Prototypes for Sandel's Justice-esque Course

Background

some writing the is better than this: Professor Sandel's teaching team is interested in designing a set of tools that will foster the types of students engagement that happen somewhat spontaneously in informal environments, such as residential spaces. However, the design challenge is to curate these interactions in our new virtual environment. In particular, they are curious about using video and slack together for both synchronous and asynchronous experiences. So, we tested out 3 modes of engaging in this sort of conversation using primarily slack as our virtual "residence"...

These prototypes are for a university wide course on Justice themed around co-vid taught by Michael Sandel this fall. We will be prototyping 3 activities: (1) a synchronous livestream-ish watch party integrated with slack discussion, (2) an asynchronous 3 part phone based media project on ethical debate and (3) a synch/asych debrief discussion on slack.

The Watch Party + Slack:

Prompt: We will watch the first 10 minutes of a lecture video and use this channel to engage in a discussion about what we are watching "live."

1. split your computer screen so half of it is showing the video and half is showing this slack channel.
2. For today, we will simulate a livestreaming experience by simply pressing play at the same time...so wait for those instructions!
3. For the discussion, please test out some of the following (plus any other you can think of) ideas:

• ask the TF (Jordan today) a question like "What did he mean at 3:35?" pose a question to everyone
• comment on 'x'
• utilize emojis and giphys as reactions to what you are watching/what you are thinking about as you listen/watch.

Here is the link to the video we are watching today:

Please set up your screens to have this video queued up and slack side-by-side.

Some highlights from the discussion on slack:

Phone Based Oral Argument

Prompt: We will be trying out a debate format using our phones to record ourselves. We'd like you to work with the idea of the immunity passport presented at the beginning of the video we watched...OR an issue you care about related to Harvard’s reopening (tuition, for instance). Please indicate the topic you would like to engage with here.

1. Film yourself presenting a 1 minute thesis on the topic. If you can make it look good--maybe doing it outside if you can, that would be optimal. Vertical video is fine for this one.
2. Post that video to this slack channel
3. include a message with your video/right after your video indicating your thesis topic.

next steps:

4. Choose a video posted by someone else and film a 1 minute response that critiques the video’s argument (you don’t need to agree with the position you are defending--your goal is to sharpen your partner’s argument by providing the strongest possible counterargument) NOTE: try to match the video style of your partner (so if they filmed vertically, film your rebuttal vertically, etc)
5. Post your rebuttal video to this slack channel and tag the person whose thesis you are responding to

and once you finish that, the final part:

6. Choose a rebuttal video response to your thesis video and film a 1 minute deepened thesis
7. Post that deepened thesis video to this slack channel

Some highlights from this activity:

![christie's rebuttal if we can get it]

Vigorous Slack Discussion

Prompt: Imagine a TF getting us started with a discussion question like: what did you add when you revised, and how did it give you new insight into the topic. Then once that's on the table, following whichever paths emerge

Some Highlights from this activity:

Wrapping up

Here is a screen recording one of our undergraduate fellows made to further help demonstrate how these activities work:

And here is some student feedback on the activity:

Overall Feedback:

I really enjoyed this demo! It was the most engaged in a classroom discussion simulation that I have been involved with in the world of Zoom academia thus far! I decided to break my response down for each activity segment.

I really enjoyed this demo; it really got me thinking, and I felt engaged throughout all of it. It was the closest I’ve felt to being truly “in” a class for a while. I love how Laura divided her feedback above so I’ll be mimicking that style!

I also really enjoyed this style of learning. I felt very connected to the “class” and was engaged the whole way through. The content was also super interesting so that definitely helped, but it was great to get so much feedback and one-on-one communication with everyone else!

This demo was so interesting! I love the fast-paced energy of it all, and time passes so quickly because we were so engaged, which is great because Zoom classes often drag on. But I’m worried some parts would be inefficient or seem like an overly elaborate alternative to Zoom.

