1) Reduce and insert data viz as a 3-week module into a topical seminar, similar to how I taught an abbreviated version during Ed 308 Cities Suburbs Schools seminar in Fall 2013
Pros:
- The students get experience with data visualization
Cons:
- The experience the students get doesn’t get to get developed and built upon as much as it would if it were a full semester course
2) Keep as-is with current 0.5 credit seminar combined with 0.5 credit internship.
Pros:
- It’s good to get internship experience with a mentor and build a semester long relationship
- Ability to get fairly extensive data visualization instruction, but still be able to apply it to a community partner internship
Cons:
- It isn’t an entirely in depth instruction of data visualization, for example we don’t learn how to code
3) Expand into a larger 1-credit course, with more data viz content and coding instruction during the first half, and pairs of students working on community partner projects during the second half. Also, may count toward Numerical & Symbolic reasoning requirement.
Pros:
- Get more focus on the data visualization which can help further understand it
- Could lead to an ability to do more advanced visualizations
- Get numerical & symbolic reasoning credit for it
Cons:
- Don’t get the full internship experience, particularly of building a relationship with a community partner throughout the whole semester
Recommendation: My preferred option of these three would to be to stay with the seminar as it is now with it being half credit seminar and half credit internship. I found the internship experience INCREDIBLY valuable, so I think that should definitely remain part of the course.