Parts of the course: Difference between revisions
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== Term Schedule == | == Term Schedule == | ||
The course begins by motivating the need for science as a means of understanding the world and then setting up the foundations for why we can even trust experimentation to begin with. {{Todo|Finish writing course narrative.}} | |||
=== 14 Week Term === | === 14 Week Term === | ||
Revision as of 14:50, 12 June 2023
| There is an example syllabus containing the core information necessary for running the course at UC Berkeley. It refers to several university specific policies that may not apply at other colleges. It also doesn't have any due dates or other information that needs to be updated every term. The example syllabus with placeholders for all those details can be found here. |
Weekly Schedule
| The core of the class is the collective learning in the discussion sections. It's important that as many of the students as possible watch the lectures before section so that all the students can start on the same page and elevate each other in their discussions. |
Each week covers two main topics. These are presented in a "flipped classroom" format where the students are first exposed to the content via a series of prerecorded lectures. The students then wrestle with the material more directly in discussion sections. These force the students to engage in active learning through a series of planned discussions and other activities that reveal new sides to the material not covered in the lectures. Each week closes with a "plenary" session where professors from different fields engage with the each other and the students in a more freeform discussion. The plenaries act as the capstone of the week, resolving several of the activities and drawing connections between the course topics as well as other disciplines.
Berkeley Schedule
The version of the course taught at UC Berkeley is the most "comprehensive." It presents the lectures with an online tool called PlayPosit. It has two discussion sections referred to as "labscussion" sections. The labscussions are lead by graduate student instructors and the plenaries are run by three professors from philosophy, social science, and the natural sciences.
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Other Schedule Variants
It may not always be possible to acquire the full course staff and number of instruction hours to needed to implement the Berkeley version of the course. There are several relatively simple changes that can be made to the course structure to accommodate this.
Less Class Time
Lots of universities offer only a handful of class schedule formats that typically add up to roughly three hours of instruction time. Given the choice of three 1 hour classes, two 1.5 hour classes, or one 3 hour class, it's easiest to adjust the course content to the two 1.5 hour classes that are primarily discussion based and not having a separate plenary session. Many of the discussions of held during section can be easily adjusted to be run by groups of professors from different fields instead of graduate student instructors.
Fewer Professors
| The UC Irvine variant of the course has been run with only one professor. The Harvard version has been run with two. |
Although the course benefits from the back-and-forth of a teaching staff from a diverse set of disciplines, it can be run by one professor as well. In these cases, it is okay to remove the separate plenary session and just have the professor run the discussion sections.
No Flipped Classroom
If you're unable to offer a flipped version of the course, you'll have to find some other way to introduce the content for the first time. This has most often been done with traditional lectures in place of the prerecorded ones. These can either be done as separate class periods from the discussion sections or by combining them. In the latter case, you'll have to pick and choose which activities from the discussion sections to keep to accommodate the reduced classroom instruction time.
Term Schedule
The course begins by motivating the need for science as a means of understanding the world and then setting up the foundations for why we can even trust experimentation to begin with.
| Finish writing course narrative. |