Synchronous video watching and Slacking:

Loved this! Creating a feeling of shared space online is really hard, but this made me feel like we were all (sort of) together. One problem for me was I think I clicked play 20 seconds after the appointed time, and then my video lagged when loading a bit, so I landed about a minute behind everyone. Not an insurmountable difference, so I was able to keep up with the conversation fairly well with (relatively) no spoilers. I did feel a bit hesitant to comment in the channel though, because I felt behind and that anything I said wouldn’t be relevant to other watchers by the time I said it. But overall, I really liked this “group movie night.”

I liked this part although it wasn’t my favorite of the activities mostly because I felt like I was a little disoriented. But this is mainly because it was my first time screen recording, and I honestly just wasn’t sure if it was recording/how to stop it. Hence why I didn’t send my screen recording in slack because it’s 11 minutes of me clicking random stuff to figure out what I was doing hahaha. Actually having slack and the video side by side was fine, I’m used to that from watching movies with my friends on zoom. We’ll chat while watching it, and this felt similar to that. However, for this I felt like I didn’t have much to contribute because I was focused on internalizing what was being said. I didn’t want to comment just to comment, so I don’t think students should be pressured to comment something during this part. Any comments, questions, or thoughts they want to share will come naturally.

I really had a great time watching lectures this way! When I’ve watched recorded lectures this past semester, they’ve been without any sort of synchronous communication, which can make them feel eternal and I would often lose focus and have to rewind the lecture to rewatch what I missed. Having the experience of others watching the video at the same time and Slacking at the same time made me want to pay more attention, and definitely made me feel less alone/bored watching the lecture. It was also great that we got to ask questions to each other in real time, meaning that I often found myself either asking a question, or paying extra-close attention to the lecture in order to help someone else out and answer their questions. I felt myself constantly thinking about any hot take I could make, too, which meant laser focus on the video in order to fully grasp it.

This was a fairly seamless experience. It’s definitely much better than chatting on Zoom because you can’t react to certain comments or reply directly to certain comments. However, there were issues of time lags regarding when people’s videos started playing which made it hard for some to keep up with the conversation, and there were also issues with being unable to respond to people’s comments because the video was playing non-stop and there was a constant flow of ideas, so maybe pausing occasionally to both allow people to catch up and allow people to respond to comments would remedy both issues.

Debate video:

This was fun! I happened to already have a bunch of researched data and talking points, so it was super easy for me to crank something out, but I think maybe you should give everyone an allotted 10 minutes of prep time/filming time and then have people upload all at the same time. I think some peoples’ videos didn’t get a response because there were some disparities in upload time, which again, can cause anxiety (my video isn’t uploading fast enough, no one is going to respond to me, etc.). I think there could be a system, if this was going to be an expanded class-long event, of everyone uploading at the same time, watch all of each other's videos, and then choose one to respond to OR have the Professor randomly assign partners, so no one is left out and everyone has a feedback buddy (I’m sure you’ve thought of this though).

I loved this part! I think it was nice to share my thoughts after having some time to think about it and hear what others had said. Hearing what others said definitely helped jumpstart my own thoughts, so I felt more confident recording a “thesis,” especially because it felt like low pressure. The one problem was that my (and some others’) videos took a while to send. As Sarah mentioned, it was much quicker to just send voice memos, although this does take away the more personal and presentational aspect of this activity. It did feel more engaging to make and respond to videos where you could see the person. It was just a little tricky for everyone to get responses if their video was taking a while to send.

