Winter 2023 Offerings:

SI 710-002: Educational Technology Futures (C. Brooks)

This course is a methods-based special topic seminar series for PhD students which investigates how the learning analytics methods of today will shape the educational technologies of tomorrow. Taught through a design fiction pedagogy, students will be responsible for understanding the workings and implications of one or more current day analytics methods and then extrapolating that into a creative design fiction narrative product where they imagine and detail the impact of that method on the systems (technological and social) of learning and education of the future. Students will be required to research and lead discussion of one or more technology methods during the course, and provide a forward-looking design fiction, justification for the fiction, and analytics methods primer as a final assignment. Students should expect to spend, on average, 9-12 hours per week on this course. 

Fall 2022 Offerings:

SI 710-076: Algorithms, Discrimination, and Justice (S. Schoenebeck)

The course will examine how algorithmic technologies can perpetuate discrimination against individuals and groups and will explore justice frameworks for combatting harms. Each week will cover a new module, ranging from policing to healthcare to influencers to crypto. Students will design their final deliverable with close advisement from the instructor.  

SI 710-127: Science of Science (M. Teplitskiy)

This seminar investigates how social and institutional factors affect scientific discovery and innovation more broadly. The readings will come from across the social sciences, particularly sociology and economics.