Syllabus

Educate the Future

(always subject to change)
NYU – Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)
Semester: Fall Session I 2016
Class: Monday 9AM to 11:55AM (weeks 1-12 Room 442 (conference room)
Instructor: Greg Dorsainville
Email: dorsag01@nyu.edu
Office Hours: TBD

Course Description

The Atlantic recently reported that although more students are graduating high school, “college-enrollment rates have actually decreased—and for the fourth straight year”, halting a trend of increasing higher education matriculation for four plus decades. What is going on? As education in the US experiences a shift from being perceived as the most obvious method of higher social mobility, the viability of Higher Education is in doubt. The product of Higher Education is ripe for upheaval with new thinking in the presence of the digital, mobile, and social media revolutions that have changed other industries.

This course will ask you to observe, imagine and create the vision of Higher Education, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years into the future. How will people learn? How will teachers teach? How will you measure your academic success? How will students connect to peers and experts? Who will be able to attend this future? Will higher ed be on your wrist or in a building or in Virtual Reality? Will education be gamified?

In our weekly conversation will invite diverse voices: educators helping to shape and improve education today, futurists, designers, and content creators. We will explore the current higher education landscape globally. We will rationalize the economic forces that support and change higher education. We will visualize education in terms of experience design, with the goal of improving the experience for the learner. We will discuss how our experiences have motivated our learning.

Classwork will be divided into reading articles about Higher Education, writing to synthesize understanding of complicated realities, identifying discrete problems, and designing prototypes to solve these problems. You will also have the opportunity to visit innovative learning spaces.  For your final, you will present experiences and prototypes that capture the essence of your vision of the future.

Schedule

Usual Session Format: Please arrive promptly at 9AM, when we will have a discussion about the preparation materials and forum conversation. Our guest speakers will begin fielding questions at 10:15 – 11AM. From 11-11:55 we will discuss a new skill and the assignment for next week.

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the forces that shape Higher Education
  • Learn how to use Design Thinking to shape solutions and create products
  • Understanding the importance of how your solution can be limited to or exclude certain users
  • Learn to create sketches, wireframes and mockups
  • Learn to use popular platforms to prototype ideas
  • Presenting  prototypes as solutions

Teaching Methodology

The ITP experience is marked by quick-prototyping and quick execution of ideas. As wonderful as this method is, in the environment of modern tech companies and group projects, product design is greatly improved by well-intentioned workflows. This is a discussion and real-world skills course. It will use methods of the active classroom to augment memorable learning. We will apply the shared lessons from the materials you consume outside of our classroom and discussions we have online and together to bring new solutions to higher education.

Course Mission

  • Survey the current issues Higher Education faces
  • Explore current innovations and solutions to these problems
  • Re-examine the need for Higher Education
  • Imagine the future demand for Higher education
  • Practice a Design Thinking Process for developing a impactful solutions (identify a Problem, Customer, End User, and solution).
  • Documenting the limits of a solution in terms of who it solves a problem for, and who it does not
  • Conducting user research
  • Understanding user needs to lead to better solutions

Grading

  • 20% On-time Attendance and In-Class Participation
  • 15% Forum activity
  • 35% Assignments
  • 30% Final Presentation

Assignments

Each class there will be Preparation materials and homework assignments. The preparation materials will help us dive quickly into discussing the day’s topic as well as prepping us for having deeper conversations with our guests.

Homework may include reading, watching videos, creating sketches, and completing projects. Feel free to collaborate with your classmates and work together on any assignment(s), but everyone must submit their own individual work and discuss any benefits you gained working together.

Class time is about discussion! We will spend each week discussing and critiquing the comments shared on the Class website and the out of class materials. Expect to be asked to discuss the preparation materials, your comments, your classmates comments and assignments. Some classes everyone may demonstrate their work, other classes only a few students will share, but always be prepared to do so. All of your work (sketches, code, prose) must be completed on time prior to class and documented on our online forum to share with me and your classmates. Please complete your assignments before Thursday evening giving me and your classmates time to read your thoughts.

Posts must be original (do not parrot your classmates) concise (one paragraph!!!) about insights from the assigned materials or relevant material you have found on the next class topic. I will read everything and often respond so again, complete them as early as you can.

Online Forum: Slack and WordPress

You are expected to participate in an online forum on the class site. You will be given access to a WordPress Site with permissions to:

  • make posts of original insights in preparation for each class
  • comment on your classmates’ posts
  • show your completed assignments

Posting for this class is key because I will be reading all your posts and comments to help foster the conversation in class with each other and our guests.

Kudos (digital awards) will be given for timely posting, commenting on posts, and completing (and analyzing) bonus material. The more kudos you have, the better. Think of them as feedback for your performance in the course.

We will also being using a Slack forum to improve communication and explore the many features this platform provides.

On posting privacy: Currently, all posts and comments made on Educate the Future are private to enrolled students and can only be seen when  logged in. After the course concludes, you will decide the status of your contributions: remain private within our ITP community or shared publicly to the outside world.

 

Learning Spaces

There is an abundance of innovative and alternative learning spaces all over the city. I am working on setting up tour dates for us to visit some of them. You will be required to go to at least one of these spaces and post about the experience in the online forum.

Final Presentation

In your presentation to the class and guests you will:

  • describe a particular problem in the future of Higher Education
  • who that problem affects
  • some feedback from a possible user about how the problem manifests itself
  • demonstrate your solution through sketches, paper prototypes and low fidelity mockups / prototypes
  • Show feedback from users on your ideas and how they shaped your final presentation
  • Describe personas that your solution does not solve problems for and how your solution can be changed to include them
  • How our discussed visions of the future play a part in the scope of your solution

Attendance & Participation

Attendance is mandatory. With our final class for presentations, we only have 6 times to discuss this large topic. Every class builds off the previous one so it is vital to be present for every lesson. Unexcused absences or habitual lateness will negatively impact your final grade for the class. If you are going to be late or absent, please email me in advance. If you have an emergency, please let me know as soon as you can.

Showing up on time, engaging in the class discussion, and offering advice and input during class is a major part of your grade. Participating in class is helpful for me to get to know you as an individual and keep track of your progress, but most importantly, it provides you and your classmates the opportunity to share failures, successes, and insights on the work you are doing.

Please turn in all assignments on time.

ASK QUESTIONS. Nothing says participation like a good question. And since there are no dumb questions, all question are good. So, please, ask questions.

You are expected to show your work in class when prompted. Explaining your work to other people is a great way to better understand the material and answer questions for yourself. Additionally, showing work you struggled with is a sign of useful failure,  an opportunity to learn.

Laptops

Lids down. Discussion and listening to your classmates is key to our and your success in this class, so please respect your fellow classmates and close your lid. Whenever classmates are presenting please keep your laptop closed.

Mobile Phones

Please put them on vibrate or turn them off before you come to class. If you have an emergency that requires you to answer your phone during class, please let me know me ahead of time or quietly step out of class to take the call.

Be respectful of each other.

Lets work to make this a space where we can speak freely.

I am here for you!

I am available through email, slack, FaceTime, Skype, Hangout, chat etc. Please reach out to me and I will make time to meet with you and discuss your concerns, ideas, and other floor troubles! Office Hours TBD.