David S. Goldstein, Ph.D.

Learning Portfolio Assignment

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 Catalyst CollectIt tool.  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;
• You can submit your portfolio without being on campus on the due date;
• Neither you nor I can lose your documents.

Submitting the portfolio: When you are ready to submit your portfolio, log onto the Portfolio tool at <https://catalysttools.washington.edu/collectit/dropbox/davidgs/81 >. You will need your UW Net ID to log on.

That should bring you to the main menu.

You do not need to click on the instructions, because that link will just take you to this page.

First, click on the "Notification" link at the top of the page.  Enter your full name and any valid e-mail address, and click on the "Save" button.

Then, one by one, you will add content to your electronic portfolio. Refer to the specific instructions below for each item.

A1: Interpretive Essay.  (See http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/BIS464Essay.html for instructions on writing this paper.)  Name your Microsoft Word file " Lastname464Essay," using your last name in place of Lastname and omitting the quotation marks and using no spaces, like this:

Mahone464Essay

Please be sure to capitalize as shown in the example.

To submit this artifact, click on the "A1: Interpretive Essay" phrase from the main portfolio menu. Then use the "Browse" button and locate the file on your computer and select it. That should take you back to the main portfolio menu.

A2: Contribution Self-Assessment.  In a Microsoft Word document with a standard academic heading (see T20 in "Tips for Better Prose" ), 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.

Name your Microsoft Word file " Lastname464SelfAssess," using your last name in place of Lastname and omitting the quotation marks and using no spaces, like this:

Mahone464SelfAssess

Please be sure to capitalize as shown in the example.

To submit your contribution self-assessment, click on "A2: Contribution Self-Assessment" phrase from the main portfolio menu.  Click on the "Browse" button and locate the file on your computer and select it.

Those two elements complete your midquarter portfolio.

It does not matter when you submit items into your portfolio.  You can submit them one at a time, or all at once.  Please make sure you do not submit the portfolio until it is ready, and when you do submit it, please make sure that it contains everything that is supposed to be included.  If you submit one page later than other pages, the entire portfolio will bear the date and time of the last thing you submitted.

Confirming your portfolio submission:

To confirm that your midquarter portfolio has been properly submitted, click on the individual element links again.  You should see a document attached on each page.  I recommend opening each of the artifacts to make sure they are what you expected.

Your midquarter learning portfolio is due online at 9:45 a.m. sharp on Friday, July 20. There is no grace period for the midquarter portfolio.

About seven days after you submit your midquarter portfolio, I will return your portfolio (follow the same link as the one you used to get to the Portfolio before), 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 deduct ten percentage points from the score of final portfolios that did not have a corresponding midquarter portfolio submitted.  If you activated e-mail notification as instructed above, you theoretically will receive an e-mail message when your portfolio is ready for you to pick up although it seems that students do not always receive this message for some reason.  (I think the messages might go to some junk mail folders because they are misidentified as spam.)  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, the more time you will have for revisions.

If you want assistance, the best people to ask are the computer lab consultants (who are trained in the Catalyst tools), or me, or both.  The librarians in the Campus Library often can be very helpful, but they have not been specifically trained to help with Catalyst tools, so the computer lab consultants are a better bet.  Click on this link for more information about the UWB Computing Helpdesk: < http://www.uwb.edu/infosys/helpdesk.html>.

Final Portfolio

• First, write 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 queer theory as applied to American cinema
  • 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 essay 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 essay. Provide a meaningful but brief title for your paper (not "Reflective Essay" 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.

Name your Microsoft Word file " Lastname464Reflective," using your last name in place of Lastname and omitting the quotation marks and using no spaces, like this:

Mahone464Reflective

Please be sure to capitalize as shown in the example.

• Then, one by one, you will add content to your electronic portfolio. Refer to the specific instructions below for each item.

B1: Interpretive Essay.  (See http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs/BIS464Essay.html for instructions on writing this paper.)  Name your Microsoft Word file " Lastname464EssayFinal," using your last name in place of Lastname and omitting the quotation marks and using no spaces, like this:

Mahone464EssayFinal

Please be sure to capitalize as shown in the example.

