My HCI students wrapped up their experience with The OpenMind Platform this week. Back in September, I wrote a bit about how it was going. Since then, they completed modules three through five. I gave them reflective activities after each of the first four modules, tying the module to the week's activities:
| OpenMind | Course Topic |
|---|---|
| Irrational Mind | Goal-Directed Design |
| Moral Matrix | Cultural Constraints |
| Intellectual Humility | Errors |
| Value of Diverse Perspectives | Heuristic Evaluation |
| Constructive Disagreement |
For the final module, rather than tie it into the week's topic of accessibility, I asked them to reflect on the OpenMind experience writ large and relate it to their study of human-computer interaction. This reflection was submitted confidentially to me rather than as a discussion board post, where practically everything else has lived this semester. I wanted to ensure that I was getting as honest feedback as I could expect from them.
The results were overwhelmingly positive. Everyone said it was useful to their studies, and most agreed that its impact reached well beyond the course. The most commonly cited portions of the program were the importance of a growth mindset—particularly in the face of receiving feedback on designs—and the elephant-and-rider metaphor. One student adroitly recognized the connection between OpenMind's themes and the Norman's themes in The Design of Everyday Things. Another pointed out how his background in social science made him skeptical of the program, but that going through, he found nothing questionable nor overreaching about it. One of the more curious but interesting responses was a student who said he wasn't sure that he got anything out of it, yet he enjoyed the exercise of tying a module's ideas to the week's topics.
One student argued that we didn't go far enough with the ideas brought up in OpenMind, that they have deeper connection to HCI than we gave them credit. He pointed out that OpenMind prepares you for meaningful interaction with different others, but that we stayed in conversation with the same classmates all semester. This is quite an observation, and I'm proud of this student for pushing in this direction. I had two themes in my response to him. One is the easy one, that the global pandemic complicates a lot of things, but I could certainly consider rearranging other parts of the course to make room for such activities in the future. The other is that I retain a fear of tokenization. Disability is diverse just like everything else, but the observation leaves me a stake in the ground to consider for future offerings of the course. Also, he may not yet have looked ahead at the just-published final project specification, which does actually require interviewing people as part of the empathy-building process, although not necessarily along lines of disability.
Overall, then, I call the integration of OpenMind an unqualified success. All those who mentioned course integration lauded it and encouraged continuing it. One suggested that it would be even more valuable if given in high school, to counteract the tribalism that arises there. This leans into my continuing consideration of OpenMind in my teaching: would it be valuable to roll this out in my CS222 class next semester? I need to give it serious consideration once I have a chance to start planning that course. (I am still waiting final word on the room and meeting arrangements, which is of crucial importance to planning, of course.)
My main criticism of OpenMind from a teaching point of view is that it's very difficult for me, as an educator, to get in and browse the material. I went through it myself, but memory is imperfect. They provide a dashboard of sorts for teachers who assign the program, but I had no use of this: I wanted to be able to browse or even dump out the contents of each module so that I could review it and mention specific parts in my feedback videos. I understand that they don't want people accessing the material outside of their platform, for research and analytics purposes, but it would still be quite valuable to me. I would rather not go through it again myself each time I am planning a course and trying to remember the details of how a student interacts with it.
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