Week 12 Lecture: Integration

Revisiting Week 1's habit-formation research, what actually changed and how we know, and closing the loop

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Introduction#

Week 1’s empty chart, filled in live with the class’s anonymised, aggregated self-reported change. This week teaches nothing new — it’s designed to prove retention, not add content. Today’s scope is a full-semester review, structured as evidence-gathering: the course’s central claim gets checked here, not just asserted.

Definitions#

Evidence (noun, callback)

something that actually happened.

Intention (noun, contrast)

something you meant to do.

Body#

• Revisiting Lally et al. (2010). A 12-week semester falls short of the 66-day average from Week 1 — stated honestly, not overclaimed.

Check-in: Based on Week 1's research, would you expect every habit in this course to be fully formed by today?

• What actually changed, and how we know. The Then and Now method: pull up the five scores from Week 1’s starting point check, alongside every schedule and plan built since — Week 2’s hygiene schedule, Week 4’s sleep and exercise plan, Week 10’s shopping schedule. Pick the one area that changed the most, and back it up with something you actually did this semester, not something you meant to — the same starting-state/what-changed/actual-reason shape as Week 8’s incident report, except this time the outcome is good. The point of running it this way: a self-report alone can’t tell “I got better at this” apart from “I’ve decided I got better at this” — a schedule you actually kept can. This week’s lab runs the method itself, using the scores and schedules you bring with you.

Check-in: Between a self-report and a kept schedule, which one can actually tell you apart from someone who just decided they'd improved?

• Closing the loop. The fridge from weeks 2, 4, and 10 — condiments and one ageing lime then, a photographed week of planned groceries priced against a real budget now. The sock pile from week 2, down from twenty-three unpaired socks to four, tracked against a laundry schedule that finally states a frequency. Week 1’s desk, its accumulated clutter replaced by a shallow tray with somewhere for things to go. Jordan’s Week from week 4 — six stated intentions and zero actual times then; a sleep and exercise schedule that either held or has an honest account of where it slipped, now. The 600-word message from week 9 — the three-sentence rule, applied to whatever actually needed sending since.

Check-in: Of these five callbacks, which one do you have real evidence for in your own semester — a number, a photo, a schedule — rather than just a sense that it got better?

In-lecture activity#

Conclusion#

Real, evidenced change, however partial, over the exact timeframe the first lecture’s own research predicted. Competence is a skill like any other; CS culture just never taught you this one — the semester’s promise checked against evidence, not just claimed. Coming up: the final lab (Then and Now, and the capstone showcase), and Assignment 3 (Time to be an Adult) due this Friday at 12:00.

This week’s reflection, due 12:00 the following Tuesday: name one habit from Week 1 that held all semester, and one that reverted the moment nobody was checking.

Thanks for the semester.