To submit this artifact, click on the "B1: Interpretive Essay" phrase from the main portfolio menu. Then use the "Browse" button and locate the file on your computer and select it. That should take you back to the main portfolio menu.

B2: Contribution Self-Assessment.  In a Microsoft Word document with a standard academic heading (see T20 in "Tips for Better Prose"), 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 for the whole quarter; and

(b) which of the small group roles, described in that same document, you have tried this quarter.  Please note that I expect this short response to be carefully written and proofread.

It is fine if your self-assessment is essentially the same as the midquarter version.  Just make sure it is up-to-date.

Name your Microsoft Word file " Lastname464SelfAssessFinal," using your last name in place of Lastname and omitting the quotation marks and using no spaces, like this:

Mahone464SelfAssessFinal

Please be sure to capitalize as shown in the example.

To submit your contribution self-assessment, click on "B2: Contribution Self-Assessment" phrase from the main portfolio menu.  Click on the "Browse" button and locate the file on your computer and select it.

B3: Reflective Paper. Your reflective paper is the final component of your learning portfolio. To submit this artifact, click on the "B3: Reflective Paper" link from the main portfolio menu. Then use the "Browse" button and locate the file on your computer and select it. That should take you back to the main portfolio menu.

Those three items complete your final portfolio.

It does not matter when you submit items into your portfolio.  You can submit them one at a time, or all at once.  Please make sure you do not submit the portfolio until it is ready, and when you do submit it, please make sure that it contains everything that is supposed to be included.  If you submit one page later than other pages, the entire portfolio will bear the date and time of the last thing you submitted.

Your final learning portfolio is due online at 9:45 a.m. sharp on Friday, Aug. 10 . 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 9:45 a.m. on Aug. 10 but no later than 9:45 a.m. sharp on Aug. 11, with twenty percentage points deducted from the learning portfolio score and from the score on the interpretive essay.  However, I will be an absolute stickler for that grace period.  Let me be clear:  A portfolio submitted at 9:46 a.m. on Aug. 11 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 9:45 a.m. sharp on Aug. 11 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 twenty-four hour grace period.  Think of the deadline as 9:45 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 10.

• Check the submission for yourself:

• After submitting your portfolio, from the main page, check to see if an artifact appears on each page.  Then open each artifact to make sure it is the document you expected.
• I am aware that the importance of submitting your final portfolio properly can lead to anxiety.  I am willing to assist with submission if you want, and confirm receipt of your final portfolio:
  
  • If you want to submit your portfolio with me at your side, please meet me in UW1-120 any time between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 10.  Bring all of your documents on a flash drive, CD, or floppy disk (not a Zip disk), or e-mail the documents to yourself, or both (as an extra precaution).  I recommend having the documents with you in two different forms to increase the chances that at least one of them will work.  Bring a printout of these instructions!

• To help you relax after you submit your final portfolio, I will confirm receipt of your portfolio the morning after you submit it.  At midnight every night, Catalyst will send me an e-mail message that lists everyone who submitted a portfolio in the previous twenty-four hours.  In the morning, I will look at each one of those portfolios and will e-mail each student (using the student's official UW e-mail address) to indicate whether or not everything looks o.k.  I will do this every day.  So, it is very much to your advantage to submit your portfolio early so you can correct any problems.  If you want me to check your portfolio in time for you to fix any problems, then submit your portfolio by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 8, so I can e-mail you the next morning (Thursday, Aug. 9) and you will still have the rest of the day to fix any problems.  Regardless of when you submit your portfolio, if you do not get an e-mail message from me by 9:00 on the morning after you thought you submitted it, please e-mail me immediately.
  

Basis for grading your learning portfolio:

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 interpretive essay. Your paper will be graded separately and the grade and comments will be returned to you as part of the returned learning portfolio.
• If you activated e-mail notification as instructed above, you will receive an e-mail message when your portfolio is ready for you to pick up, although students sometimes do not receive this message.  (I think the message sometimes goes to a junk mail folder.)
• 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 seven 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 it up (at the same link, above, that you used to submit the portfolio) seven calendar days after submitting it.  (Portfolios submitted during the grace period might take longer than seven 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.
• Re-read this assignment sheet just before assembling the final portfolio to make sure it meets all of the requirements.

This page last updated June 29, 2007.

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