LRO Midterm Assignment
LRO Mid-term Portfolios are due Oct. 16 at the beginning of Class!
The mid-term has two parts: the online portion published on your web page and linked as a "selected portfolio."You should think of this part of the Portfolio as a showcase of your best work that you would want to present to a possible employer. The second part is the electronic document you will turn into the class drop-box. This part is the part where you discuss your evaluation of your progress and is not something that should be displayed publicly.The online portion must be uploaded and accessible and the eletronic document should be put in the drop-box by the beginning of class on Oct. 16 to receive credit.
(For final submission, name your document according to the following convention:
firstnamelastinitial_lro_final.doc,Ex. JanF_lro_final.doc)
Your Midterm LRO consists of the following:
Completed parts A1 and A2
Completed part B1
Completed part C1
Part B1-Midterm is a "summary interpretation of observations and evidence in terms of the major strands of work and the five dimensions of learning."
For the purposes of this class, the major strands are: Written Expression, Rhetorical Sophistication,Technology and Technical Skills, and Collaboration. The dimensions of learning are: confidence and independence; knowledge and understanding; skills and strategies; use of prior and emerging experience; and reflectiveness(critical awareness).
Part B1-Midterm is crucial to the effectiveness of the LRO. It helps readers understand what the bits and pieces of evidence gathered really mean for the student's learning. In it you need to make an argument about your progress and development in the class, and you need to include evideence to support the claims that you make. As part of your evidence, you should include a selection of observations and work samples that represents the best work you have done thus far in the semester. You should quote directly from any essays, wiki postings, emails, peer critiques, etc. that demonstrate your progress in the course. More than that, however, you must explain how the work sample you've included actually provides evidence for the claims you make about it. This part of the LRO needs to connect the observations and samples of work explicitly to development across the five dimensions of learning and the main course strands for our class.
Part C1- Midterm is where you make an estimation of your grade based on the grading criteria and make suggestions for your own further development. Part C provides an opportunity to reflect over the entire LRO and the class, evaluate progress and achievement, and suggest next steps for development. Part C1 helps students take stock of their progress, estimate an evaluation in the form of a grade, and reflect on their plan of work for the remainder of the semester. I will take this opportunity to provide feedback to you regarding your work in class to this point. The midterm serves as a kind of "reality check" to prevent misunderstandings about the level of activity and progress I expect from students in my classes. When completing Parts B and C, you can use the Word document template.
Note that you are supposed to select work you believe illustrates what you have learned since the beginning of the semester, which means that you are not expected (and should not) include all of the work you've completed in the LRO and the course in the selected portfolio. ( Of course just because it doesn't make it into the showcase of your best work, does not mean that it is not essential to your progress in this course. Remember all assignments must be completed to receive a passing grade).
What can I use as Evidence?
First and second submissions of essay and project assignments, workshop materials, wiki postings, e-mails to instructor or peers (about the class), comments you made to peers,comments you received from peers or me, class-related IM transcripts, observations-- all of these documents and any other written materials are eligible to be part of your work samples.
You will turn-in two parts of your portfolio:
1)an online portion linked to your homepage for this course which includes a link to your selected portoflio and
2)an electronic document which includes your selected LRO portfolio itself (i.e., Part A, B, and C).
These sample LRO portfolios come from the semester I was teaching literature. Note that they did their LRO mid-terms earlier in the semester and so they did not have as wide a variety of work samples to choose from (i.e., they draw mostly from their observations as evidence). This semester, I made it so that we are doing mid-term portfolios after you have done Essay 1.1 and 1.2 and submitted Essay 2.1, so you will have a wider variety of work to include as evidence.
Also note, because this was a different course, their course strands were different. Consequently, make sure you follow our course strands when you do your portfolio. Download the attachments: sample midterm 1 and sample midterm 2 to see A level work. You can find more information about the midterm LRO by going to the LRO information site (note: do not use the samples on the site as guides for exemplary work--notice the student is doing C- level work and the B portions do not include evidence to support the claims the student is making). You might also want to take the guided tour for students (best viewed with Microsoft Explorer). It is vital that your LRO not be late, because we will be doing in-class moderations. This is one day you really cannot miss.