SARAH HANSEN: How are you looking to tweak this experience the next time you teach it?
ANJALI SASTRY: So I think having the steps in the process a little bit clearer and having the motivating question of each step in a project like this-- really central. So early stages, here's what you should be thinking about. Here's the questions you need to answer. Middle stages, late-- so if I have a better framework for the steps in the work, I think that would be a big benefit. Another is to realize not every student who comes in with their passion project is necessarily going to want to-- or should-- turn it into an in-depth study.
So I've learned that you can't convert everyone. And that's OK. Because this is an offering of a new learning experience. It's very much driven by the students' interest. You need to really be able to allow the students to self select in. It's hard to offer something like this as a requirement. So that's another piece is striking the right balance between opening the door and inviting people in versus cracking the whip and following up on them.
Students get really busy. So one downside of an unstructured course is that it can fall by the wayside because they have their structured requirements and course meetings for all their other classes and this begins to feel like something on the side. So how you maintain the momentum and make sure that enough investment is going in is really important. So better sourcing and screening. Better process. And having regular meetings are all really important ingredients.
