Module 4, Dec 9, Presentations and screening. The Strategy Pitch is presented to your partner.

Strategy pitch presentations

Run of show

Partners introduce themselves first, in their own voices. Then two presentation blocks run with a break between them, followed by partner reflections and the revote. Each group gets roughly 12 minutes to present and 6 minutes of live feedback, with hard stops enforced by a student timekeeper; order is drawn at random and published in advance, except that groups with a remote partner present in the first block so nobody waits on Zoom for two hours. Before the room moves on, your group states the biggest thing it will change before the final written plan. After the revote, the class reviews the semester’s vote record, and the partner-video screening ends the term.

Pitch components

The four bolded items are the rubric’s required components. Every member speaks, no one reads from a script, and you end on your feedback ask.

• Partner and context: who they are, who they serve, and the problem stated as the partner defines it
• Needs assessment: what you found and how, citing your instrument and your stakeholder interviews; separate evidence from assumption
• Proposed technology and fit, including at least one condition under which you would recommend against it (the Week 6 move)
• Ethical considerations: your plan run through the sociotechnical protocol, naming the top risk and its mitigation
• Accessibility plan: concrete commitments on language, disability, device, and bandwidth; “we’ll make it accessible” does not count
• Evaluation metrics: what success looks like, what you would measure, and how you would know it failed
• Exit and sustainability, plus the one specific question you want feedback on
• An AI-disclosure line: how AI was used in producing the plan and how outputs were verified

The exit-and-sustainability component has a research literature, most of it about the failure mode. ICT4D practitioners call it pilotitis, the pattern of small pilots that never scale or outlive their grant; two PATH staff describe how two Vietnam digital-health tools escaped it and reached nationwide Ministry of Health adoption by 2017, through government integration from day one, a financial case (an estimated $673,000 a year saved by switching to SMS immunization reminders), shared impact evaluations, and design with frontline health workers throughout. The reverse case is running in real time: the IRS’s Direct File pilot accepted 140,803 returns across 12 states in 2024, expanded to 25 states, and was rated easier than prior filing methods by most users, and mid-2025 congressional action still left its future uncertain.

The feedback protocol

The six minutes after your presentation follow a compressed Critical Response Process: responders name what was strong and specific, you ask the room your own questions first, responders ask neutral questions, and opinions come only by consent. You take notes and you do not rebut. Meanwhile every attendee fills a three-line card (I like, I wish, I wonder), sorted and returned to you as a packet within a day or two.

The scripted structure is there because it measurably changes what novices produce. In the CritiqueKit experiment, novice reviewers working with guided scaffolds gave feedback that was specific, actionable, and justified 53 percent of the time, against 30 percent in the unscaffolded control. A structured peer round is also not a lesser substitute for expert critique: a meta-analysis of 24 studies found peer feedback improved higher-education writing substantially over no feedback (Hedges’ g of 0.91) and was statistically indistinguishable from teacher feedback.

The screening and the close

After the revote, the class spends about ten minutes on the full 14-week vote record. Every session this term opened with a proposition, a vote, and a revote, and the record shows the biggest single-session shift, the proposition the room never converged on, and whether the assigned-side debate weeks in Week 6 and Week 13 moved people more than the discussion weeks did.

Then the partner videos screen as the course’s closing celebration. The digital stories were due and critiqued back in Week 12, so tonight the room watches, with captions on for every piece, content notes where needed, and a light appreciation round between stories. Partners are in the room for the videos made for them. After the screening, each finished video is delivered to the partner organization it was made for, as a usable asset it owns. There will be food.

Partners

Partners do not grade anything; only the instructor grades. Their role is a one-line introduction at the top, an appreciative reflection at the end, and checking that you represented their organization accurately. In return they receive your final written plan.

Before class