommunityData:Fall 2024: I 320S / I 320U: Topics in Social Informatics and User Experience Design: Online Communities
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== Case Discussion == Many of my courses rely heavily on the case study method. In these courses, your primary form of homework will be '''preparation for case discussion''' each day of class. In a case analysis discussion, students prepare by studying readings on an examle—perhaps up to 35 pages—about a community or organization and a challenging decision it faces. Pay close attention to readings marked as “[Case]” in the syllabus in order to prepare for the case. '''I will not cover case material in class or lecture.''' We will dive right into the case discussion at the beginning of class and I expect you to be prepared to participate in a critical discusion. Cases ask students to put themselves in the positions of individuals facing difficult situations to tease out the tensions and forces at play in the case and to construct — through group discussion — the broader lessons and takeaways. Cases are a wonderful way to connect the sometimes abstract concepts taught in many academic courses to real examples of the type of ambiguous situations that you will likely encounter in your career. Generally speaking, there are not right and wrong answers in cases. <span id="cold-calling-in-cases"></span> === Cold Calling in Cases === During the case analysis portion of class, I will lead a structured discussion in which we will systematically break down the problem situation and construct recommendations for the actors using the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method socratic method]. Some students are always more open and confident in speaking during open-ended class discussions than others. Therefore, in the interest of fairness, I will use a randomized system for choosing which student to call on when I ask these questions. This system is designed to ensure that every student is called on about the same number of times over the semester, and to avoid calling on the same student too frequently. Because I understand that cold calling can be terrifying for some students, I will be circulating a list of questions we will alongside the weekly announcements (i.e., at least 6 days in advance). I will only cold call to ask students for which you have time to prepare your answers. Although it is a very good idea to write out answers to these questions in advance, I will not collect these answers. You are welcome to work with other students to brainstorm possible answers. Although I may also ask questions that I do not distribute ahead of time, I will never cold call when asking these questions. I have written a computer program that will generate a random list of students each day and I will use this list to '''randomly''' cold call students in the class. To try to maintain balance in discussions, the program will try to ensure that everybody is cold called a similar number of times during the quarter by ''weighting'' in favor of people who have been called upon fewer times in the past. Although there is there always some chance that you will called upon next, you will become less likely to be called upon relative to your classmates each time you are called upon. <span id="rubric-for-case-discussion-answers"></span> === Rubric for Case Discussion Answers === Each time you are called upon randomly, I will assess your preparedness based on how you answer. I tend to do these assessments generously but I don't treat this as a "gimme" either. The rubic I will use for evaluating each answer you give is: * '''Engagement:''' Do you respond in a way that makes it clear that you have been following and engaged with the case discussion? * '''Preparedness:''' Does your answer demonstrate that you have prepared for the case? Have you clearly done the reading? * '''Fluency:''' Are you able to refer to relevant course concepts from lecture and the non-case material in framing your answers or opinions. Can you engage in synthesis using material we've covered? For every question answered during the year, I will assess readiness and participation as "GOOD", "SATISFACTORY", or "POOR", "NO MEANINGFUL ANSWER". These correspond to an A, B, C, or D on the undergraduate grade scale. I am generous and, in the past, the large majority of answers (~90%) have been assessed as GOOD. <span id="absence-from-class"></span> === Absence from Class === Although no part of your grade will be determined by attendance, attendance is important. Of course, if you do not attend class, it will be difficult for you to engage in case discussion at the same level of your classmates, and you will miss any reading quizzes. My cold calling algorithm will do everything it can to balance the number of questions asked of each students even if some folks are in class more often than others by calling on folks more when they are present. In the past, every students who attended the large majority of classes were able to participate on the same level of their classmates and had full credit for their case discussion assessment. <span id="overall-case-discussion-grade"></span> === Overall Case Discussion Grade === Final grades for are computed at the end of the final case using the following algorithm: # I compute the median number of questions that students were asked. Because the distribution is rather narrow, a majority of students in the class in the past were asked at least this many questions (typically around 2/3 of the class). # I will take everybody who has been answered the median number of questions or more and assess their grade to be the mean question assessment of the questions they were asked minus 0.2 points for every day they were absent from class when called upon (i.e., because they didn't answer when called upon despite being presenting the chat channel for remote classes or because they did not record themselves as absent for a face-to-face class). # Next, I identify the subset of remaining students who were asked fewer than the median number of questions and identify those that were simply "unlucky" (i.e., were they asked fewer questions ''not'' because they absent more often than their classmates). For all these students, we compute their grade in the same as described in (2) so that these students are in no way penalized. # For any remaining students, I compute average scores for as per (2) for any questions but assess students with no credit (0 points) for each question below the median. For example, if the class median were 3 questions and a student asked only 2 questions despite being "luckier" than their classmates (i.e., they missed so much class and even the weighting algorithm couldn't adjust things), I would assess students as a zero for 1/3 of their case participation grade and provide them with the assessment as per (2) for the two questions they did answer. In the past, the only students in this category have missed an extremely large number of class sessions. In the past, I have needed to modify the design of case discussions. For example, I have had to move synchronous case discussions into asynchronous conversations conducted online. In these cases, I will communicate an alternate system for discussion and assessment and use it to apply a proportional amount of individuals case discussion grade in the course. <span id="participation-rubric"></span>
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