Material to include:

A project portfolio is a collection of all the artefacts that go into completing a project, including the project itself. A learning portfolio is similar -- I will use this to mean the material associated with researching a presentation. The portfolio includes your journal and/or notes about thoughts about your presentation, an annotated bibliography, sketches and diagrams, etc. Here's some examples of "artefacts" that I think are useful. Each of these artifacts can be updated as your understanding grows or changes. They need not be extensive and you probably already do this kind of work and documentation. Keeping and reflecting on this material, i.e. making a portfolio, can be a rewarding learning tool.


Part I: Preliminary Work

1. Notes which consider the assignment:
   - state your understanding of the assignment; what is its purpose.
   - reflect on your choice of topic; why is it important to you.
   
   
2. An associogram or sketch of what comes to mind about the topic:
   This organizes the thoughts about what you think your topic is about. For example, if the topic is "galaxies", what do you already think you know about them? What is a galaxy; only stars? What is its structure; where does it end? Are they all the same? Do they evolve? What relationship do they have to cosmology? Why do we want to study them? Are they Island Universes? etc.
   
   You can organize this in a kind of hedgehog or spider diagram.
   
   It will probably occur to you that there are gaps in your understanding. Noting these, and the "facts" that you want to confirm, will help you devise your Research Plan (described below).
   
   
3. A Strategy Plan, with Dates:
   This has many names. In management it is a plan of Goals and Milestones or it is called a timeline. Perhaps you just call it your Schedule. An example would be:
   Week 1 ... Sept 8 -- check relevant texts and websites.
   -- collect relevant images from web and photocopy from texts
   Week 2 -- Sept 15 -- draft outline of talk and write 1st draft
   Week 3 -- Sept 22 -- get feedback and revise draft
   ... and so on until you get to the presentation date An example for a project is at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~ummachov/timeline.html
   
   In Part II of the portfolio you will revise this plan, bringing it up-to-date.
   
   You will need at least 3 of these timelines -- 1 for each of your seminars.
   
4. A Research Plan:
   This should be a more specific list of tasks and questions. For example:
   Week 1 -- i don't understand how blurry images help distinguish different sides of a galaxy... check with prof...
   -- read sparke and gallagher to see if they say something about spectroscopy and doppler shift... ask prof how much i have to explain to the audience
   
   
5. An Annotated Bibliography:
   For each book, website, or article briefly state in a sentence or 2:
   1) What the topic of the book is and its level (e.g. 1st yr or graduate).
   2) What it said about the topic you were interested in.
   3) Whether the item was useful.
   
   There are many ways to do this. You could keep a growing electronic document with proper references (e.g. bibtex) and add comments to it. Or you could photocopy the first page of the article/book, annotate it, and store that page in file folders.
   
   You will be required to give credit to ideas and work by other people. So you will want to keep careful track of the material you use. (See notes on Plagarism below.)
   
   
6. Documentation of the research you conduct:
   For example your notes and sketches about relevant items and articles. Say you are including a figure from Sparke and Gallagher, note on it why you are using it instead of a similar one from Binney and Merrifield. Also you should write out the definition or relevance of the parameter on the axes and what is the main point about the plot. Your point form statements of what you plan to say should be included in your portfolio.
   

   Part II: Reflection and Synthesis

7. Revisions of Part I:
   - Reflect on your literature search. Are you on track, focusing on 1-2 important aspects? Now that you understand your topic better, determine your direction more precisely.
   - Revise your preliminary strategy plan to accommodate your current assessment of the progress of your research, changes in direction, and remaining goals.
   Note that you can simply mark on your previous material in Part I with a different colour pen and date it.
   
   
8. Draft 1:
   Write/outline your first draft of your presentation. Include the images you plan to show to demonstrate your points.
   
   For full marks in your presentation and in your portfolio, you must include a critical assessment of the topic. This can be positive as well as negative. For example, "Authors x and y set out to determine if all galaxies rotate like pinwheels,pointing their arms behind them. Their method was clever. The used spectroscopy to determine motion and dust to determine near and far sides of galaxies. This work was extended by others with the resulting consensus that all disk galaxies have trailing arms. However the books I have read to not address whether they all spin the same way in space, say with their spin axis up (or are randomly oriented). I am curious about this because... "
   
   
9. Seek Input:
   Talk to your peers and to your prof about your draft and your presentation style. Practise your talk in front of a classmate. Do a portion of it for your prof in order to get feedback about whether your style resonates with the "culture" in which you will be presenting it. (Talks in Classics are very different than those given in Science; what is considered good form in one is lost on the other audience.)
   
   Discuss with your prof your critical assessment of the topic. A critique should be included it in your presentation. You'll want to check that your critique is appropriate.
   
   Take notes on this input and include this in your portfolio.
   
   
10. Reflect on Input:
    Annotate your notes about the input with your assessment of the input. For example, a suggestion may be made that will actually undermine your stated goals so you would write something like "I will retain Fig. 1 since it demonstrates that galaxies are varied and this is one of my crucial points. However so-and-so pointed out that I go overtime so I'll only point out 3 of the features in this figure rather than 17."
    

    Part III: The finale

11. Revise the Draft:
    A photocopy of your overheads for the presentation would be part of your portfolio.
    
    
12. Notes that Reflect What You've Learned:
    Go back to the artefacts in Part I and assess whether you met your goals stated in your notes considering the assignment.
    
    Contrast your initial picture of your topic with your current understanding. What did you learn that was unexpected? What areas are still unclear? Did you change your mind about what was important about this subject? Notes on this step will weigh heavily towards your grade.
    
    
13. Presentation:
    Give your presentation. Write up notes of interesting questions asked by the audience to include in your portfolio.
    
    

Links to notes on Plagarism:

ROSS Links