Each unit begins with a set of readings to introduce the subject. Students are expected to read the required selections and synthesize their own thoughts in a considered, written response prior to the next class. We are not looking for summarization, here⁠—these should be personal reflections on the subjects, and are evaluated with this lens. We then discuss these readings as a group.

Each unit will also have specific, technical exercises and milestones that are assigned towards completion of the projects. These assignments are expected to be completed outside of class, before the next session. Some of these will be small; some of these will be large. They are all evaluated for completion and quality.

Students are expected to actively and passionately participate in this course. This means more than showing up and turning things in on time⁠—which should be a given. Beyond that baseline students should be curious, prepared, thoughtful, vocal, and intentional throughout the course. They should make us understand why they are here, and demonstrate to us that they care about themselves, their work, and each other⁠—and ultimately, about this chosen profession.

This engagement will be unavoidably reflected in the quality of students’ work⁠—but we also evaluate this discretely based on their participation in and out of the classroom, with us and with their peers.

The bulk of the work for this class takes the form of projects. They are intended as opportunities for students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills learned in class while developing their own practice, and are evaluated in this light.

There will be check-ins and reviews around each of these before the final due dates, when we will have critiques as a group. In addition to the quality of the finished project itself, students will have in-person design and technical reviews⁠—where they will be assessed on their explanation and understanding of their work, to determine whether they have met our learning objectives.

More specific, per-project evaluation criteria will be delineated with each project’s introduction.

Our class will create and maintain an agreement, intended to help us foster a safe, empathetic, and productive space for our course. It is built on trust and accumulated experience across cohorts. It can be revised and modified, with all of our input, over the year, and lives on our course site.

This agreement is intended to help us create and maintain a safe, empathetic, and productive space for our course. It is built on trust and accumulated experience across cohorts. It can be revised and modified, with all of our input, over the year:

• Classmates should use our preferred names and pronouns.

• We will have a short break, roughly halfway through the class.

• The class should feel comfortable asking the instructors anything⁠—nothing is too trivial, or embarrassing, or off-topic. Tangents are good! Students can always ask us via Slack, if they would like to remain anonymous.

• When presenting for critiques, students will “have the floor” while they take us through their work. This means everyone else will be quiet, we’ll close our laptops/​turn off our phones, and give our full attention to the person explaining their work.

• Likewise for when the instructors are presenting new material⁠—no laptops, no phones. If students require either for assisting their learning, they must request approval beforehand. Our default setting should be “full attention, up front.”

• We will all endeavor to engage meaningfully with presented work, and try to give constructive feedback⁠—not just fluff. Our classroom should be a safe place for this; no mercy, no malice.

• We will use all our tools (LLM⁠s/​“artificial intelligence,” or otherwise) with criticality, transparency, and in support of our learning. We are here to do the work ourselves!

• When incorporating materials from outside of the class, we will demonstrate our understanding by explaining our work and always attributing any references, tools, or others.

Our intent is to respect and give forum to a range of perspectives and backgrounds, including culture, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, and age. In instances where we are not personally qualified to speak from a specific perspective⁠—which is most of them⁠—students are encouraged to explore these area themselves. We believe we are all enriched by this.

We are always open to input such that the course can better serve these goals. Students should feel comfortable approaching us with their suggestions.

We will have limited availability outside of our class time, and won’t keep scheduled “office hours.” Students should not expect us to immediately solve specific design or technical problems, or have their progress be blocked by this. Their first resource should be themselves, then our course site and its materials, and then each other.

That said: if there are still questions⁠—particularly logistical or content ones⁠—students can message us any time on Slack, and we will respond when we can. But again, this should never be a bottleneck; all of this works better when not done at the last minute.

For more specific technical instruction and questions, Parsons has dedicated CD-program tutors available to help students with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript⁠—as well as offering general design critiques and feedback. Their daily schedules are available midway through the semester; sessions are by-appointment.

The University Learning Center also offers its own tutoring sessions on a wide range of subjects, beyond design and programming; these are also by-appointment.

As tutors are only available a limited number of hours per week, it is advisable to start early on your projects and seek help along the way⁠—to avoid the usual end-of-semester rush for additional help.

We will take recordings of all of our class sessions for students to reference later. As these will include the students and their work, the recordings will be stored on our Google Drive and made available only to New School email users.

While all design work is, to some extent, built on the the continuum of culture before us⁠—our expectation is that the students’ work in our class is their own creation. That is why we are all here, and there is no point in us engaging with any work that is not.

We have zero tolerance for plagiarism and passing off the work of others (or LLM⁠s) as one’s own⁠—from initial ideas through to final implementation. This ranges from “verbatim” (copying-and-pasting), to “paraphrasing” (rewording, rearranging, deriving), to “autocompleting” (with LLM-assisted editors), to “vibe coding” (wholesale agentic use). None of these are your creation.

Everything that is turned in should be a product of each students’ own ideas, synthesis, and execution. They will always be expected to understand it, explain it, and defend it as they would themselves.

Students should also review the school’s Academic Integrity Policy.

When referencing or incorporating materials outside of our course-provided ones (lectures, exercises, demos, recordings, Slack conversations, etc.), students should always attribute their use.

These attributions should explain why they were brought in, what was referenced, and an overall understanding of how it works. (This includes anything from LLM⁠s, more below.) This will both help us gauge what students are getting out of it, and also where we can expand and guide our learning together as a class.

Practically, these will take the form of code comments. An example:

						/* I wanted to treat large grids differently in my design! */
/* I found this tool: https://css-tip.com/quantity-queries/ */
/* The selector matches when the container has a sixth child. */
.container:has(> :nth-child(6)) {
	background-color: gold;
}

		
		

There has been much discussion and development in our field (and others) around large language models, a.k.a. “artificial intelligence.” Tools like the conspicuous Chat⁠GPT, Claude Code, Cursor’s IDE, Google Gemini, and GitHub Copilot are upending the industry and changing how we work. But aside from (the many) other concerns, their use in the classroom remains fraught, at best.