In Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students Through Inquiry, Larissa Pahomov writes, “For student reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others,” and defines metacognitive reflection as taking the process of reflection “to the next level because it is concerned not with assessment, but with self-improvement: Could this be better? How? What steps should you take?” (read full article here). In light of this assertion, I would like you to write a metacognitive reflection letter on the final project. This reflection should be addressed to me in letter format, with full paragraphs, and aim to identify how you could improve your work. Here are some guiding questions:
Describe your contributions to the final project in detail. What writing/research/design/management responsibilities did you take on in order to complete this project? How did you complete your individual contributions to the group? What steps did you take? What tools did you use? Did you meet your deadlines (why or why not)?
Did you feel like your contributions had a positive impact on the final project? Did you feel the other group members valued your contributions? Did the reactions of your group members (revisions, suggestions, critiques) help you develop your materials in a constructive way?
How do you feel you worked as a team? How did you facilitate communication and collaboration between the group members? What tools did you use? Can you suggest improvements for this process? What did you learn that would help you in future group work situations?
What did you learn through the process of creating and presenting this project? How did this project help you synthesize and apply the topics we covered throughout the semester? Do you have suggestions to improve this assignment?
And finally, what readings, activities, assignments, and discussions did you find particularly helpful, informative, and engaging in this class this semester? What would you suggest be changed to improve this course next time it is offered?
You may expand or add to these guidelines in any way you wish. This is your opportunity to speak directly to me about what you learned in this course.
This will be submitted as a Google Doc or Word Doc (file name: finalreflection_yoursection_yourlastname for example finalreflection_281ON1_licastro) that you share with me upon completion at alicastro@stevenson.edu or amanda.licastro@gmail.com. For Google Docs, you must invite me as an editor (with privileges to edit, not just read or comment) to amanda.licastro@gmail.com. You will complete this after our final presentations on the day of our scheduled final exam.
Also, please include this statement at the bottom of the document and fill in your name and response:
I ____________ (do/ do not) give Dr. Amanda Licastro permission to use my final project as an example in scholarly presentations and publications.
For your final project you will be creating an educational VR experience. The first step in this process is to pitch your idea to your potential investors (your classmates and Mosaic Learning). To accomplish this you must present:
A description of your intended audience and an explanation of how you will reach them.
A clear purpose and an explanation of why this is educational and how it can be assessed.
Citations and evidence of research.
A multimedia presentation with visual aides.
You will have 3 minutes to present, and I will time you. Think of this like a Shark Tank pitch. You want the presentation to be convincing, dynamic, and well researched. Be prepared to answer questions from the audience.
For your final project you will use all of the readings and discussions we have had throughout this semester to inspire your own creation: a virtual reality (VR) experience that evokes empathy inspired by Frankenstein. The goal is to teach your audience about the novel, and particularly to explain why the creature is an empathetic character. You should draw on your own personal experience, criticism of the novel, and other reliable, scholarly sources to write a pitch – and ultimately a formal proposal – for this short VR application. Again, your VR experience must be both educational and intended to induce empathy in your audience. You will design this simulation as an entry to the competition being held by Mosaic Learning:
To accomplish this task, the project will be broken down into steps:
Individual pitches: each student will conceptualize and present their idea for a project in 3 minutes. The class will vote on the top 4 projects. You should use multimedia and evidence of research in this pitch.
Group contracts: in small groups of 3-4, students will outline their plan for this project and assign roles and responsibilities for each student to accomplish. A timeline and due dates will be established. This will be submitted via Google Doc to Dr. L.
Formal proposals: each group will compose a 3-5 page proposal for their project meeting the criteria of the competition. The proposal will include outside research, citations, and a bibliography.
Prototype: each group will create a demo of the simulation by making script and either storyboard or short video using our Richo Theta cameras or StoryBoardTHAT.
Final presentation: this is your presentation to Mosaic Learning. You will present all of your research and your prototype in a formal presentation including all of your group members. You have 15 minutes plus 3 minutes for questions. The final presentations are during the final exam period.
Each proposal should include the following elements:
Intro/Purpose – a thorough description of your application, your inspiration, and your intended audience. In this section describe how this application will evoke empathy, and why you think it will aide in the audience understanding the themes in the novel Frankenstein.
Learning Outcomes – what will your audience learn and how can this learning be assessed?
User Experience/ User Interface – how will your audience use this application? Explain what device (Google Cardboard, HTC Vive, Oculus Go) you intend this to be for and why, describe the interactive elements of the application, and demonstrate the visual appeal of this experience. This is where your storyboard and script should appear in your final proposal.
Implementation Strategy – who will you market this toward and how will you reach them? Consider what your logo, motto, and or/tagline might be. How will this be implemented by teachers into classrooms? How will educators measure the impact of this experience?
Long-term Vision – how can this be expanded into a series of applications? Can their be more chapters? New editions? New features? Can you expand this to new (secondary) audiences? How can you reach new markets with this application?
You will post your final proposals to our course blog using the category and tag “Final” the day before our final exam period.
