Course Schedule

The schedule below is a tentative outline of our plans for the semester.

For each class period, please start by actively reviewing the associated Learning Goals, review/finish the daily activity (turn in by deadline), and watch/read the indicated videos/readings to supplement your understanding.


Week 1
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
8/31 1 Intro to R, RStudio, and R Markdown

Slides for Today

Assignment 1 Due Tuesday, September 6 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Introduction to R Markdown, by Wickham and Grolemund
Tidy Data, by Wickham
Tidy Data (12.1, 12.2), by Wickham and Grolemund
Quarto, a VERY new alternative to R Markdown

Videos:
Setting up for success in the course, by Lisa Lendway
Introduction to RStudio, by Alicia Johnson
Check version of R and RStudio, by Lisa Lendway
RStudio tour, by Lisa Lendway
R Markdown introduction, by Lisa Lendway
9/2 Friday Fun: Community Building Scavenger Hunt
Finish Assignment 1 (due 9/6).
Week 2
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
9/7 2 Introduction to Data Visualization

Set up NY Times Subscription (Free to you through Macalester)

Slides for Today

Assignment 2 Due Tuesday, September 13 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Data visualization, by Wickham and Grolemund
Layered grammar of graphics, by Wickham and Grolemund
A grammar for graphics (Chp 3), by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton
Aesthetic mapping (Chp 2), by Wilke
Visualizing distributions (Chp 7), by Wilke

Videos:
Intro to ggplot , by Lisa Lendway
9/9 Friday Fun: Tidy Tuesday

Slides for Today

Readings:
Telling a Story (Chp 29), by Wilke
Finish Assignment 2 (due 9/13).
Week 3
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
9/12 3 Effective Viz

Slides for Today

Readings:
Equity Awareness for Data Visualizations, by Urban Institute
Telling a story (Chp 29), by Wilke
9/14 4 Bivariate Viz

Slides for Today

Assignment 3 Due Tuesday, September 20 at 11:59pm

FYC Library Tutorial (only FYC Section) Due Friday, September 16 at 9am
Pre-Class Activity (only FYC Section) Due Friday, September 16 at 9am
Readings:
Visualizing amounts (Chp 6), by Wilke

Videos:
ggplot demo, Lisa Lendway
Common ggplot mistakes, Lisa Lendway
9/16 Friday Fun: Meet in Idea Lab (Section 1 & 2), Meet in Library 206 for Library Session (Section F1)
Finish Assignment 3 (due 9/20)
Week 4
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
9/19 5 Multivariate Viz

Slides for Today

Assignment 4 Due Sunday, September 25 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Visualize This (Chp 7), by Yau

Videos:
More ggplot, Lisa Lendway
9/21 6 Spatial Viz

Slides for Today

Assignment 5 Due Tuesday, September 27 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Visualize This (Chp 8), by Yau
Spatial data visualization (Chp 17, intro and 17.1), by Baumer et al.

Videos:
Plotting data on a map with ggmap, Lisa Lendway
Glamour of graphics, Will Chase (slides here
9/23 Friday Fun: Introduction to Iterative Viz

Slides for Today
Finish Assignment 4 (due 9/25) and Assignment 5 (due 9/27)
Week 5
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
9/26 7 Six Main Verbs

Slides for Today

Assignment 6 Due Tuesday, October 4 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Data transformation, by Wickham and Grolemund
Data wrangling on one table, by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton

Videos:
Intro to dplyr, Lisa Lendway
Demonstration of dplyr, Lisa Lendway
9/28 8 Reshaping Data

Slides for Today

Assignment 7 Due Tuesday, October 4 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Pivoting and narrow v. wide formats, by Wickham and Grolemund
Reshaping data, by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton

Videos:
Demonstration of pivoting, Lisa Lendway
9/30 Friday Fun: TBD (Section 1 & 2); CC & C (FYC Section)

Slides for Today
Finish Assignment 6 (due 10/4) and Assignment 7 (due 10/4)
Week 6
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
10/3 9 Joining

Slides for Today

Assignment 8 Due Sunday, October 9 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Relational data, by Wickham and Grolemund
Data wrangling on multiple table, by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton

Videos:
Demonstration of joining data, Lisa Lendway
10/5 10 Factors

Slides for Today

Assignment 9 Completed in groups in class on Weds, October 5 - submit to Moodle by 11:59pm
Readings:
Factors, by Wickham and Grolemund
Videos:
Working with factors using forcats, Lisa Lendway
10/7 Friday Fun: Joins and Maps, FYC: + Guest Speaker

Slides for Today

Finish Assignment 8 (due 10/9)
Week 7
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
10/10 11 Mini Project

Slides for Today

10/12 Continued Mini Project Work

Slides for Today

10/14 Midterm Review

Slides for Today

Study for Exam on 10/17!
Week 8
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
10/17 Midterm
10/19 Midterm Revisions & Project Brainstorming

Slides for Today

Brainstorm Activity (due next Friday)
Midterm Part 2 Revisions & Reflection (due next Friday)
10/21 FALL BREAK (NO CLASS)
Week 9
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
10/24 12 EDA

Slides for Today

Assignment 11 Due Sunday, October 30 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Exploratory Data Analysis, by Wickham and Grolemund
Exploratory Data Analysis Checklist, by Peng
10/26 13 Data Import

Slides for Today

Assignment 12 Due Tuesday, November 1 at 11:59pm
Readings:
Data import, by Wickham and Grolemund
Missing data, by Wickham and Grolemund
Data intake, by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton

Videos:
Using the import wizard, Lisa Lendway
10/28 Fun Friday: Deep Dive in Project Ideas!

Slides for Today
Finish Assignment 11 (due 10/30) and Assignment 12 (due 11/1).
Week 10
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
10/31 14 Regular Expressions

Slides for Today

Assignment 13 Due Tuesday, November 8 at 11:59pm
Reading:
Strings, by Wickham and Grolemund
Regular expressions, by Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton

Tutorials and tools:
Working with strings, by Lisa Lendway
RegExplain RStudio addin by Garrick Aden-Buie
regexr exploration tool
11/2 Project Narrow Focus

Slides for Today

If you would like to use Github for collaboration on the project, here are some resources
github video tutorial, Lisa Lendway
Instructions that accompany the video tutorial above
Happy Git with R by Jenny Bryan
11/4 Fun Friday: Project Work!

Slides for Today
Finish Assignment 13 (due 11/8).
Week 11
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
11/7 Written Communication: Crafting Sentences

Slides for Today
11/9 Written Communication: One Number Story

Slides for Today
11/11 Fun Friday: Peer Review

Slides for Today
Other Resources:
JSON: A Non-Programmer's Introduction to JSON
Chp 15 and 16, by Baumer, Kaplan, Horton
Text Mining with R, by Julia Silge and David Robinson
Finish One Number Story (Assignment 14) due 11/15.
Week 12
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
11/14 Oral Communication

Slides for Today
11/16 Present Data Vizualization & Critique

Slides for Today
11/18 Present Data Vizualization & Critique

Slides for Today
Continue working on projects
Week 13
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
11/21 Project Planning

Slides for Today

11/23 Thanksgiving Break (NO CLASS)
11/25 Thanksgiving Break (NO CLASS)
Continue working on projects.
Week 14
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
11/28 Storyboarding

Slides for Today
11/30 Project Work Day

Slides for Today
12/2 Project Work Day
Continue working on Final Projects
Week 15
Date Activity Topic & Assignments Optional Readings/Videos
12/5 Project Progress Reports
12/7 Project Work Day
12/9 Last Day of Class

Slides for Today
Continue working on Final Projects