For Teachers
The Data Scholars program at the University of California, Berkeley aims to foster a community of inclusive learning for students from diverse backgrounds with a passion for data science. The focus of the program are the seminars, which are structured in three levels: Foundations, Pathways, and Discovery.
Foundations
Students enrolling in Data 8 can apply to join Data Scholars! Students will enroll into a Data Scholars-only lab section for Data 8, and join a specialized 1-unit Foundations seminar. Students will also have access to special office hours and mentorship for academic support.
Pathways
For students who have already completed Data 8 and the Foundations seminar, the Pathways seminar supports long-term discovery experiences and career orientation. Pathways will feature guest speakers from research and industry, and special workshops for career and professional development, portfolio-building, and goal setting. This seminar will meet once a week for 90 minutes.
Discovery
For students who have completed the Pathways seminar and have two or more semesters of data science coursework completed, the Discovery seminar provides special workshops on cutting-edge data science tools, facilitates student matching onto some of the exciting research projects offered by the Data Science Discovery Research program, and offers research mentorship by experienced grad students and staff.
Pedagogy of the Discovery Seminar
The goal of the seminar is to establish a fun, trusting, and collaborative learning environment for students to support each other as they apply data science skills to “real world” problems. The seminar accompanies an applied research project with an established academic team on campus. Students are expected to become meaningful contributors to their project over the course of the semester.
Class sessions are focused on creating an open dialogue between students on their project experience, while also supporting independent and group learning of new data science abilities. The activities of the course are divided between 4 categories:
- Project Support
- Professional Development
- Hands On Skill Building
- Group Projects and Presentations
Using the Discovery Resources
All materials for the Discovery seminar are included here in the GitHub Repo. The facilitator of the course is expected to take a “hands-off” approach, allowing students to explore, make mistakes, and learn according to their own initiative. The guiding principle for the facilitator is to help students to develop their own abilities, not to try to impart particular knowledge.
Discovery facilitators are encouraged to review liberation pedagogy practices prior to organizing a seminar:
Creating a Discovery Community
All those engaged in creating open spaces for learning data science are encouraged to contribute to this open-source Discovery Guide. If you create new activities, materials, or resources for your course we encourage you to share them here so everyone can appreciate them!