Syllabus

DIY Health

ITP - Fall 2012
Mondays 9:30 am – 12:00 Noon
Steven Dean
steven.dean@nyu.edu
917 538-5194
@sgdean
Office Hours: Mondays after class, 12 – 1 or by appointment

Goals

  • Explore your own personal meaning of health and self-care
  • Understand how actions (behaviors) can lead to achieving goals
  • Understand how behavior change works and how to design for it
  • Learn how to model systems especially ones of self-care
  • Design a final project that is a self-care system that works for you
  • Collaborate with others to iterate and improve on what you design

Class Schedule

Sep 10 / Intro, what is health?

  1. Goals of the course
  2. Syllabus overview
  3. What does health mean to you?

Sep 21 (Friday) / Quantified self & self-experimentation

  1. The QS movement
  2. Hackers, experimenters and DIYers

Sep 24 / What is behavior change?

  1. What is a behavior?
  2. Models of behavior change
  3. Human nature and some basic psychology
  4. Types of behaviors

Oct 1 / Designing for behavior change

  1. Types of behaviors
  2. Motivation, ability, triggers
  3. Designing for behavior change

Oct 8 / Habit formation

  1. Behavior shaping
  2. Building a habit machine
  3. Self-tracking and self-experiments in habit creation

Oct 15 / No Class

Oct 22 / Body as interface

  1. Sensors, devices, technology on the horizon
  2. Hacking the body. Hacking the self.
  3. Guest lecture: Fred Muench from Mobile Health Interventions and The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University

Oct 29 / Sandy
No class

Nov 5 / Goals, actions and feedback loops

  1. Cybernetic systems
  2. Self-tracking and self-monitoring
  3. Guest lecture: Paul Pangaro from General Cybernetics

Nov 12 / Designing a Self-Care System

  1. Final project drafts
  2. Designing and building lean machines
  3. Guest lecture: J. Paul Neeley

Nov 19 / Final Project Workshop

  1. Guest lecture: Alexis Gambis from Imagine Science Films

Nov 26 / Final Project Reviews

Dec 3 / Final Project Workshop

Dec 10 / Prepare for Final Presentations

Dec 12 WEDNESDAY 9:30 AM – NOON / Final Presentations

Requirements

1. Attendance. Come to class. If you miss class, you can’t really make it up because a lot of the work gets done in class. If you’re sick, stay at home. But otherwise, join us.

2. Punctuality. Arrive to class on time.

3. Contact me. Feel free to contact me via phone, email or text.

4. Readings. These are important and required. Contributing to the class blog is required for every reading assignment and to read and comment on other’s entries. Include 3 questions that the reading prompts you to ask or 3 ways the reading may be helpful in your work. Post links and other resources that may be helpful to the group.

5. Assignments. All must be submitted to pass the course.

6. Distractions. Please do not email, text or surf during class.

7. Contribute. The success of this course is as dependent on your contribution as it is on mine. Please let me know if you see a way to help the class succeed and thrive.

Grading

ITP uses a pass/fail system. In the grade-based system, you had to maintain a B average or higher to stay in the program. The same expectation exists. A, C or below translates to a failure. Grading in this course will be largely project-based. A break-down of the grading structure is as follows:

20% Attendance On-time & Participation
50% Assignments
30% Final Project

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