I found this activity very helpful to organize my thoughts around the issue of immunity passports. Like Laura suggested, I think giving students a 10-minute-or-so window to think about a debate point and to record a coherent answer would be really helpful! In the rush of trying to get my video posted before everyone moved on, I didn’t give myself too much time to lay out a well-organized argument so it ended up being a bit all over the place and it went over the 1-minute cap. I think encouraging students to quickly brainstorm and outline their ideas could also make rebuttals more effective as students have to respond to one specific point. Because my computer’s dreadfully slow, I also had the same experience Laura detailed, where my first video hadn’t even sent by the time everyone was sending their rebuttals, so my video wasn’t able to be answered. I also couldn’t participate in the chat until that video was sent because my Slack messages were backlogged. To fix this, I think it would be great to have everyone send their videos at the same time and to wait for them all to be sent before the rebuttals are done. Also like Laura suggested, it could be useful for partners to be assigned at some point in the activity so that everyone gets a response.

This part was a little intimidating at first, mainly because giving feedback can be hard, especially in a 1-minute time frame and on a rather difficult topic (without articles or other knowledge to refer to). We should have time to think about our responses before recording ourselves and be able to refer to material to construct our argument. But I love it for the emphasis on learning how to construct a proper argument and how to give feedback succinctly. My Expos professor used audio recordings to give feedback through Canvas, which was absolutely amazing, but it did take her a while to give feedback to each student, so peer revision during class time could be more efficient. I would prefer voice recordings to videos since videos take longer to upload and may not play properly. Voice recordings eliminate any fear of being on camera, too. The questions, given the time frame, need to be specific, and there needs to be more instruction as to what the “thesis” consists of. Additionally, assigning partners and specifying a time for everyone to upload would help make the activity more uniform.

Debate video response:

Again, I’d create a slightly more uniform video submissions process. Also, I wasn’t sure the format you wanted for this feedback - more of a TF/constructive criticism vibe (like what Marlon did for my first video), or a rebuttal to the original video’s proposed debate topic (like what I did for Marlon’s video). I really liked the TF feedback that I got from Marlon, but could (potentially) come off as condescending from classmate to classmate.

I enjoyed watching others’ videos and responding. It felt close to actually having a debate with someone, just less pressure because I had many attempts to perfect my response. On one hand, it’s important to be able to think on the spot, and this does require that, it just felt less stressful than if I were in person debating with someone in class. Since class debates usually stress me out, I liked this a lot. I liked how it didn’t feel like an attack on each other, just deepening each others’ points and trying to solve any problems in reasoning.

I found this part of the video-sending-activity to be the most fun. It had a great time listening to everyone’s debate points, and while I agreed with both of the ones I answered to, I found it to be a fun exercise to find a point of contention within their argument anyway. I also had an easier time with this video than the original debate video because I needed less time to answer to a specific point than to come up with a specific point to focus on from all the options in the video. I think, again like Laura said, it would be great to assign people to answer to each other in order to give everyone the opportunity to have their ideas challenged. It was great for thinking more deeply about our ideas, though, and I think it helped in many ways to strengthen my own conceptions about the argument of immunity passports (or Harvard’s tuition).

Debate video 2.0 (with response feedback):

Okay, this was fun and Marlon’s feedback was helpful! Hopefully it made my video point a bit cleaner/stronger. I think it was more “intellectually” stimulating for me to rebut Marlon than for me to receive the TF style feedback, but I guess it depends on the Professor’s goals with the activity.

This was a nice chance to revise my original statement, and it encouraged me to broaden my perspective. It made me think more about possible problems and solutions to my initial argument. Overall the whole debate video activity was really fun. It felt somewhat chaotic because videos were taking a while to send and videos take up a lot of space on slack so I had to do a lot of scrolling, and at times I was worried I was being left behind. But, it turned out fine, and to be honest the whole activity energized me, so the level of chaos was just enough to stimulate my brain without really stressing me out. It also made me really invested in the topic because everyone was so engaged. I definitely think this would be a useful activity for classes.

I didn’t get a chance to do this part, but from watching other people’s second debate videos, I think that having people do a second version of their original debate was great for refining their argument and everyone seemed much more certain in their convictions the second time around after having the rebuttal to work with to strengthen their argument.