In Frankenstein there is a part at the beginning where the narrator is explaining his life, he says ” Our studies were never forced…It was by this method, and not emulation that we were urged to application.” (Shelley 21). He says this meaning that he learned things that he wanted to learn and there was no pressure to be the best. He got to learn and study at his own pace, doing what he wanted for himself. His parents didn’t force things on him and his friends were supportive but also studied their own things. Without the competition between friends, the narrator was able to truly enjoy his childhood for himself without worrying about doing what makes his friends and family happy.
The things you are currently doing/studying in your life, do they make you happy? Do you find enjoyment in them? Or are you doing it for somebody else, if so does doing it for them make you happy.
What makes us human can be seen without argument on the surface. We are bi-pedal, omnivores with opposable thumbs and a tuft of hair at the top of our head and no tail on our bottoms. A key debate item on what makes us human is our ability to emphasize with others, human and animal alike. Empathy has been seen in other mammals outside of humans including dogs, elephants, and chimpanzees. Animals have the ability to demonstrate the aptitude to “feel into” others to understand how they are and do something to help out. If this is so widely seen in mammals then this is not a human trait. Examples of humans making the wrong choice is clearly illustrated in Philip K. Dicks novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Halfway through the novel the main protagonist Rick Deckard is assigned to kill an android that is a public star on Earth and performs opera. Deckard himself enjoys her singing and enjoys opera and is almost convinced she is human. This does not stop him from “retiring” her (Dick). Only at this scene do we begin to see Deckard start to show empathy towards androids. Explained by James Harris at Johns Hopkins University, empathy is “an evolutionary mechanism to maintain social cohesion… you’re more sensitive to the pain of other members in a group” (Viegas, 2014). Deckard is unable to emphasize with the androids for so long because he thinks of his job as a “Us versus Them” complex. The determining factors on what separates human beings from chimpanzee’s, dogs, and elephants is our ability to think of not only the future but alternative ones. From this we are able to make deliberate choices.
A study done in 2010 at University of Michigan tested college age students’ ability to emphasize with each other. Through the use of a survey that asked questions like “I don’t feel sorry for other people when they are having problems” or “when I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them” to then gauge their reaction. Reactions were based on a sliding scale if the question described the student well or not at all. After completing this survey Michigan State found that college students are forty percent less empathetic then those who graduated two to three decades ago (Grasgreen, 2010). If as a generation we are becoming less empathetic and finding empathy as a less desirable trait, then we cannot claim that empathy is what makes us human. This is seen again in the novel, where the more empathetic character is John Isadore, who is claimed to be a chickenhead and special. Isadore is a chiceknhead because of his inability to pass an IQ test, and special from the radioactive dust that has made him unable to reproduce. If he is seen in the caste system as an untouchable, then his ability to feel empathy and emphasize easily is also undesirable. Isadore’s own boss mocks him when he mistakes an organic cat with an electrical one and becomes disheartened by its death.
Another prime example of empathy not belonging only to humans is in the overall themes seen in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. While this book was published in the late sixties and highlighted issues seen during the cold war like sexism and the civil rights movement it also still holds truth to the present. The unsympathetic treatment of women and people of color in the sixties can be seen today through the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter protests. In this novel, the major ideal and factor that helps to tell humans and androids apart is the ability to display empathy. There is a literal religion in the book based on empathy called Mercerism (read as Marxism) that revolves around the idea of an “Empathy Box”. The box takes the human characters to a scenario that is best described as multiplayer virtual reality and allows them to think and feel in a sort of hive mind state (Dick).
Yet, one of the main characters of the book Rick Deckard is very unremorseful until the middle-ending chapters of the book. Rick’s job is a bounty hunter, who gets paid to kill androids that were slaves on mars and escaped to earth. He holds no remorse for killing the almost seamlessly human like androids and has a main goal of gaining enough money to buy a real animal (Dick). The androids in this book show much more empathy then Deckard is able to. One android, named Pris Stratton, is visibly upset and distraught after learning that her friends that are androids have been killed, (by Rick) and that the killer is after her next. Her empathy shown towards the remaining two androids is that of someone who is scared of her friends dying. They are all in a similar boat and does not want harm to befall her friends (Dick). Empathy cannot be considered a human trait when we are so hesitant to display acts of empathy, but robots are easily able to feel for others with no hesitation.
Empathetic Rats Spring each other from Jail 2011, Ed Young
Major contributions to taking apart the idea that empathy makes us human is that other animals show empathy. Asian elephants for example are able to tell when someone in their group is stressed and will use their trunk to caress the upset elephant. This can be akin to a person consoling a baby that is crying by caressing them (Suddendorf, 2013). This is also seen in mice. Mice will only console family friends when they are in pain but will not reach out to other mice. This can be seen in humans, because we are more likely to help people that are similar to us than people who do not look like us. This was also true for the androids from the novel. An entire group of escaped androids had built their own police station as a way to protect each other and seem inconspicuous to the human population around them. When found out by Deckard, they ushered him into a room alone and tried to find an easy way to kill him without attracting too much attention to their makeshift safehouse (Dick). An assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University who studied mice said that based off this finding “We believe there’s a genetic contribution to the ability for empathy” (Viegas, 2014).
