Courses
Tammy’s courses maximize the opportunity for her to teach her passion for students learning how they can use technology in their real life settings for learning, everyday living, and personal growth.
INST 367: Prototyping and Development Studio
The Prototyping and Development Studio course is a core course for students in the Technology and Information Design B.A. program. The course focuses on design for digital interactions that will resonate with their intended audiences (how the features and functions of a product get translated into something people find usable, useful, and desirable), and the research that goes on throughout that process (from contextual inquiry to evaluating the final product), with a particular emphasis on prototyping and iteration. Through a series of lectures, discussions, in-class design practice, and projects, students explore the role of interaction designers and user experience research. This is a face-to-face studio class, focusing on production processes that are required to develop public-facing work. The studio is important both as a working space and a space for collaborative reflection and productive critique.
INST 362: User-Centered Design
User-Centered Design is an introduction to user experience, user-centered design and user interface implementation methods in human-computer interaction (HCI). This course focuses on how HCI connects psychology, information systems, computer science, and human factors. Topics such as user needs, user behaviors, envisioning interfaces, and utilizing prototyping tools, with an emphasis on incorporating people in the design process from initial field observations to summative usability testing are discussed. This course introduces students to the user-centered design process, focusing on practical methods for approaching a design problem, including how to understand users, research, design for user experience and how to evaluate user interfaces. Also discussed are appropriate uses of storytelling, sketching, and communication of design ideas within a design team and to potential users. Assignments culminate into a single, comprehensive team portfolio project. There are also individual assignments and exams to help students better understand the user-centered design process.
INST 490: Integrated Capstone for Information Science and Technology and Information Design
The Capstone in Information Science and Technology and Information Design is the main practicum course in the Information Science (BSIS), Technology and Information Design (TID), and Social Data Science (SDS) Undergraduate programs. It provides a platform for students to integrate and apply many of the concepts, methods, and tools they have learned throughout their BSIS, TID, and SDS programs of study. Over the course of the semester, students collaborate in groups on a specific project that addresses an information problem or fulfills an information need.
TLPL 708B: Special Topics in Technology, Learning & Leadership: Communities, Technology & Learning
This course is focused on ways technologies and learning experiences can be integrated into community life, with an emphasis on resource-constrained, non-dominant communities. Developed as a special topics course for the Technology, Learning, and Leadership program, this course situates community-based learning with technology in equity, justice, and asset-based philosophies and approaches. Additionally, this course provides real-world experience engaging in technology-enhanced research with communities.
INST 352: Information User Needs and Assessment
Information User Needs and Assessment focuses on the use of information by individuals, including the theories, concepts, and principles of information, as well as user information behavior and mental models. Methods for determining information behavior and user needs, including accessibility issues, are examined; students explore strategies for using information technology to support individual users and their specific needs. Though this course is not a part of my typical course rotation, I taught INST 352 in Fall 2022.