Vigorous Slacking:

This was really cool. I love a heated discussion. I think my biggest issue was that it was a bit stressful and I always felt like I was racing against the clock to get my response to someone’s comment typed in time, because the channel could move on with other people submitting comments and then mine chronologically wouldn’t make any sense/people wouldn't know what I was referencing. And there were only about 5 of us slacking continuously, so with an even larger group the stress level could be sky-high/the commentary could be really chaotic. But I really did love the aggressive section-style discussion. There has to be a way to utilize this intensity in a positive manner, because slack allows for simultaneous contribution which is really a double-edged sword. People don’t have to wait their turn to share their perspective, and risk forgetting their point. However, for me, it exemplified a classic section issue which is students raising their hand and waiting to make their point rather than listening to their peers and responding directly/engaging in discussion/adapting their comment to whatevr new information is added to the conversation before they speak in a classroom setting. Because we were slacking so fast, at times I found it hard to pause and read what other people were saying and respond directly to those while I was also trying to speak my own thoughts, if the comments from other slackers were coming in particularly quickly or simultaneously. Ways to mediate this: Have everyone post an initial comment, read through each other’s and then respond once. Then start the Slack storm, that way everyone gets their initial thoughts out and can focus on creating a conversation. Have people @whoever they’re responding to in messages while they’re live slacking, so you can trace the thread of student interactions Other potential hangup: when people respond directly to comments, there’s a new thread created and others can’t see it unless they specifically look.

I loved this but it did feel rushed because people were bringing up different points quickly, so my response to someone else’s point sometimes just wasn’t noticed because a new topic was being discussed. Again, thinking on the spot is important, but some people are better at it than others, and some are just faster typers, so it can make it difficult to get your point heard. For the most part, though, I feel like this group did a great job of reacting to comments. I think the emoji reactions are really useful because it makes you feel heard, and it allows you to agree without having to type anything out. I think this could get difficult with a larger class, though. Having maybe groups of 5-10 could be a good move if the class is large so that everyone can feel engaged. Too large and the conversation might be dominated by a few students while the rest sit back. I really like Laura’s idea of having everyone post their initial comment and then “starting the storm.” This allows you to read everyone’s ideas and choose one you want to respond to. I think this will allow people to get many perspectives while deepening their own thinking about the topic by responding to what you feel most confident responding to. This also solves the issue of one person having to start the conversation and choose the direction it begins. Having everyone post their own comment at first does feel chaotic, but I think this activity will always have a level of chaos and this allows everyone to contribute. For many people, contributing once will inspire them to contribute again, whereas if you keep waiting to think of the perfect thing to say as others go off on a debate, sometimes you end up going through the whole conversation without getting anything in. Maybe it could be a timed system where you have say 3-4 minutes to type out your initial thoughts. Then the storm starts where everyone responds to each other for 5-10 minutes. Then there’s another 3-4 minute break where everyone takes a breather to go through some of the other responses going on because it’s possible that it would end up just being duos debating rather than the whole class if multiple different points were brought up. Another idea is to start it as we did with people just talking when they have something to say, then after say 5-10 minutes of aggressive slacking, then everyone posts their new and improved thoughts on it, and then responses could begin again. I think it could be worth trying these different methods to see which the majority of students prefer.

This was so much fun! With the debate videos, I struggled with getting my videos sent on time which made it rather stressful, but with the Slack messaging this wasn’t an issue at all. I found it so intellectually stimulating and engaging to have to rapidly answer everyone’s slack messages. At times, I did feel stressed that I wouldn’t be able to get my point across before the debate shifted, but I think that tagging the person you’re responding to can solve that problem. I also think that the use of threads should be discouraged overall, unless someone is responding to something from a long time before. This is because comments in threads can get lost unless someone goes looking directly for them, which happened a lot to me. Instead of focusing on the conversation at hand, I’d spend a lot of time looking through the threads instead. Overall, I don’t think they’re necessary and can cause for confusion and a disruption in the Slack workflow when the debate is heated.