Assignments and Grading

Class Participation (10%)

as this course will involve a significant amount of in classroom discussion and several workshop activities, your participation will matter towards your final grade.

Assignment 1 (15%) [due 10/16/14 – assignment worksheet download]

Field Notes. For the first half of the term we will be collaborating as a class on a study of how people interact with ‘technology’ in public places. You’ll be keeping a field notebook. For this assignment, you will submit your typed and printed fieldnotes along with a one page analysis. The analysis should highlight a couple of main insights you gained from your observations and should also refer, in some form, to the methodological issues raised in lectures and readings in the first part of the course. I will be evaluating the notes themselves for how rich and extensive they are and how you’ve managed to generate (and distinguish between) descriptive and interpretive material.

[grading scale for assignment 1:
A = 13-15 points
A- = 11-12.99999 points
B+ = 9-10.9999 points
B = 7-8.9999 points
B- = 5-6.9999 points]

Assignment 2 (20%) [due 11/18/14 – assignment worksheet download]

Interviews. You will conduct 2 interviews. Each interview should be at least 30 minutes in length and on a topic of your choosing…see worksheet for further details.

[grading scale for assignment 2:
A+ = 18-20
A = 16-17.9999 points
A- = 14-15.9999 points
B+ = 12-13.9999 points
B = 10-11.9999 points
B- = 8-9.9999 points]

Final Project (55%) [due 12/18/14- assignment worksheet download]

Your final assignment is to carry out an independent research project of your own design using techniques learned in the course of the semester. See assignment worksheet for details.