M0 — Course & Setup
Status: Live in StemShare since September 12, 2026 (and trimmed the same night — see Revision below). · Weeks: 1–2 · Sprint: none yet (pre–Sprint 1)
Purpose
Teach the course operating system — not the syllabus fine print (that stays in Canvas), but how students will actually spend their time: the weekly rhythm, the sprint cadence, specification grading, the feedback model, and what gear they need before the first studio session.
In-class pairing: the Monday September 14 onboarding reinforces this content live; Wednesday September 16 moves to M2 · Signal Flow & Sessions.
Calendar alignment
| Day | Event | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Mon Sep 14 | Onboarding: syllabus, tools, structure, get-to-know-you | First Steps checklist + M0 articles; [[m1-foundations |
| Wed Sep 16 | Signal-flow lecture + first studio | M2 unlocks; Signal Flow — The Big Picture as pre-read |
| Sun Sep 20 | Warm-up post + first async feedback | Onboarding Review quiz due |
| End of Week 2 | Foundations of Audio series complete | Foundations Review quiz due |
Articles
| # | Title | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00 | First Steps | Checklist | Accounts, gear, reading order, and the September 16 / 20 / 27 deadlines — listed first in the pathway |
| 01 | How This Class Works | Concept | The three-beat week (Monday lecture, Wednesday studio, Sunday submit) and which tool is for what |
| 02 | Giving & Receiving Feedback | Process | The four-step framework — canonical home, reused all year |
| 03 | Your Toolkit | Concept | Laptop, DAW, headphones, adapters, the lab’s interface drivers |
| 04 | The Laptop as Instrument | Concept | What makes the laptop an instrument, and what fluency with it means beyond one DAW |
| 05 | Sprints, Grading & Jams | Concept | Split out of 01 on September 12; imported with the first sprint |
| 06 | Your Toolkit — Going Deeper | Reference | DAW tiers, interfaces and monitoring at home vs. campus, MIDI controllers — optional |
Assessments
- Quick checks — one or two interactive checks per article
- Onboarding Review — short review quiz at the end of the pathway (80% to pass)
Design notes
- Keep policy details (late work, attendance, office hours) out of the articles — link to the Canvas syllabus.
- Article 02 should mirror the language used on feedback days all year; 175 reuses it unchanged.
- Tone: welcoming, concrete, “here’s how you’ll spend your time.”
Revision — September 12
The module went live and was trimmed the same night: far too much reading for a first week. The required path is now the checklist → How This Class Works (the first two sections only) → a short Your Toolkit → a five-question review. Giving & Receiving Feedback and The Laptop as Instrument stay published and linked as optional reading; the sprints/grading section became its own article to import with the first sprint; the deeper gear sections became Your Toolkit — Going Deeper. The lesson generalizes to every later module: assign the minimum that unlocks Wednesday, and let the library be there for the curious.