February 1, 2022 Lesson Plan

Quick Hello (2-3 min)

My name is Dan Libertz and I’ve been teaching/tutoring reading and writing since 2007. I’m excited to get to know all of you both virtually over Discord and also in your writing.

Quickly, let me show you how things work with our website, Blackboard, and Discord.

Since we are all on Discord, let’s just get right into that in case it is unfamiliar for anyone.

 

Discord, let’s just do that now (5 min)

It says "Discord" and there is the Discord logo

So, here we are, all on Discord. If you can, look at this lesson plan and the Discord screen simultaneously by playing with minimization to fit both on your screen.

A question, some initial ground rules, and a quick tutorial before we start.

To start, who has used Discord yet? Let’s do a quick poll right in Discord. Make sure you are in our text channel for today (# feb-1-2022) to see the poll. Instructions will be there.

As you noticed, today I moved you all into our voice channel under “Lessons” on the left menu bar. When we meet as a full class, always join that channel so you see and hear me as well as participate.

You should also be in the text channel for that day. Just join the date of the class so you can also have the option to participate via typing and also to do some activities that will require using the text channel (like the poll we just did).

You probably also notice the other categories besides Lessons.

There is also, at the top, “Resources.” I will put announcements there (will usually also email announcements–other than the one announcement I currently have on Blackboard, I won’t be posting announcements there). Only I can write in the announcements text channel, but you can read everything there.

Aside from announcements, there is a text channel for any questions. This is a great place to ask any questions, especially ones you think others in the class would benefit from. For any questions that are more private that you wouldn’t others to see, feel free to email it to me instead.

Finally, there is a voice channel for my office hours with you. Please feel free to join here for my scheduled office hours (see the syllabus) or when we have a schedule one-on-one meeting.

There is also “Response Post” for posts in response to readings and activities we do.

Discord is pretty intuitive. It has similar features to most messaging platforms (e.g., can use emojis, can @ other users). The voice channel might take some time to get familiar with (especially bouncing back and forth between text channel and video/voice), but it shouldn’t take too much time. For getting started, Discord has a great tutorial page; you could start with their “Discord Basics” page, for instance: Beginner’s Guide to Discord – Discord

A final note (for now) on Discord:

I would recommend changing your privacy settings. Here are three things to disable:

Go to settings and disable:

  • “Use data to improve Discord”
  • “Use data to customize my Discord”
  • “Allow Discord to track screen reader usage”

Since Discord has a free version, they make money off of selling your data to various companies. Discord, like other freemium platforms, is not always clear about what they do with your data. So, it can be a good idea is to just disable things that mention collecting data like these three settings.

I’ll say more about Blackboard and our course website when we get to the syllabus.

 

Attendance and Quick Intros (10 min)

Let me just go around and get your names. When I call out your name, I’ll follow up with the following:

  • What do you preferred to be called? (e.g., I prefer Professor Libertz or Dr. Libertz). If you want, you can share your pronouns but you should not feel like you have to.

For folks who already had a Discord account or who used a nickname when just starting their account for this class, I’ll want to mark down your real name so I can align it with the user name you have for your Discord account.

 

How do you make rice? (30 min)

Rice survey

Who doesn’t like breaking that ice? Let’s break it with rice. It is only one letter off from the word “‘ice,” so that’s something.

We are going to fill out a survey about rice (click here).

Let’s take some time to share how you responded in small groups (or just write in chat), especially how you (or your family, or a wider cultural background you have) typically prepares rice.

If doing groups, I will count you off and your corresponding number will be the Voice Channel you go to. When everyone is there, introduce yourself (again… gonna be a while before everyone knows who everyone is!). I’m going to try to do some quick analysis while you are talking with one another!

debriefing group discussions OR CHAT

This is a variation of an activity by Dr. Amber Spry, assistant professor of Politics & African + African American Studies at Brandeis University. The idea is that nearly the whole world eats rice (caveat, of course: some people don’t like it, some people might have an allergy or intolerance…still, pretty much all cultures do something with rice even if individuals might not like it or can’t eat it).

Seems simple enough. But we prepare, use, and enjoy rice A LOT of different ways. Dr. Spry is relating this to how our backgrounds and identities shape how we see the world. Cooking rice is not as simple as cooking rice. When we encounter rice, we encounter it in a very specific way and context – our backgrounds shape this seemingly “universal” food.

What did you all find out about each other and the rice you eat, make, and/or know about?

rice, Data, and writing

There is a lot we can learn from simultaneously reducing and generalizing human experience while also acknowledging the complexity that is missed by doing such a thing.

It can be helpful to be reductive, as it allows us to categorize and quantify information that can prepare that information in ways that can reveal patterns.

