Seminar

Syllabus, Spring 2014
Meeting:  Mondays 10-12, Sem 2E 2105 & 2107

The seminar theme echoes the program and lecture series themes of creating innovative software. Most readings have been written and/or recommended by our speakers.

SOS students wanting credit for attending the lectures, but not doing seminar: see below.

Most readings will be pdf’s posted on the program web site, but we will also read 2 books:

  1. Nicholas Christakis and James H. Fowler. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives — How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do
  2. Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, paperback:  Publisher: Crown Business

Class meetings consist of guest lectures (Mondays 1:30-3) and seminar sessions (Monday 10-12).  In seminar, students will share responsibility for presenting and discussing concepts from both readings and lectures.  I will also ask students to facilitate seminars, and you are encouraged to find 1-2 others with whom you would like to do this.

On the first seminar (Monday, March 31), we will start (everyone!) at 10am to organize.  If we have more than 22 students in seminar, we will divide into two groups (A, B), with A meeting 10-11:30 and Group B 10:30-12.  I’ll be in seminar 10-12 each week:

  • 10-10:30 – i will get the 1st group started (half hour),
  • 10:30-11 – 1st group continues with facilitators, I get 2nd group started
  • 11-11:30 – 2nd group continues with facilitators, I finish up 1st group
  • 11:30-12 – i finish up 2nd group

Requirements for earning credit for seminar include:  attendance in seminar and at lectures, weekly one page page response writing on the week’s reading (due as hard copy in seminar and electronically to the Moodle by Monday 10am), comments on at least two other students’ writing (due to the Moodle by Thursday 3pm following seminar), and completion of a longer summative paper at the end of the quarter (if you do not do a project and hence a long project paper).

Students will be evaluated on the basis of their understanding of the program themes as evidenced by participation in seminar, the quality of their feedback to peers’ papers, the quality of their papers, and their facilitation of seminar (if they choose to do so, as I hope all of you will).

If faculty suspects students are not completing the reading, we may instigate short quizzes (2-3 questions) on the content of the readings (these can be fun!), and that will also be used as a basis for evaluation.

For weekly response writing, students can write on the question posted by faculty (on the program web site by the preceding Thursday 5pm), or on a question of their own making.  Papers should have the following format:

  • Top left corner:  Student Name, Week #, Due Date for this writing, and  date of submission (if different)
  • Top Middle:  question addressed (preferably in italics)
  • Body:  the paper itself, 11 or 12 pt font (10 pt Arial is ok), 1.5 line spacing.

See Seminar Readings and Writing for readings and writing assignment by week.

SOS students wanting credit for attending the lectures, but not doing seminar
Some SOS students cannot do seminar but want to participate in the lecture series and get credit for that.  to earn 2 credits for attending the lectures:

  1. See Judy at the lecture, and sign the roster demonstrating that you were there.
  2. If you miss a lecture, review the lecture notes (I will post these if I have permission from the speaker) and read one of the assigned papers for that week.
  3. Keep a journal of the lectures.  The journal should have 9 entries, one for each lecture.  Each entry should be a 300-500 (1 page max) “reflection” on the lecture.  Of course, you are welcome to do the assigned reading, and comment on that.
  4. Hand in your journal (email to Judy is OK) at the end of Weeks 5 and 10.