Fall 2019; Tues/Thurs 3:30–4:45; Manning Hall 014
How can we design experiences, environments, and tools that engage young people in learning through creating, inventing, and expressing themselves?
This course will examine theories of learning and design to identify best practices and strategies that support personally meaningful creative learning experiences for young people in a variety of settings. The material in the course will cover foundational theories of creativity and learning, their design implications, as well as emergent creative learning technologies and environments (e.g., online communities, makerspaces). Additionally, throughout the course, a focus area will be on equity and inclusion—students will be encouraged to think about who gets to participate in certain types of creative learning experiences, and who gets left out.
Students in this course will be expected to complete a project that supports creative learning experiences—however, prior experience with coding and/or technology design is not a prerequisite for the class. Final projects for this class may include the design of creative learning activities that use existing tools and material, material to support educators and/or parents, prototypes of digital and physical tools to support creative learning, and more.
Sayamindu Dasgupta is an assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science, UNC Chapel Hill. As a part of his research, he designs, builds, and studies creative learning technologies for children. One of his current research topics is the design of tools to support data science education for children. He received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016, where he was a member of the team that created the Scratch programming language and online community.