Critical-Making-Syllabus

Spring 2024 Edition @ UCF

This project is maintained by AMSUCF

Exercise Thirteen: Lesson

Now that we are nearing the end of the semester and looking ahead towards future applications of our experiments, we’ll be engaging in a different type of “making”: designing a lesson plan. This week, you will be crafting a lesson of your own design that intentionally combines theory, practice, and reflection on process (or, as I’ve set it up throughout our semester, think/make/reflect). Choose any combination of the tools and types of making we’ve worked with, and feel free to add your own or remix: the focus is not on the tool-technology, but on the act of critical making, and the use of pedagogy to create a space for others to critique, reflect, and engage technology differently.

The Lesson Prompt

In this exercise, you will be revisiting a making practice and envisioning sharing it with future students or peers in an educational context. Build a single lesson to guide students through the process of critical making: consider readings, context, and structure. Consider drawing on the models in examples like the Digital Pedagogy collection we examined this week on Humanities Commons, as well as playful structures like that of The DataSitters Club discussed in this week’s interviews. As you write, include:

Note that our two examples above (Digital Pedagogy and DataSitters) use the two recommended platforms for sharing your lesson plan, Humanities Commons and GitHub Pages, respectively. Your post should include a link to your lesson with its embedded multimedia, and a brief reflection on your own process of designing the lesson and its visual communication structure.

Communities and Platforms

As discussed in this week’s video, you have several options for sharing your lesson plan: this can be both a way to think about pedagogy in the context of community and to add another tool to your making experience. Consider choosing a method that is associated with your primary research community - Humanities Commons is a transdisciplinary humanities space; while GitHub is more commonly used in digital media, data-driven work, and digital humanities contexts.

Screenshot

Alternatively, you can use your own hosting or a preferred platform from our previous methods to create your lesson: for instance, I’ve previously built Twine workshop materials and lesson plans using Twine itself, as that allows the source code to become part of the lesson. Select an approach that feels best for you and your goals.