Thursday, July 4, 2024

Creativity as expressed in HONR 176 final projects (summer/fall 2023 & spring 2024 edition)

I previously wrote about the creative ways learners in my spring 2020fall 2020spring and fall 2021spring 2022, and summer/fall 2022 and spring 2023 Honors College courses (HONR 296. now HONR 176) exhibited and documented their knowledge and understanding of the course's material. The course title is "Computer Science and Algorithms to Live By." The course final project, in summary, was to create a tangible artifact that recorded their responses to the course’s essential questions, as it related to their chosen major(s) and/or minor(s). In this post, I am showcasing the creativity of nineteen summer 2023, fall 2023, and spring 2024 learners who were willing for me to share their work.

I encourage you to read to the end of this post and click on all the thumbnail images and links to experience the full breadth of how these students understood computer science and algorithms to impact their current and future lives. In the interest of brevity, I have not provided any commentary about them, but rather have provided a brief description and an image or link for you to investigate further. They are listed in random order.


Evan Davis, being an architecture major, created a physical model to connect the ideas of this course to what he learned throughout his first-year studio. This is an example of a study model, which is a 3-D model made using simple materials to help visualize a more complicated idea. Through turning the antenna coming out the top of the computer, the words on the screen shift, revealing answers to all the course's essential questions.

Mang Lian created a slide show that connected architecture to algorithms. It helped him understand what a computer is and how you can see it through architecture as well.
Margaret Manning created a slide show that presented an algorithm of swallowing, and explained how algorithms and computers are related to the job of a speech-language pathologist.
Jenna Mathes created an algorithm that describes the steps needed to diagnose and treat an articulation disorder in a child. This is an extremely long process, but by breaking it down into a multi-step algorithm, she hopes to have simplified it, making it more digestible.

Clara Daugherty created a drawing that was meant to tie in many aspects talked about in class. As a hospitality major, she found it a little difficult but if you sit and look at it long enough, all questions of the course essential questions will be answered.

Abigail Denault, being a journalism major, responded to the course's essential questions in the format of a 12-page booklet, complete with a table of contents and cover.

Amelia Dorsey recorded a video answering questions about how algorithms are related to our lives.
Eli Germain created an infographic that describes ways in which algorithmic thinking can be applied to the strategies of modern board games. It describes four strategies based on algorithms and applies their structures to two popular board games--Catan and Ticket to Ride.
Sarah Olsen wrote a magazine article. In it she stated "Though simple in theory, algorithms and the computers that use them are often far from basic, and while many algorithms are observable in nature, many more are manufactured by humans in order to solve a specific problem."

Megan Pax created a set of art activity and project lesson plans designed for the middle school level that are based on the course's essential question. All components of lesson plans are included, such as objectives, standards, sequences, materials, references, and assessments.

Keegan Fontaine created a brief podcast in which three students discuss the course's essential questions, and how their lives relate to them.
Afton Vanek researched how algorithms will impact the future of art museums, especially with the popularity of artificial intelligence in the 21st century, and presented her responses in the format of an infographic.
Maurianna Manuel created a presentation that compared the widespread use of computer technology to the growing field of nursing and how the two work harmoniously together.

Mar Nester created this video as a crash-course about all of the topics we covered in this course.
Grace Provenzano explored the application of algorithms, math, and technology in an abstract and artistic manner in this video. Using the natural world as inspiration, it analyzes the impact increasing technological advances have made on our daily lives and environment.
Lindsey Thole applied an algorithmic approach to architectural design consisting of a repeating process of extrusion and subdivision.
Brooke Williams drew this picture of a brain, stating that a "brain is a computer that all of us have inside of us."

Lucas Moody  created a remake of a song  called "Can’t Stop Partying" by Weezer ft. Lil Wayne. It wraps up everything that he learned in the course through the lyrics.

Feona Dabson found it amazing and relaxing to make a song. In the lyrics, she highlights the way algorithms occur outside of the electronic world. The need to be efficient, limitations of memory, benefits of relaxation, strategic efforts, emotional side to our actions, all that jazz. She took this class and put it into a funky tune, stating that "her lyric video is very rudimentary and made to foster laughter."


So, there you have it. nineteen different responses to the same prompt. Leaving an assignment open (as opposed to strictly defined) provides the learner an opportunity to explore their passions, and thus they are likely to engage with the assignment more fully. It also makes the evaluation of the assignment a lot more interesting, since the submissions are not cookie cutters of each other, and I often learn something new as well. Learner-centered teaching for the win.

What interesting assignments have you had? Describe it in a comment below.

Image credits: All images and other media were provided by their creators.

No comments:

Post a Comment