Instructor: Pete Schwartz, Pete's Webpage, pschwart@calpoly.edu, Chris Nelson, 

Course Description:
An overview of international development, partnerships for development and appropriate design for sustainability. Besides academic work, students will work in teams with an international collaborator to address problems with social and technical solutions. Collaboration with mentors from the university, private sector, and nonprofits will serve to provide diverse background and project mentorship.

The class has four educational facets:
a) Reading and videos
b) Class Discussions, guest lectures and HW assignments
c) Focus projects and class presentations.

d) Periodic assessments about what we are learning.  There will be a 1-hour final assessment on the last day of class

Focus projects: Students will work in groups of 3-5 on a particular challenge faced by a collaborating community. This project will be the subject of the final group presentation, website, and descriptive video. It is important to understand we may not achieve what we set out to do in the beginning. We remember that there are “experts” in development (Like the World Bank), who have many “failures” in their history. Much of the “failures” could be attributed to not understanding the lives of the people the experts seek to help. We ask that we don’t try to help as much as to learn from the people we collaborate with in our community of interest. You will be graded on the quality of your engagement and presentations.

Class Presentation / Website: We will have 1 project presentations every class period near the beginning of the class. We will start on Thursday of Week #1 with group #1 and work down the list until we are at the bottom, and then start at the top again until the last day of class. Presentations later in the quarter may be longer, but should also just focus on the most recent progress. These don't count toward your grade, but serve to prepare you for your final presentation. Additionally, your website will be evaluated after midnight the evening of each presentation.

Final Class Presentation: During exam week, each student group will make a 10-15 minute presentation to the class. Please bring a dish to share and a place setting for yourself.  Bring a friend if you like. 

Class Preparation: To maximally benefit from the class, please do the readings and come to class ready to talk about them. Participation is verified via short reading quiz at the beginning of class, for which you must be present.  Readings and other resources are available via the course timeline (link on main class website). I reserve the right to update the assignment as late as 24 hours before class, so if you read ahead, please check the assignment again the evening before each class. Don’t read more than a week ahead.

Participation: My central priority in facilitating classes is to foster community.  My expectation is each of us will show up and be fully engaged in every class.  I understand that you might miss a class. However, if this happens, I expect that you will have notified your group mates and agreed how you will remain connected to the class and your project.  Attendance is part of your grade as described below.

Assessments: We may have a short assessment/group activity near the beginning of some classes that covers all previous information including preparation for that class. We will experiment with having these assessments be group assignments with your project group. These are not graded competitively, and the goal is to share thoughts and participate.

Website: Each group is responsible for setting up a website updating it after each presentation. For examples of websites, please see (and put appropriate links to) pages from past classes.

Self-Intervention: We will study how people respond to change by looking at our own response to change. You may do a personal intervention on your own or together with your group. We may do one as a class as well. 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 must (or can't) ....", and then are able to reformat the statement to, "what would have to change for this to happen?". Graded as part of participation.

Is your group working well together?: Within two days after each presentation, each group member will submit to me an Email stating if everyone in your group is doing their fair share, or if there’s problems, or if you’ve overcome some interesting challenge, or if you would like some help communicating, etc.

Financial costs: Some of the projects may require money. Providing the course material freely online saves students considerable textbook costs. Thus, we request that each student be responsible to fund the group project up to $50. If project costs are greater, or if for any reason funding the project presents a challenge, we do have an IRA (Instructionally-Related Activities) Appropriate Technology and People that can financially support the project if additional support is needed.

You will be graded on your

• class/activity attendance participation,
• your final presentation,
• your website/your video.
• Assessments

Grades
This class requires 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 (if you make me an editor) 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, 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 WeVideo. Reading will be recorded through your participation on daily discussions.  If you do more than 90% of these activities, you will get full credit.

Your grade will be limited by attendance:
A:

• Attendance to 85% of classes.  You are consistently engaged with class discussions.  If you’re sick, please let me know.  Video chat into class with someone in your group if you are able.
• 85% Reading (as indicated by quizzes)/ Video
• You do all the self interventions
• Productive project efforts and presentations
• Final assessment indicating you were present and attentive for the quarter.

A-: 80%

B+: 75%

B: 70%

B-: 60%

C+: 50%

C: 40%

C- 30%

D+ 20%

D: 10%

 

(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 fill the slides with text.

(5) Assessments: Assessments (including final essay assessment) 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”.  

You are graded for showing up for this class - physically and with your attention.  The average grade in this class is usually an A-, but is determined by reasonable achievement of the above 4 facets, through:
a) Your participation on the daily quizzes reflecting that you did the class preparation.  Preparation is to make us ready for class discussions, so do it before class.  Late participation will receive no credit.
b) Attendance: class, and final presentation.
c) Participation in Self Interventions.
d) Your project: Did your group function well?  Did everyone cooperate and do their share of the work? Did you learn something and share it with the class through your presentations and your website?
e) Assessment including final essays on last class day.

 

Cell Phones

Unless you are video chatting a friend into class or doing a cell phone experiment, please don't have your cell phone accessible during class.  My intention is to respect you as adults.  For instance, you don't need to ask me to miss class or leave early or take a break.  However, cell phones are disruptive to what we're doing as a group.  Additionally studies show that your performance increases with the distance between you and you phone.  That is, students with their phones on their desk learn the least, better in your pocket, better still in your backpack, and best if outside of the room.  If you need to look at your phone, please leave the room with it - thanks.

 

On Pete and Cheating

I feel that the topic of cheating creates a wall between students and "learning facilitator" (me) - a wall that I feel impedes learning and harmony; a wall that I make great effort to disassemble. I think part of the tension involved in "academic honesty" is the moral emphasis. I mean to make no moral judgement - people have different ways of responding to an authoritarian learning system imposed upon them. What we call "cheating" might be an act of desperation, or rebellion against the hierarchy of education/success/wealth/status that a student may feel they don't buy into. 

So, I recognize the mere discussion of cheating damaging and counter productive. 

However, it is also important for me to be transparent about what you might expect based on what I have seen myself do. On three occasions, I found significant reason to believe a student cheated.  Consistent with university policy, I assigned an "F" and reported the event to the university. I requested that the student be spoken with, but that no disciplinary action be taken. The next quarter, I looked the students up... they were no longer enrolled.

Were these students expelled? Would I bet my life that they cheated? This haunts me a little.

While I don't wish to talk about cheating, I think that the very least I should do is report to you what I have seen myself do. However, if you have concerns about academic integrity, I will gladly discuss it and help where I can. I have spoken with students in the past who were cheating and wanted to stop.  It worked out well.  My interest is to work with you, not against you.

Please go to this website if you want more information on my thoughts about academic honesty.

 

Diversity, Inclusivity, Sustainability: Cal Poly's mission statement includes "...Cal Poly values free inquiry, cultural and intellectual diversity, mutual respect, civic engagement, and social and environmental responsibility." Issues of diversity, inclusivity, and environmental responsibility have recently taken on great importance, globally as well as at Cal Poly. As an instructor, I wish to nurture awareness of how our actions affect others, near and far. I strive to maintain a classroom environment in which meaningful dialogue and debate is encouraged. I welcome individuals of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, religious affiliations, abilities—and any other visible and non-visible differences. In any decision-making process, we will remind ourselves that our knowledge is not complete and that we can benefit from other perspectives that contrast our own. I believe that good problem solving is inclusive, requiring application of empathy, critical thinking, and ethics to all aspects of the problem-solving process. Lastly, I think it's our responsibility to make the world a happier place - all of us, all the time.