This week’s WAC-friendly highlighted assignment
Professor: Becky Heritage
Course: Introduction to Interactive Media Technologies Design Process
Assignment (brief description): Essay 2
Students are to write an argumentative essay on how new technologies of communication have affected the way we live, think, and interact with one another. Several topics are given from which students can choose one or more topic(s) to focus on to make an argument on how specific technologies will affect a particular subculture/sub genre they choose to discuss.
What WAC principle(s) does this assignment exemplify?
– Clear and Detailed Instruction: One thing that stands out the most about this assignment is that the instructor has clearly laid out what students are expected to do to complete this assignment, including some tips that students can bear in mind as they compose their argumentative essay as instructed.
– Scaffolding and Minimal Marking: The instructor asks students to write an outline and a draft before they hand in their final draft, which invites students to polish their writing as well as their arguments. There seems to be an in-class discussion portion as well as a blog posting portion before and after they write their papers, which further shows the principle of “writing as process”. Moreover, the outline seems to be a process for the students to develop their ideas, while the first draft is a part where the instructor will provide appropriate feedback. This exemplifies the principle of minimal marking, in that not everything has to be marked with feedbacks, depending on the process and purpose of the assignment. The assignment is also thematically scaffolded, in that some of the issues that students are asked to discuss in their essay derive from the concepts that students had already been asked to respond to in previous classes.
– Learning (Technology) through Writing: As an introductory course into the field of interactive media technology, the course covers different technical aspects of the audio, visual, tactile, and interaction design. Considering the specificities of the course content, writing about technology in lieu of relevant current issues and future implications is a great way to not only improve their critical thinking skills in analyzing the uses of technology in life, but also deepen their understanding on the technological concepts covered in class.
How might this type of assignment be used in other courses across the curriculum?
Any courses in the School of Technology and Design could definitely benefit from the model that Professor Heritage has created with this assignment as a way to expand and deepen students’ grasp on the technical concepts that are covered in the course. However, bridging contemporary social issues and the course content is something that can be executed in different forms in any discipline, whether as case study or research paper type final projects or as preliminary research portion for a larger and more technologically in-depth projects.
