BIS 351
Topics in American Culture:
Ethnic Studies
Spring
2007
Learning Portfolio Assignment
midquarter
learning portfolio due in Blackboard no
later than 8:35 a.m. on Thursday, May 3;
final
portfolio due in Blackboard no later than 8:35 a.m. on Tuesday, May 29
The purpose of this assignment is to
provide you with a chance to reflect upon what you have learned, to
critically analyze your work, and to practice the selection of and
presentation of your work to an audience.
You will submit
your portfolio electronically, using the Assignments area of Blackboard
. I use
electronic portfolios for several reasons:
- They eliminate the use of paper, because I can read and comment on
your portfolio's comments online;
- You do not have to worry about printer
problems, which are much more common than other computer problems;
- You and I can work on portfolios from anywhere in the world where
we have Internet access, without having to haul papers around;
- Your portfolio will remain archived, so you will have access to it
when you need to complete your graduation portfolio in your senior capstone
course if you are an Interdisciplinary Studies major;
- You can submit your portfolio without being on campus on the due
date;
- Neither
you nor I can lose your documents.
Note: It is very important
that you follow these step-by-step instructions. These instructions work!
Important: All artifacts
(documents that you upload into your portfolio) must be Microsoft Word documents (not
Microsoft Works or Wordperfect). If you use a Macintosh computer, you must add
the suffix .doc to the names of all attached artifacts
described below.
Midquarter Portfolio
- When you are ready to work on your portfolio,
log onto Blackboard at <http://bb.uwb.edu/
>.
-
Click on the "Assignments"
link.
- Then, one by one, you will add content to
your
electronic portfolio. Refer to the specific instructions below for
each item.
- Annotated Bibliography. The research question and annotated bibliography for
your research
paper
constitute
the first component
of your midquarter learning portfolio. Please carefully follow the
instructions on the Research Paper assignment page at http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/BIS351Research.html to
submit the annotated bibliography. IMPORTANT: Be sure you have named the
Microsoft Word document properly as requested, and be sure
that you attach the artifact correctly. With
this item and all of the others, you can click the "Save" button
periodically to make sure you don't lose your work, but when you are all finished
with this page, you must click on the "Submit" button.
- Contribution
Self-Assessment. To begin your contribution self-assessment, click
on that link in the Assignments area. In the
provided dialogue box, write two substantial paragraphs that explain (a) which of the participant profiles described in
the course's contribution document at <http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Partic.html>
best fits you so far, and why you think so, matching specific elements
of the descriptions to your own observations about your contributions
so far; and (b) which of the small group roles, described
in that same document, you have
already tried.
Please note that I
expect this short response to be carefully written and proofread. I
recommend composing your short response
in Word so you can edit, proofread, and spellcheck,
and then paste your finished response into the dialogue box. When you
are finished with this page, click on the "Submit" button.
-
Please make sure you do not submit any
item until it is ready, and when you do submit it, please make
sure that it contains everything that is supposed to be included.
The items constituting your midquarter learning portfolio
are due
in the appropriate places in Blackboard
no later than 8:35 a.m. sharp on Thursday, May 3. There is
no grace period for the midquarter portfolio
because
there is no significant penalty for not submitting a midquarter portfolio. You just
will not get comments on your portfolio's contents.
-
About seven days after you submit your midquarter portfolio
items, I will return them with my comments. I will not comment on
midquarter portfolios submitted after the deadline, so please do not
bother to submit a late midquarter portfolio. I will read, comment on, and return midquarter
portfolios in the order in which I receive them, so the earlier you submit
your midquarter portfolio items, the more time you will have for
revisions.
- If you want assistance, the
best person to ask is our Educational Technologist, Andreas Brockhaus (abrockhaus@uwb.edu
). The librarians in the Campus Library often can be very
helpful, but they have not been specifically trained to help with Blackboard,
so Andreas is a better bet.
Final Portfolio
- When you are ready to work on your portfolio,
log onto Blackboard at <http://bb.uwb.edu/
>.
-
Click on the "Assignments"
link.
- Then, one by one, you will add content to
your
electronic portfolio. Refer to the specific instructions below for
each item.
- Research Paper. The
final version of your research
paper
is
the first component of your final learning portfolio.
Please carefully follow the instructions on the Research Paper assignment page
at http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/BIS351Research.html to
submit the research paper. IMPORTANT: Be sure you have named the
Microsoft Word document properly as requested, and be sure
that you attach the artifact correctly. With
this item and all of the others, you can click the "Save" button
periodically to make sure you don't lose your work, but when you are all finished
with this page, you must click on the "Submit" button.
- Contribution
Self-Assessment. To begin your contribution self-assessment, click
on that link in the Assignments area. In the
provided dialogue box, write two substantial paragraphs that explain (a) which of the participant profiles described in
the course's contribution document at <http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Partic.html>
best fits you now that we have reached
the end of the quarter, and why you think so, matching
specific elements of
the descriptions to your own observations about your contributions throughout
the course; and (b) which of the small group roles,
described in that same document, you
have tried.
Please note that I
expect this short response to be carefully written and proofread. I
recommend composing your short response
in Word so you can edit, proofread, and spellcheck,
and then paste your finished response into the dialogue box. When you
are finished with this page, click on the "Submit" button.
