Course Schedule

The class will average 10 hours per week. These hours need to be scheduled around the availability of the speakers and the also the other classes of the SLS students.

Proposal for schedule:

The SLS schedule does not seem to have a guaranteed lunch break that every student will have, but with so few SLS students it should be straightforward to pick a day where the class could meet over lunch. Ideally this day would be Friday, alleviating the need to meet Friday evening. The lengthier evening classes (to make up for the shorter meeting on the lunch day) could set for the nights when the guest speakers come in, to leave appropriate time for their presentations and then discussion.

According to the SLS students (as of Nov. 11 doodle) the following times are available:

Monday: 7:15-10pm

12-2pm (4 students unavailable)

Tuesday: 4-10pm

12-2pm (4 students unavailable)

Wednesday: no time all students available

7-10pm (1 student unavailable)

12-2pm (4 students unavailable)

Thursday: 7:15-10pm

12-2pm (4 students unavailable)

Friday: all afternoon & evening

12-2pm (4 students unavailable)

Group Work:

With four topics and our time constraints, it seems unfeasible to have all 20 students working on all four projects at once. Students will work in groups of 5 on a topic of their choice.

Question: will each student create a final project individually? will the group make a final project? will the final project be a paper or a presentation? how will we address Stanford and Harvard students having different times? (or leave it to the group to figure out) Thoughts: we want to encourage group discussion and collaboration; so if we have individual papers, there is a good chance all the papers will look very similar.

Timeline:

The course consists of three weeks, 14 days from January 4th to January 22nd. No classes will meet on January 18th.

Week One: days one and two are for introductions, with a quick review of background materials and the four topics in overview. The students will then present Pecha Kucha style, each having 6 minutes and 40 seconds to present 20 slides about their background, research and relevant interests. The third day will be the first speaker facing a difficult problem, and the rest of the week will be devoted to the creation, discussion and implementation of solutions.

Week Two: Week two is the only week where there will be two speakers, with two separate problems. These days will be decided on their schedules.

Week Three: The final speaker will come this week and the course will be wrapped up for the final four days with groups presenting their final draft solutions / presentations. If we have four groups each presenting, this fills four days, but not five. Potentially the course could meet 4 days a week for a longer period of time. Each group should tackle one problem, and the group with this Monday's problem should present Friday.