CSE 510 - Advanced Topics in HCI - Spring 2026

Reflections

Reflections ask you to demonstrate and apply your understanding of the course material in a more substantial format than reading reports. Asking you to connect concepts across readings and research, reflections aim to evaluate your understanding of and critical thinking about concepts covered in this course. Keeping pace with readings and engaging in discussions will make reflections easier to prepare.

Prior versions of this course have used exams or labs toward similar purposes. These reflections are intended to provide greater flexibility for students to adapt the course to their goals and learning. Reflections are inherently open-book, so you may reference readings, discussion posts, presentation slides, notes, or other material readily available on the web.

Reflections are strictly individual (i.e., do not discuss your reflections with others). You may consult the course staff with any general questions about the intent of this reflection format, but should not ask course staff to review a draft, answer questions that emerge as you prepare a reflection, or otherwise provide direct input in your preparation of a reflection.

Types of Reflections

Students are asked to submit three different types of reflections, on:

  • Contribution: what knowledge is gained through research activities.
  • Method: how research activities are structured to demonstrate contributions.
  • Framing: how motivation, language, theory, or understanding can provide context for activities and contributions.

Required Reflections and Additional Reflection

Each student is required to submit: 1 contribution reflection, 1 method reflection, 1 framing reflection.

Optionally, a student may submit 1 additional reflection of any type. If this additional reflection is submitted and receives a higher grade than a required reflection of the same type, it will replace that prior reflection.

Reflection due dates are intentionally staggered relative to project due dates. Nevertheless, managing the workload of reflections will require planning. Although staff will aim to grade reflections as quickly as possible, it may not be possible to provide grades prior to the due date of an additional reflection.

Selected papers and research must be unique across all submitted reflections (i.e., you may not use the same paper or research in more than one reflection). This can suggest advance planning of what papers and research you intend to use in each reflection.

Grading

Evaluation is necessarily subjective, so we have attempted to detail how we will approach evaluation of each reflection. You may consult the course staff with any general questions about the intent of this reflection format, but should not ask course staff to review a draft, answer questions that emerge as you prepare a reflection, or otherwise provide direct input in your preparation of a reflection.

Each reflection will be graded on a scale of 10 points. This is intended to provide sufficient granularity for evaluation to differentiate reflections of varying quality, while remaining coarse enough to avoid introducing distinctions that are likely to be inconsistently applied. We expect few submissions to receive 10 points, as the upper extreme of the grading scale will be reserved for reflections that differentiate themselves. Reflections that receive other strong grades may therefore meet expectations, may not be missing any expected component, and may not be incorrect in any identifiable way. The strongest grades will be reserved for reflections that go beyond expectations in one or more regards.

Do not include your name in your submission. Our goal is to maximize anonymity in grading of reflections. Any submission that includes a name will be graded but then penalized for this breach of anonymity.

Submission

Submit your reflections in PDF format: