18  Project Narrowing

18.1 Settling in

SIT WITH YOUR PROPOSED GROUPS

  • I’ve tried to honor who you want to work with and/or grouped students by interests.
  • You are welcome to switch up groups, but you must facilitate this process and must finalize groups by the end of the day today.
  • Put away laptops and phones until the activity.



General project info

Provided here.



Goals for today

Set up the foundations for a successful collaboration. You will:

  • Do group introductions.

  • Identify a project topic.

  • Start looking for data!

  • Specify expectations for communication and collaboration outside of class hours.



18.2 Activity

1. Introductions

Make sure you know everybody’s name, pronouns, emails, and something about each other. Take notes as necessary!



2. Project ideas and interests

  • Each person: share what data you found for Project Milestone 2 as well as your general project interests.

  • Identify common project areas of interest, starting from a broad area (eg: economics) and getting as specific as possible (eg: underemployment).

  • Come to consensus on a project topic. Everyone should be on board, even if it’s not their first choice.



3. Data

Start looking for datasets! You will have to finalize your data collection and do some preliminary data checks and cleaning by 1:10pm (10 minutes before class) next Tuesday. Check out, and possibly even start, Project Milestone 3 details on Moodle.



4. Setting expectations for communication

Your group will need to communicate outside of class! Set up some expectations now by agreeing on the following.

  • How are you going to share ideas and progress? For example: Slack? Google Doc? Whatever you decide, you might start today!

  • How are you going to share code? For example: Google Drive Folder? Github? Whatever you decide, you might start today!

  • Unless you plan to communicate over email, share relevant contact info.

  • Though you might be able to do some work asynchronously outside of class, there will be times when you’ll have to meet. On what days / times do you tend to be most available? When are you most likely to be able to engage in synchronous meetings outside of class?

  • It can sometimes be helpful to designate (and possibly rotate) specific roles. Decide if it makes sense for your group to have roles like the following:

    • facilitator: set up times to meet outside of class
    • communication manager: set up communication systems (eg: Google Docs) and reach out to group members as needed
    • reflector & delegator: thinking about equity and making sure tasks get divided, make sure people get a chance to work on building skills



18.3 Wrap-up

Be mindful of the following due dates:

  • Thursday: Homework 8 by 11:59pm. This is comparatively short! If you’re unsure if you have any remaining extensions, check the extensions link on Moodle. This records how many extensions you have used (out of 3), not how many you have left.

  • Tuesday by 1:10pm: Project Milestone 3 (progress report). There are no extensions for project checkpoints. Submit whatever progress you’ve made.