Activities

General Instructions

Activities are short and hands on. They focus on giving first-hand experience with some of the core course concepts. They are intended to be short hopefully taking only 5-10 minutes to complete, but several have additional things to try or other resources to look at if you are interested in doing so.

Groups You are welcome and even encouraged to complete activities in groups. Self-reflections (see below) should be completed on your own. But feel free to complete the activity with others and discuss it with them. Only one person in a group needs to do the steps, provided that everyone can see what is happening.

Questions Each activity has a set of questions at the end. The questions are intended to help you think about what happened in the activity and how it relates to the course. Some exam questions may be drawn from questions.

Self reflection

The purpose of a self-reflection is to think critically about a topic. Communicating through writing or speaking forces the brain to convert information stored in a non-linear form into a linear sentence structure form. Communication therefore forces you to think about the information a bit differently than you would if you were simply working alone.

For self reflection we are asking you to think about the activity you did and how it relates to you. Each activity has a set of guiding questions, but you are not limited to the list. You are welcome to talk about past experiences, how the activity changed your view, or even how you already knew all this information.

At minimum a self reflection should:

• Have three sentences
• Sound like the student engaged with the activity
• Show thought and reflection about the activity

Opinions about activity content

Several activities include lists of suggested sites to try, things to read, or things to try next. If you have a good suggestion about other things that should be on theses lists, feel free to post on Piazza under the activities tag. If appropriate, we may add your suggestions into the activity.

Extra activities

Extra activities start with an “E:” on the sidebar or “Extra:” in the activity title. These activities are there for those who want to try them. Their content will not appear on any exams.

Extra activities are usually added after the class has already started in response to questions the instructor is getting. So even though they are not graded or required, it is recommended that you complete extra activities on topics that you find confusing.