- Reflective
Paper.
W rite a formal reflective
paper of about 800 words (no fewer than
600 and no more than 1000) that discusses, in an order that makes sense as the
best way to present your thinking:
- your reflections upon what you feel you
have learned in this course, with a focus on your performance
rather than on the course itself
- how you think you learned what
you
learned
- how you feel about the various aspects
of
your work, including, but not limited to, the degree to which you have
made progress in the following areas:
- critical reading
- formal writing
- small-group and full-class
discussions
- understanding of the
content and methods of
ethnic studies
- what you feel you will carry into your
future courses and into your lifelong learning
- what your priorities are for continuing
improvement and learning
- As a formal piece
of university writing,
your reflective paper should be typed and double-spaced throughout,
using a standard font (like Times New Roman) in 12-point size, and with
margins
of one inch all the way around each page. By "formal," I mean that I
expect carefully considered and carefully written work, which should
be formally formatted, including double spacing. This probably
requires some writing and revision before you can produce a
high-quality, final product to include in the portfolio. First-person
("I") statements are fine. Please re-read "Tips for Better Prose" at
<http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Prose.html> after getting your main ideas down on
paper but before
submitting your final version of your reflective paper. Provide a
meaningful but brief title for your paper (not "Reflective Paper" but
rather a short hint of your paper's main point or thrust) and a
standard academic heading (as described in T20 in "Tips for Better
Prose").
- Just before you
submit your reflective
paper online, do a final word count (in the Tools pull-down menu of
Microsoft Word) to make sure you meet the 600- to 1000-word
parameters. You do not need to type the number of words; I will be
able to do my own word count of your paper.
- Needless to say,
your work must be entirely
original. Using another person's ideas or words without proper
attribution, whether intentional or accidental, constitutes
plagiarism, and will result in a zero on this assignment. Please
re-read "Maintaining Academic Integrity" at <http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/Integrity.html>.
-
Please make sure you do not submit any
item until it is ready, and when you do submit it, please make
sure that it contains everything that is supposed to be included.
Your final learning portfolio
is due online no
later than 8:35 a.m. sharp on Tuesday, May 29
. Because I have
provided the maximum amount of time to complete this assignment, because I
need to return graded portfolios before grades are due, and because I need to
ensure an equal amount of time to be fair to everyone
in class, I will accept late portfolios submitted after 8:35 a.m. on the due date but no later
than 8:35 a.m. sharp on Wednesday, May 30,
with
twenty percentage points deducted from the learning portfolio score and
the research
paper score. However,
I will be an
absolute stickler for that grace period. Let me be clear:
A portfolio submitted at 8:36 a.m. on May 30 is not one minute late, but rather
is twenty-four hours and one minute late, and I will not accept it.
I
will accept no portfolios
after 8:35 a.m. sharp on May 30 for any reason, which probably will result in a 0.0
for
the course, so I strongly
recommend
finishing early to avoid any unforeseen problems
. Try not to count on the grace period. Think of
the deadline as 8:35 a..m. on Tuesday, May 29.
If you want assistance, the best
person to ask is our Educational Technologist, Andreas Brockhaus (abrockhaus@uwb.edu
). The librarians in the Campus Library often can be very
helpful, but they have not been specifically trained to help with Blackboard,
so Andreas is a better bet.
Basis for grading
your learning portfolio (based mostly on the reflective
paper:
|
Completeness (responds appropriately to
the assignment in form and content)
|
20 percent
|
|
Depth of response (quality of detail
and support; sophistication of ideas and argument)
|
70 percent
|
|
Quality of writing (organization;
spelling, grammar, diction, punctuation)
|
10 percent
|
|
TOTAL
|
10 percent of final course
grade
|
-
Note
that the score on the learning portfolio is entirely
independent of
your score on your research paper. Your paper will be graded
separately.
- I will read, grade, and return final
portfolios in the order in which I receive them, so the earlier you
submit your final portfolio, the earlier you will get your
grades. My goal is to return each portfolio within ten days of
its submission. Please do not e-mail me to ask when your
portfolio will be returned.
That really
slows me down as I am trying to read hundreds of pages of documents
in the portfolios. Just count on picking up the portfolio items (at the
same Blackboard link that you used to submit each portfolio item) ten calendar
days after submitting it. (Portfolios submitted during the grace
period might take longer than ten calendar days.)
- Let me emphasize that I expect your best
effort in this and every exercise. My expectations are high because
your ability to produce outstanding work is high.
- Some additional advice:
- Save your work often (maybe every ten
minutes) so you do not lose everything when your computer freezes.
- Visit the Writing Center (see <http://www.bothell.washington.edu/writingcenter/>).
- I do not have time to read rough drafts,
but I am very glad to discuss your portfolio or its components as you
work on them. You would be wise to visit me during office hours (see
syllabus) to make sure you are on the right track, and to get advice
about any particular difficulties you might be encountering.
- Interdisciplinary Studies majors should keep their
graded papers (with instructor's comments) until they complete their senior
portfolio.
- Re-read this assignment sheet just
before
assembling the final portfolio to make sure it meets all of the
requirements.
This page last updated April 4, 2007.
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