HEALth Case Studies

Abstract:: This program was designed for dental hygiene and dentistry students to help them learn about evidence-based dentistry and its role in providing quality dental care. This program uses patient-based case studies combined with interactive tools and activities to help students become effective consumers of oral health research data. They learn to locate, evaluate, and use the outcomes of research studies to improve patient assessment, diagnosis, clinical decision making, and treatment planning, as well as help students learn how ask focused research questions and plan a research study.

Relational Machines, Spring 2005

Abstract:: This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building relational machines through a combination of studio-style design and critique along with lecture, lively discussion of course readings, and assignments. Insights from social psychology, human-computer interaction, and design will be examined, as well as how these ideas are manifest in a broad range of applications for software agents and robots.

Abstract:: Innovation in expression -- as realized in media, tangible objects, and performance, and more -- generates new questions and new potentials for human engagement. When and how does expression engage us deeply? While "deep engagement" seems fundamental to the human psyche, it is hard to define, difficult to reliably design for, and hard to critically measure or assess. Are there principles we can articulate? Are there evaluation metrics we can use to insure quality of experience? Many personal stories confirm the hypothesis that once we experience deep engagement, it is a state we long for, remember, and want to repeat. We need to better understand these principles and innovate methods that can insure higher-quality products (artifacts, experiences, environments, performances, etc.) that appeal to a broad audience and that have lasting value over the long term.