It can be harmful because it might be excluding certain kinds of human experience in ways that sustain or enhance oppressive systems.

This “helpful/harmful” tension is the central tension that we will explore in the course, especially in terms of how we can use writing to address this tension.

In some ways, this survey might produce some really great data that makes the argument for including many kinds of human experience. Rice seems simple but it isn’t! However, there are ways in which it is exclusionary. Did you notice any issues in how it was written? What do you think?

Also worth thinking about the kind of data.

  1. Categorical (e.g., types of food, gender identity, brands of clothing)
  2. Continuous (e.g., weight, time, distance)
  3. Discrete (e.g., number of rainy days in a year)
  4. Ordinal (e.g., low income/middle income/high income)
  5. Binary (e.g., yes/no)
  6. Qualitative (e.g., writing, speech, images, video, audio)

In the survey, I asked you about your favorite type of rice. This is categorical data. You can add them up to see how many people chose each one. However, you have to think about the assumptions behind your labeling–do these categories make sense? Is something left out?

I also asked you how long it took to prepare rice in minutes. This was continuous data–that is, there isn’t technically an end to it, there are many intervals in between each point (perhaps infinitely). Things to consider might be how to contextualize something like the mean–e.g., as a simple and probably impossible example, three people say 11.2 minutes, two people say 22.5 minutes, and 17 people say it takes exactly 38.0 minutes. The mean is 32.94 minutes. Are 5 out of 22 enough to be an outlier or no? How should you communicate that? Or, should you use median instead of mean, to have 38.0 minutes be the average instead? Should you communicate what you chose and why? Should we round it? To what place? Why?

When I asked about how many days per week you have rice, this was discrete data. It is not infinite in the way a continuous variable is, but there is number attached. Can be similar issues here, but when working with discrete variables, when communicating, you might want to consider rounding since it would be “unnatural” to talk about people eating rice for 2.3 days per week, or something like that. Would that be a true representation? (see here for more information on differences between continuous and discrete data). Limits in inferences, need larger samples, limits in ways you can visualize. Still, if that is the data, that is the data. Don’t turn discrete data into continuous data when it makes no sense to do so.

The question on what meal rice is typically served was ordinal. Ordinal data is like categorical data, but there is an order to it. Breakfast comes before lunch, lunch before dinner. Complications include how you might quantify. Would it make sense to say that the average person had rice at lunch.4 (as in, lunch coded as “2”)? Could it make sense to think about as time? Or is that misrepresentative? With particular kinds of ordinal data, things can get complicated– something like “low income, middle income, high income” could be tricky—how do you justify that categorization? Is it a fair to represent the data in these three groups?

Binary data is usually a ‘yes/no’ situation, but could include anything where there are only two choices.

Qualitative data is anything that is in language, symbols, sounds, etc. that don’t lend themselves well to easy quantification (though, such data can be “coded” based on a system of categorization based on analyst’s interpretations in order to quantify). As you might imagine, there are endless complexities in thinking about how to effectively and ethically analyze qualitative data (especially if you try to quantify it at all).

 

Intro to Course, Syllabus, Course Survey (10 min)

Okay, let’s talk through the syllabus. We will hit the highlights, I will not read it to you verbatim. I promise (mostly).

Want to talk about your survey responses, too:

Some folks mentioned financial hardship: I recommend seeking out help at the Dean of Students Page. You can find information on the Emergency Fund, Food Access, and other resources that can help folks struggling financially. Some also mentioned looking for jobs. I can’t say I know a ton under these current circumstances, but there is Baruch’s official jobs site for students (it has options for part-time work and other variables). I was also able to find something targeting Baruch students. Please let me know how I can help. I am genuinely interested in your success, whatever that looks like. So let me know how I can help. Also let me know if I missed something here as something you think should be addressed–I mostly keyed in on trends across responses, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth talking about other stuff. So let me know!!

I have a few other notes about survey results that I’d like to talk through now.

-Getting laptops: Technology Loan Program – Baruch Computing & Technology Center (cuny.edu)

-Rationale for not recording online synchronous sessions

-Participation (more on this on Thursday): always an option to “pass”, lots of private writing before talking, can participate by writing instead of speaking, often pairs and small groups before large group, etc.

-How we will meet for class

 

Grading Contract first draft (5-10 min)

Let’s go over the grading contract. Part of your homework for Thursday is to review it again and offer proposals for adjustments.

 

Response Post Parameters, Response Post 1, and Signing up for Response Posts (5-10 min)

Let’s take a moment to talk through where to find instructions on Response Posts, how to complete them, and then sign up for yours.

Complete this form to sign up for Response Posts. You are free to sign up for additional Response Posts now or later, but you might want to wait until after we finalize the Grading Contract on Thursday.

Next Time (2-5 min)