A reason we may be less empathetic is from desensitization from twenty-four-hour news outlets, social media, and exposure to intense violence daily. A constant stream of violence and graphic images from the internet and the television can sometimes make it harder to emphasize with others. This is seen in Tim Recuber’s article “What Becomes of Empathy?” when he discusses the empathy gap. Seeing tragedies happen over seas in very different and distant places like Afghanistan and Iraq, it can be hard to feel anything but helpless. The empathy gap describes the feeling of maybe wanting to sympathize with the attacks in Iraq but not doing anything about it or to help. But when the Paris attacks and bombings happen, there is more of an outcry because that is a little less distant and different. Humans in general have a hard time feeling empathy for others especially when it crosses racial boundaries (Recuber, 2016).
Another reason it can be hard to emphasize with others is because of how divided we have become. In Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” this is illustrated perfectly in a section named Fractured Identities. The paper talks consistently about feminism but can be applied to broader groups as well. In this article, Haraway explains how even in groups of marginalized individuals who should be able to “speak the same language” and relate to one another, that this is still not possible. While Feminism is predominantly made up of women, all of those women have a different experience with feminism (Haraway 295-300). A white woman upset at how her looks are ridiculed in her workplace is not able to relate to a black woman who is unable to get past the interview stage because she doesn’t fit into European beauty standards. There is no one person who is just a feminist, because they fit into other categories and go by other labels as well. With different labels, different backgrounds and different experiences, it can become almost impossible to unionize with others.
Works Cited
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. The Creation of Adam. C. 1510, Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
Dick, Philip K. Blade Runner: (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). Ballantine Books, 2007.
We have the privilege of shaping our midterm essays to fit a real publication. Cyborgology, an academic, peer-edited blog, has agreed to work with our class to contextualize and format this assignment for submission to their publication. This publication takes issues presented in literature and contextualizes their overarching questions by relating the content to relevant political and cultural events. Therefore, you will take the themes we have discussed regarding Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and present them to an educated audience in terms of a current event you consider parallel in some significant way. The goal is to shed light on both the novel and our society by pairing them together.
Using the audience, format, genre, and style of a typical Cyborgology post (see list of examples here) as your model, you will craft a ~2,000-3,000 word blog post that answers the question “What Makes Us Human?” with a particular emphasis on the concept of empathy. In order to address this question you must frame it in terms of the texts we have read. Every paper must use Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as the primary example, and use at least two of the articles we have read as secondary evidence. You are also welcome to include up to two additional sources from either our course readings or reliable outside sources that you consider essential to make your point. (In other words, you must have a minimum of 3 sources, and a maximum of 5 sources.) All sources must be integrated through summary, paraphrase, or quotation with proper MLA formatting (use OWL at Purdue for guidance).
Please see the Cyborgology submission guidelines for further information. You can and should include hyperlinks to your sources as indicated in this guide. You are also encouraged to use images, videos, or infographics that demonstrate your point (with captions and citations). Also, read this post on writing for a public audience by editor David Banks.
Sample outline: *From Cyborgology editor David Banks*
Introduction to X
Sentence telegraphing at the possibility that X is better understood with Y.
Summary of coverage of X
Why summary is wrong/incomplete/misunderstood by 3rd parties.
Introduction of theory Y
Application of theory Y
Synthesis of X and Y
Prescriptions and conclusions
Two printed copies of your draft in TNR, size 12, double spaced are due on 10/4 in class and a revised copy for our conference. Your final essay must be posted to our site under category “midterm” and tag “cyborgology” by 10/9.
Throughout the semester you will notice “provocation” assignments built into our syllabus. They are often broken into groups and correspond to longer readings. Provocations are meant to provide context and support for your student-led discussions in class. In order to complete these assignments you must:
Read the assigned text very closely and annotate it thoroughly
Choose one section of the text you found most interesting/problematic/controversial/stimulating and summarize it in 5-7 sentences
You must use at least one paraphrase or direct quote and it must have an MLA citation
Construct a complex question for your classmates to answer about that section of the text that will spark a lively debate
On the blog, you will post your provocations BEFORE class time as indicated on the syllabus. ONLY post when your group is listed on the syllabus. Use the category and tag provided by your professor for each post.
These posts will be graded on the following scale:
A = An engaging, thought-provoking post that shows attention to detail and comprehension of the text. Grammar and mechanics must be practically perfect (edit carefully!). Direct evidence from the text with a citation must be included.
B = An accurate summary and well-composed question that may contain a small, but not catastrophic, misreading or errors in grammar and mechanics.
C = A sloppy post that shows little effort and does not include the elements listed above.
D = A post that is a day late, or difficult to read, or phrased in a way that students would be unable to respond.
F = A post that is a week late, contains numerous errors, and does not contribute to the conversation. Or the post does not exist.
Please create these summaries and questions yourself: DO NOT STEAL OTHER PEOPLES WORK. If I find you have plagiarized these posts you will be reported. If you are struggling please come see me or email me with questions.
