PPPP: Instructions for Preparing your Final Web Portfolio

Instructions for Preparing Your Final Portfolio General Studies 290: Precarious, Performative, Playful, Potential Bryn Mawr College Fall 2011 Anne Dalke and Kaye Edwards

This process invites you to "diffract" on all the work you have done for this course, to chronicle what has happened in your evolution both as a writer and a speaker in class, and to contribute to and assist us with the evaluation of your work. You've already created three web events and made multiple weekly forum posts. Now you will also

* do a final performance for the class on Tues, Dec. 6: join with several other students to prepare a 10-15 minute presentation reflecting on your experiences over the semester, encouraging, in a provocative and entertaining way, further exploration on the part of others in the class.

* write up a description of your final performance in the class, and post it on-line by Sun, Dec. 11:  This can take one of various forms: it might be the script you used for that performance, a description of what you were doing in it, or of what happened during it (anything that surprised you?). One of you can post the script; each of the others in the group should add a comment or explanation or further reflections.

* after meeting for a final writing conference with Anne or Kaye, post your final (12-pp. or equivalent) web event on-line; you'll want to do this early enough to give yourself time for what follows.

Then! please log on to Serendip; under your name in the left hand column you'll find "my portfolio." Clicking on that will call up your four web events and our comments on them, as well as all your forum postings and comments.

* Review all this material, and ruminate for a while on what you’re noticing as you revisit your whole semester's work.

* Then write a short (2-3 pp.) essay "diffracting" where you were when we began this process, where you are now, and what’s been happening in between. How have you been learning? What have you been learning? Where do you think that the edges of your learning now lie?

Be specific and descriptive, but also evaluative.

** Review the checklist.

** Review your participation in our group work: how present-and-contributing have you been in our discussions, both large and small? What role have you assumed in our group dynamics, both in-class and on-line? In what ways have you been contributing to the learning of others?

** Re-consider your reading for the course: What were your joys-and-pleasures? What were your challenges? What were the ways that you grew as a reader? Where are your learning edges as a reader?

** Review also your written work: how much effort have you put into the web postings and each of your essays? What can you say about the quality of these productions? What have you learned about your writing and thinking processes in this class? Where have you "moved"?

* Select "Self-Evaluation" from the pull-down menu of "Create Content" @ the top of the course page, and complete the form with the material you've written above. Refresh your browser, then check to make sure that this self-evaluation has shown up @ the top of your portfolio (which you can access, again, from the list to the left, under your name).

Note that this means that your portfolio, incuding this evaluation, will be publicly available on the web (for some earlier models of this process, see four e-portfolios prepared by students in a Spring 2011 class on Gender, Information, Science and Technology:

• The Psychology of Serendip: A collaborative project showing the progression of two students in discovering our own interpretations of learning.
• A GIST Portfolio: An attempt at exploring my journey through Gender Information Science and Technology at Bryn Mawr college with the goal of assessing individual growth, learning, and contribution to knowledge. 
• Gender, Information, Science and Technology: Portfolio: an accumulation of my learning experience in GIST, Bryn Mawr Spring 2011.
• My GIST Portfolio).

Any comments that you do not want to be public should be sent by e-mail to Anne and Kaye.

* Complete the checklist and submit it electronically (this is the only dimension of the portfolio that will be private = readable only by Anne and Kaye).

In our response to this portfolio, we'll be giving you a grade not just for the quality of your written work, but also for class participation and process. Your self-evaluation will assist us with our own, as we reflect on your engagement in the course.

We very much look forward to seeing what you come up with, as well as what you have to say about it.

Thanks for joining us in the exploratory journey we've taken together this semester.
We've enjoyed it very much, and learned a lot--

Anne and Kaye