Novel representations and diverse perspectives can reveal new insights into complex systems, and can support rich understandings of the world. In this activity, students will identify and analyze the choices artists and scientists make when creating representations of living or non-living natural objects. This process will help students recognize the potential and place for their own articulation of how the world works. After drawing from nature, students will reflect on the process of representing information, then compare their drawings with that of a 16th-century artist. Students will consider what is included and what is excluded, and hypothesize about larger contexts and systems.

Students develop critical thinking skills by interviewing a person who has perspective on environmental history. Students explore the concept of a timeline, including historical milestones, and develop a sense of the context of events.

21G.301/351 offers an introduction to the French language and culture with an emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. The course is conducted entirely in French, and students interact in French with their classmates from the very beginning. They also receive exposure to the language via a variety of authentic sources such as the Internet, audio, video and printed materials which help them develop cultural awareness as well as linguistic proficiency. There is a coordinated language lab program.
This course is taught in rotation by the following instructors: Laura Ceia-Minjares, Cathy Culot, Gilberte Furstenberg, and Johann Sadock.

21G.302/352 is the second part of an introductory course to the French language and culture with an emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical concepts through active communication. The course is conducted entirely in French and students interact in French with their classmates from the very beginning. They also receive exposure to the language via a variety of authentic sources such as the Internet, audio, video and printed materials which help them develop cultural awareness as well as linguistic proficiency. There is a coordinated language lab program.
This course is taught in rotation by the following instructors: Laura Ceia-Minjares, Cathy Culot, Gilberte Furstenberg, and Johann Sadock.

This class introduces fundamental issues in sculpture such as site, context, process, psychology and aesthetics of the object, and the object's relation to the body. During the semester Introduction to Sculpture will explore issues of interpretation and audience interaction. As a significant component to this class introductions to a variety of materials and techniques both traditional (wood, metal, plaster) as well as non-traditional (fabric, latex, found objects, rubber, etc.) will be emphasized.

Hands-on experience designing, conducting, analyzing, and presenting experiments on the structure and processing of human language. Focuses on constructing, conducting, analyzing, and presenting an original and independent experimental project of publishable quality. Develops skills in reading and writing scientific research reports in cognitive science, including evaluating the methods section of a published paper, reading and understanding graphical displays and statistical claims about data, and evaluating theoretical claims based on experimental data. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided.

The text introduces some of the key concepts in intercultural communication as traditionally presented in (North American) courses and textbooks, namely the study of differences between cultures, as represented in the works and theories of Edward Hall and Geert Hofstede. Common to these approaches is the prominence of context, leading to a view of human interactions as dynamic and changeable, given the complexity of language and culture, as human agents interact with their environments.

With guided practice students will use context clues to determine meaning of unfamiliar words in short passages. When students have completed the practice activities, they will read a newspaper or magazine article, picking out unfamiliar words and using context clues to decide what the word means. As a group activity they will share the article, the words, and their meanings with the class.

This course on global integration brings together matters of global markets and institutions, global strategy, organization, and leadership. Global integration, the process by which an organization with units around the world becomes united, will be presented as a link to entrepreneurship and general management. The seminar is offered only to those enrolled in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program and challenges the participants to draw upon their past managerial experiences, especially those affiliated with multinational companies.

Increasingly, we are realizing that to make computer systems more intelligent and responsive to users, we will have to make them more sensitive to context. Traditional hardware and software design overlooks context because it conceptualizes systems as input-output functions. Systems take input explicitly given to them by a human, act upon that input alone and produce explicit output. But this view is too restrictive. Smart computers, intelligent agent software, and digital devices of the future will also have to operate on data that they observe or gather for themselves. They may have to sense their environment, decide which aspects of a situation are really important, and infer the user's intention from concrete actions. The system's actions may be dependent on time, place, or the history of interaction, in other words, dependent upon context.
But what exactly is context? We'll look at perspectives from machine learning, sensors and embedded devices, information visualization, philosophy and psychology. We'll see how each treats the problem of context, and discuss the implications for design of context-sensitive hardware and software.
Course requirements will consist of critiques of class readings (about 3 papers/week), and a final project (paper or computer implementation project).

“Should We Ban It?” is a speaking lesson plan download aimed at adult and adolescent students with upper-intermediate proficiency levels and above. It is perfect for both individuals and groups, helping promote fluency in speaking and spark healthy discussion about individual and societal value changes over time. Keep in mind that the content of this lesson is controversial — we advise you to review the entire lesson before teaching. This lesson is inappropriate for young learners.If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.

When should “Should We Ban It?” be used?“Should We Ban It?” is a speaking lesson plan download aimed at adult and adolescent students with upper-intermediate proficiency levels and above. It is perfect for both individuals and groups, helping promote fluency in speaking and spark healthy discussion about individual and societal value changes over time. Keep in mind that the content of this lesson is controversial — we advise you to review the entire lesson before teaching. This lesson is inappropriate for young learners.If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.

Instructional expert Jim Knight visits Michael Covarrubias to observe a lesson on context clues, discuss the classroom management techniques he is using already, and share some ideas to increase student engagement. Michael and Jim discuss emphasizing effort, getting students attention before asking questions, using response cards, and planning back-up activities.

The goal of this activity is for students to develop visual literacy. They learn how images are manipulated for a powerful effect and how a photograph can make the invisible (pollutants that form acid rain) visible (through the damage they cause). The specific objective is to write captions for photographs.

These learning activities are designed to be used in a large introductory chemistry course, each as part of a larger module of learning activities that include a prior reading of a short background information document. By working in small groups to discuss the presented information and question prompts, students will apply concepts seen in earlier coursework to explore a topic of societal or environmental relevance. No new conceptual information is delivered in these activities; rather they provide an opportunity to show students how the chemistry concepts they have developed support a detailed scientific understanding of a significant issue.Instructional resources for each activity  include 1) background information (.docx and .pdf) 2) the learning activity (.docx and .pdf) 3) the learning objects (.docx and .pdf) and 4) the slide deck (.pptx).These activities include exploration of:Methyl Transferase EnzymesNitrogen CycleOzone and Chlorofluorocarbons Mechanism of Penicillin Interior Salish Pit Cooking

Students will engage in reading imagery through extended viewing of an image, and then engaging with critical dialog about what they saw. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website, "Who Am I Online?"

Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing — the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and spaces, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities. The authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.

Student teams act as engineers and learn about systems thinking and scale by reassembling the separated pages of the engaging picture book, “Zoom,” by Istvan Banyai. The book is a series of 31 wordless pictures that start very close-up and then zoom out—from a rooster’s comb to outer space. Like a movie camera, each subsequent page pulls back to reveal the context of the previous scene as something different than what you originally thought. When the 31 un-numbered pages are jumbled, it is a surprising challenge for teams to figure out how the pictures connect. The task prompts students to pause and look closer so as to adjust to new points of view and problem solve to find a logical sequence. It requires them to step back and take a broader view. Students learn that engineers work together as teams and look at things very closely so that they see different things and come up with more than one solution when problem solving. To conclude, students go outside and practice their skills by imagining and then drawing their own Zoom-like small booklet stories inspired by items found in nature. The classic duck/rabbit ambiguous drawing is provided as a kickoff visual aid.