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2.10 Discussion Board IV: Connections (Required to earn certificate)
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For my cultural diversity/western civilization (humanities) course last semester, students had the option each week of posting to a padlet a link to a “21st century” connection to the reading from their own lives. This could be a link to a movie, TV show, famous figure, news article, etc.
So, for example, if we were reading about Socrates, they might post about a modern-day equivalent figure. I learned a lot and, most importantly, students were interested in talking about the posts in class discussions!
(image done with ChatGPT)
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- Since I am teaching Computer Science classes, which might get quite technical at times, I always try to find a story or analogy of a principle we learn in class that will, in easier terms, explain why that CS principle is so important. Example: In the Workstation Programming course that I instructed in Spring 2024, we learned that computers that do vectored input/output operations (that is, transferring data in large batches at once) are more time-efficient than linear/regular input/output operations (transferring 1 piece of data at a time). To explain why, I created illustrations showing a real-life analogy that shows the significance of vectored I/O over linear I/O.The definition of vectored I/O is at https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/02.html (you may disregard the technicalities) and the illustrations are taken from https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/03.html and https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/04.html: “Consider the route of some school bus in the morning: having the school bus pick up the kids from their homes, and, only after all the kids are on the bus, driving to the school is going to be considerably faster than picking up one kid, driving to the school and dropping the kid off at the school, picking up the next kid, and then driving to the school again, etc.”
- Since Computer Science, besides being technical at times, is also quite relevant and useful, even for those who aren’t pursuing a career directly related to Computer Science, students can associate some of the principles we study in class with their own practices and computer usage patterns. For example, the usefulness of a multi-tasking computer can be explained as follows: “Imagine you want to play a game on your computer (through an installed game application,) and, at the same time, listen to your favorite music (playing through a browser). If your computer isn’t capable of multitasking, this means you’ll need to choose which of the activities to do: either play a game or listen to music, but not both, since your computer is only capable of running one application/program at a time! However, if you have a computer with a multi-tasking operating system, you can do several activities at a time!” Using this sort of description of the idea of a multi-tasking operating system, a student will right away picture themselves in the described situation and mentally experience the challenge that the description mentions, therefore connecting the principle of multi-tasking to their personal life!
- To reinforce this approach of creating analogies, many homework questions I give to my students ask them to come up with and depict, in their own words, a real-life analogy that describes a specific concept we studied in class, and, using the analogy, describe why the concept is crucial or what significant effect it has on that area of computer science or a user’s experience of using a computer. I always enjoy reading the creative responses that students write and the various scenarios they illustrate, thereby showing that they deeply thought about the given concept and understood it!
- Since I am teaching Computer Science classes, which might get quite technical at times, I always try to find a story or analogy of a principle we learn in class that will, in easier terms, explain why that CS principle is so important. Example: In the Workstation Programming course that I instructed in Spring 2024, we learned that computers that do vectored input/output operations (that is, transferring data in large batches at once) are more time-efficient than linear/regular input/output operations (transferring 1 piece of data at a time). To explain why, I created illustrations showing a real-life analogy that shows the significance of vectored I/O over linear I/O.The definition of vectored I/O is at https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/02.html (you may disregard the technicalities) and the illustrations are taken from https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/03.html and https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~briskman/cisc/3350/lecture_notes/topic_06/04.html: “Consider the route of some school bus in the morning: having the school bus pick up the kids from their homes, and, only after all the kids are on the bus, driving to the school is going to be considerably faster than picking up one kid, driving to the school and dropping the kid off at the school, picking up the next kid, and then driving to the school again, etc.”
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As a linguistics and language professor, I think it is important for students to have a sense of the language they use in various contexts (past present and future). The course I often teach is LIN 110 The Structure of English, which explores that grammar (morphology and syntax) of various forms of English. The course problematizes the concept of there being a standard form of English and invites students to determine what the structure of their English looks like in the various contexts of their lives (home, friends, college, work) and how they feel about what they find. They due this through a variety of scaffolded activities, including ones in which they examine the structure of their English in an original narrative and in a piece of academic writing of their choice.
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