Reading Apprenticeship Inspired Assignment or Lesson
Reading Apprenticeship Inspired Assignment or Lesson
The activity builds on the course’s focus on design as a problem-solving tool, equipping students with knowledge and skills to integrate emerging technologies into their future design projects. Additionally, stimulates entrepreneurial thinking and engages students in a quest to identify problems and strengthen their agency to propose innovative solutions that integrate contemporary technologies to address real-world issues. Additionally, the assignment supports the development of the Design Thinking framework, including ideation, user testing, and conducting iterations, in addition to pitching concepts. The paper is aligned with the course emphasis on equipping students for professional practice in the design field.
The assessment focuses on students' comprehension of the provided resources (articles) and using the anchor points to expand their reading and research to a wider variety of relevant and credible resources they should find and thoughtfully synthesize information, cite appropriately, and reflect on suggesting innovative products to solve existing problems they identify.
The assignment supports metacognitive awareness, helping students actively think about their learning processes, strengths, and areas for growth. Students were encouraged to plan, monitor, and evaluate their understanding and application of knowledge by working in teams to implement, evaluate, and present their creative concepts and engage in critiques.
The activity motivated self-reflection and goal setting, promoted active monitoring of learning through ting the research by creating innovative practical design solutions, and encouraged the evaluation and iteration approach to assess their work through user testing. Additionally, it allowed students to select a specific area of interest and provide solutions, thus promoting learning ownership.
The class meets in person for one hour and fifty minutes twice a week. The total project duration is eight weeks, structured as follows:
- Two weeks, conducting individual research and writing the paper,
- Four weeks, working in a team to identify one problem, brainstorm, and develop an innovative product (App with Augmented Reality feature) prototype.
- Two weeks, conducting user testing to get feedback, design iterations, and develop a presentation pitch video to present in class.
Assignment details, milestones, and submission examples are in the links below:
CST345 Visual Thinking: Writing Assignment and Assessment Rubric
Metacognitive Journal and Discussion Forum Assignment
Design Challenge Assignment Prompt and Milestones
Examples: Research Paper, Discussion Forum, Design Application - Concept Pitch
The Metacognitive Journal and Discussion Prompt is included below. Examples are modeled in class with a discussion of metacognition and what it means to "think about your thinking".
