Best class ever (yet?)

I created this data viz course and have delivered it four or five times now. As you might imagine, I didn’t get everything right the first time (“no guff!” I hear the first cohort saying) and, as a result, the course evolved from one iteration to the next.

I have learned a thing or two about teaching along the way. The students in Continuing Studies are already pretty highly motivated self starters. Why else would they commit their Saturdays or Sundays to data viz school? Nevertheless, this time around I deliberately increased their deliverables and structured weekly assignments of one kind or another. Wow! Did they ever deliver. Mind blown : )

As an homage to @thisisindexed.com, I captured my biggest take-away from the class in a simple info graphic: the more you ask them to do, the more they deliver.

DataViz in 6 Weeks is my blog about teaching Introduction to Visual Analytics at OCAD University in Toronto. Comments, follows and shares welcome. #DataVizInSixWeeks

Anne Stevens
I am a multidisciplinary designer working in data visualization, interaction design and innovation. I am particularly interested in non-screen based physical representations of data and tangible user interfaces.