Assessment portfolio

Assessment portfolio

The deadline for the assessed work for 3002 is quickly heading our way. It would be good if you had started draft copies of what you are planning to hand-in.

The portfolio of work that is asked for is like a summary or overview of the learning you have experienced this module. Everyone is learning things all the time, so some learning has happened!!! It is just you might not recognise the full scope of it or the value or it might not feel it is within the context of the course.

This assignment is about you reflecting on what has been happening and what you have been doing. To do this you need all the skills and ideas in the three sections of the module. The tools and web-based ideas because this is how we have been exchanging ideas and a lot of the initial learning experience was about understanding the range and uses of web-based technology.

To think back over the module you use the reflection tools and ideas (hopefully you have also left yourself a breadcrumb trail in the form of a reflective diary – if not start one you will find it very, very helpful through the lifetime of the course, and beyond we hope).

Lastly you need to contextualise the information and learning into your own professional practise. In other words it is no use learning something you will never use or rather I should say something you an never understand using or see the value of in your life. The last part of the module helps you to look more closely at your Professional Practice what resources you have, how you are connected so that you can give a context to the new ideas and learning you have experienced so far.

We have also looked at how the learning might have happened for you when we looked at research that explores different way to understand the process of learning like Kolb’s cycle or Gardner’s intelligences.  

Part 1

I think you need to find something to hang your portfolio on. This is like a clothes hanger to hang your ideas and experience on. This is like the ‘hook’ of a song or the theme movements of a piece of choreography. Find something to give your portfolio structure. Common structures are:

A timeline – starting at the beginning (September) and working to the end. This gives your work a story like feel. It can become very narrative. There maybe danger of getting lost in the story and ignore the meet and bones of the learning also remember you do not have a lot of words.

Theme based  - finding two or three key ideas and gathering the learning and experience that happened around them.

Concrete evidence based – giving concrete examples of things and elaborating on the ideas and learning that manifested them.

A representational object – making something that sums up the learning both in its content and in its own form. This might be useful if you need to make something to understand what you think. That is for people who do not think in words. Like myself. I make or do things to understand what I think and then explain it back in words once I know what I think! This is something that I have found takes quite sometime to master because at first you can make something you and other people who think that way can understand but that everyone else finds “too abstract”. So it is important you support your work by using the written summary to explain your process and what it means to you.

Either way ~I think it will be really important to get started and then you will have time to get feedback.

Part 2

Supports and gives example of the learning and ideas drawing from things you have done over the course. It is way to show how you have come to where you are. It also allows you to show you didn’t just make something up overnight. You can show is the pathway that has got you to the clearing where you are now.

What if you don’t feel you are in a clearing!!!! Maybe you don’t feel you are a point where you can summarise. This is the hardest thing because of course learning is on-going. I always feel I am almost there!!! And is not always on schedule that I get an ‘Ahh  moment’.  But this does not have to be the end point just let us know where you are at. By trying to summarise and talking it through with people you will find you start to consolidate ideas and experiences.

What do you think?

Poem 5

Rain

Wet drops down from ceiling on to commuters,

Making dark grey ovals on newspapers

Dripping down necks

And seeping into socks.

Grey silver sky

And spongy trees

Big puddles

I love England

Poem (4)

Call in times

I met an old friend in the mirror

And promised her I would not let her disappear.

Then looked at my diary and tried to fit her in again sometime soon…

Our loving meeting: where she moved across the floor timid and still quite hurt

Left me with promises of salads and time

I wonder how good a friend I am to all the work she did when she was younger.

I met old friends who appeared out of the crowd

And hugged me

“Oh my god 16 years, where did it go!”

Then we sat together and I felt the joy of just being with someone who knows me

All the things I think at times I must have imagined: they talk about memories Tripping off the tongue

They are so beautiful and alive

I promise I will email

Left me with a feeling I do belong to the person in the mirror.

Poem 3 (!)

The knowledge of children

Would you like to disappear

Time holds you

Light find you

A faint mist gives away where breath has been

-      ............ listen

I had a bit of a block with my poem task because the poems all seem to be coming out with teenage anxed and sad. Maybe because I have been attending difficult meetings and not enough dance classes! But rather than fall behind here is yesterdays … Ballet today maybe the poem tonight will be a bit warmer!!

Poem 2 (!)

Rush

I’m like a bullet

Piercing the street

Parting the crowd

Mouthing obscenities to people who don’t move.

My mantra :“Start the day ten minutes late

And that lost time shadows you”

Heavy bag.

I don’t feel I am in my head

In my body, in this place.

I make promises with God

To get there on time.

Then the sun jingles an Autumn leaf

And cuts my eye with hope.

Poem one (!)

Lost for words

One word,

two breaths,

ice dances through my thoughts.

No words,

three breaths,

I reach up, 

out, 

down.

In my own space

Sitting there, scraping explanations off the roof of my mouth

Playing with ways to reflect

Hi Guys
Some people have said they haven't got much to reflect on or put in their journal and they are waiting for rehearsal or something scheduled to happen to start (and feel there is something to write about). But this is about teasing out from the every day. In research it is making the familiar unfamiliar (looking at 'everyday' things in new ways) and / or making the unfamiliar familiar (exploring new things and ideas). Here is an idea....
Ten minute poem each night. Take ten minutes to write a poem about anything from your day. These will be good starting points for realising what has effected you or what resonates with you. I am going to try it. Anyone want to join me. I am going to take ten minutes each night for a week to write a poem about my day. Lets see what comes out!!!

Another thing you could do if the poem doesn't sound like something you want to do. Choose a random time at the beginning of the day and when it gets to that time wherever you are or whatever you are doing stop and reflect on where you are. Write something as part of the reflection and then carry on. Again this might help to start to find things in everyday. There is Learning, Live, Love in every minute reflection is about finding meaning.