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Instructor: Dr. So-Yeon Yoon
E-mail: sy492@cornell.edu  
Class time: 1:00pm-5:00pm

Course Description & Objectives

This course is intended to immerse the student in the act and art of academic communication. To that end, it is based not only on reading or gathering information about shared topics but also on a series of small/large group and individually assigned presentations. Each is an act intended to engage and inform the student as to a particular aspect or quality of academic communication.

In addition to the information exchange, the student is expected to learn important lessons about good storytelling -- how to start, organize and finish a story for various academic communication contexts.

At the beginning of every class, a topic from research areas of design/environmental analysis will be discussed and an assignment(s) will be provided. Each assignment will have a specific purpose behind it to advance knowledge and academic communication skill building, and one assignment will (eventually) build on the next. It is not intended that the student know in advance.

The purpose of this is threefold: 1) review and understand theories and empirical research in the given topic from environmental analysis, design and user experience in the fields of environmental psychology, environment and behavior, affective engineering, and human-computer interaction;
2) to develop effective presentation and discussion skills for international scholarly meetings; and 3) to develop the ability to generate visual/verbal communication materials.

The major objectives of this course are to provide the opportunities for the students to be able to build advanced communication skills in diverse academic settings with chosen topics, to generate researchable questions and frameworks aiming for scholarly presentations and publications in some of important research areas around design and environmental analysis.

Evaluation

Student work is evaluated based on the following criteria:

You can learn from critical response to the work of others, and for this reason you are required to be in attendance at each class and pay careful attention to and participate in presentations and critiques. Your participation in the discussion is welcomed and encouraged, but it is incumbent on you to volunteer your thoughts. Do not wait to be called on.

Students will be required to complete all assignments, and participate in class discussion/reviews.

Grading
Project (70%)
Active Participation (10%)
Attendance (20%)

The grading scale is shown below:

A+ 96-100

A 93-95

A- 90-92

Excellent

B+ 87-89

B 83-86

B-  80-82

Above Average

C+ 77-79

C 73-76

C- 70-73

Average

D+ 67-69

D 63-66

D- 60-63

Below Average

F 59 and below    Failure

 

 

 

 

 

Attendance

Attendance and active participation is mandatory. A student is required to be present through the entire duration of the class. Not to mention absences, coming late to class or leaving early without justifiable excuses will significantly affect the grade.  

Special Needs

If you have special needs as addressed by the Americans with Disabilities Act and need any test of course materials provided in an alternative format, notify your instructor immediately. Reasonable effort will be made to accommodate your special needs. If you need accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please inform me immediately. Please see me privately after class.

Plagiarism Policy

A student who presents and submits as his or her own work a written/visual material, content, which is taken in whole or in part from another person’s efforts without proper acknowledgement is guilty of plagiarism. Proper citations for borrowed visual or written work are required (refer to APA guidelines).

While students are always encouraged to ‘research’ each project and assignment as thoroughly as time permits, ‘borrowing’ in part or in whole a published design of another and passing it off as your own constitutes plagiarism. Each assignment is an opportunity for original expression, a means of discovering who YOU are.  

Multicultural Ground Rules for the course

  1. Our primary commitment is to learn from the instructors, from each other, from materials and from our work. We acknowledge differences among us in skills, interests, values, scholarly orientations and experiences.
  2. We acknowledge that racism and sexism and other forms of discrimination exist and are likely to surface from time to time.
  3. We acknowledge that one of the meanings of racism is that we have been systematically taught misinformation about our own group and especially members of devalued/minority groups (this is true for both dominant and dominated group members). The same is true about sexism -- we are taught misinformation about ourselves and others and other forms of differences and discrimination.
  4. We cannot be blamed for the misinformation we have learned, but we will be held responsible for repeating misinformation after we have learned otherwise.
  5. Victims are not to be blamed for their oppression.
  6. We will assume that people are always doing the best they can, both to learn the material and to behave in non-racist, non-sexist and multicultural productive ways.
  7. We will actively pursue opportunities to learn about our own groups and those of others, yet not enter or invade others' privacy when unwanted.
  8. We will share information about our groups with other members of the class, and we will not demean, devalue, or "put down" people for their experiences.
  9. We each have an obligation to actively combat the myths and stereotypes about our own groups and other groups so that we can break down walls, which prohibit group cooperation and group gain.
  10. We want to create a safe atmosphere for open discussion. Thus, at times, members of the class may wish to make a comment that they do not want repeated outside the classroom.  If so, the   person will preface his or her remarks with a request and the class will agree not to repeat the remarks.
  11. Understanding West – East Learning and Academic Communication
    http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/3357/28/
    Li, Jin (2012). Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West. Cambridge University Press