Course Syllabus

Syllabus for UNIV-392/492, PSC-392/492, HNRS-392
Appropriate Technology the World’s People: Design
M, W, Meeting 4-5:30 PM, "Shop" Monday (6-9) or Tuesday (8-11)

Instructor: Pete Schwartz, Pete's Webpage, pschwart@calpoly.edu, x6-1220

Catalog Description:
Collaboratively explore technological solutions with a community member representing an underserved community... usually, but not always internationally.

The class has four education facets:
a) Reading, videos, and guest presentations
b) Class Discussions about the HW assignments and reading
c) Self interventions, explained below
d) Focus projects: website and class presentations.

Focus projects: Students will work in groups of 3-4 on a particular challenge faced by a participant community, with whom you will closely communicate.  This project is dedicated to coming up with a prototype and your final group presentation. We may not achieve what we set out to do and our project will be presented as a glorious success, or a glorious failure. You will learn a considerable amount as a group and teach the class something interesting. You will provide direction for future projects, whether you advise to continue in a certain direction or to abandon the project. Your grade is determined by your final presentation (weekly presentations are to practice and learn, but are not graded) and website (evaluated after every presentation) about what you learned - not by the "success" of your prototype.

There are no required textbooks. We will read from a variety of documents posted on the main class website. In lieu of paying for a textbook, I ask each person to pay up to $50 toward their projects. However, we have funding for the class in case $50 presents a burden to you or if you spend more than that.

Assessments: Approximately once a week, we'll have a written assessment relating to previous material covered in readings, videos, discussions, and guest speakers.

Self-Intervention: We will study how people respond to change by looking at our own response to change. We will  have 5 week-long interventions - due midnight, Friday of even-numbered weeks.  An intervention should test your ability to adapt to change. It should be something that at first you say, "I can't do that because I....", and then are able to reformat the statement to, "what would have to change for this to happen?"  Successfully completing an intervention requires only that you log a statement about about your experience.

Final Class Presentation: During exam week, each student group will make a 10-minute presentation to the class on their innovative experience with the focus community.  This event is usually a potluck dinner, friends invited.

Is your group working well together? After each presentation, your group will send me a short statement about how you are working as a group... or you can each send me a separate statement.

Grades
I think that society's pursuit of excellence is unhealthy and breeds a host of social ills. Rather than "excellence", we will emphasize "goodness", and that our level of achievement be "good enough". This class will require a considerable amount of teamwork, reading, class participation, and building. Lack of technical background is not a handicap. Effort and enthusiasm will be rewarded on several levels. You will be graded on the following rubric:

(1) Website: Your website will be informative and personable. I will give you feedback on the website and you will make the appropriate changes and move my feedback to the bottom of the website responding to each of my feedback statements indicating what you did. You will likely find it a good idea to make the entry page of your website short and simple, and move details to other supporting pages.

(2) Group work: You will be a good group member. This does not imply that there should be no conflicts. In the past, we’ve had some wonderful group conflicts. We study the conflict like we study everything else and learn thereby. You are responsible to communicate with your group and meet the expectations that the group agrees upon. For example, you are accountable to your group to be at class, at "shop", and meetings outside of class. If something should prevent your participation, your group should be consulted. You may miss a class or have to leave early, or even miss your final presentation. It is nice if your group knows what's going on. In terms of how to get an "A" in the class, your obligation is not to me, but rather to your group. So if you say to me, "I'm out of town next week, I've passed it by my group and they know I'll be supporting the project fully." That's great. If your group doesn't know where you are during class... that's a problem.

(3) Participation: We will have class discussions, interventions, surveys, and videos. It is expected that you will participate and log your experiences during the interventions, whatever this experience may be. Your participation for interventions, surveys, readings, and videos is recorded. Video Participation is recorded through PlayPosit. Reading will be recorded through your participation on daily discussions.  If you do more than 85% of these activities, you will get full credit.

(4) Presentations: As stated above, your group will teach the class something interesting. You do not have to give a PowerPoint presentation, but many students do. I will make note of the following:

• You relate your experience
• You are knowledgeable about your topic
• You are organized and practiced
• You speak clearly and loudly
• You address the audience (not the instructor).
• The audience is not required to read more than a few words from your presentation. PLEASE don't put loads of text and lists on the slides.

(5) Assessments: Assessments are not graded competitively, and everyone can get an “A”. Your performance on these exams will demonstrate that you have done the readings, watched the assigned videos, and engaged in class discussions. The question I'm asking myself as I grade these is "was she here? was he paying attention?"

The above five criteria are very achievable, and I anticipate the majority of the grades will be “A”s as they have been so far. However, your final grade is not an average of these five achievements. Consequently, inadequate achievement in one category may result in a grade lower than an “A”.