CODE122 ePortfolio

Your Goal Grade

Highlight the header for the column below to indicate which grade you plan to work toward in the course. Meeting the basic requirements for your chosen letter grade, according to the table below, is mandatory.

A Work	B Work	C Work
-Misses one class or less, or completes make-up work for excused absences -Annotates all readings thoroughly -Makes substantive comments in discussions -Completes all assignments on time (or has an approved extension request) -Work demonstrates intellectual engagement, care, effort, and growth in response to feedback -Collaborates substantially, contributes to vision, works equally with peers	-Misses two classes or less, or completes make-up work for excused absences -Annotates readings -Often participates in discussion -Completes all major assignments on time (or has an approved extension request) -Completes most SAs on time -Work demonstrates care, effort and growth in response to feedback -Collaborates equally, completes required work	-Misses three classes or less, or completes make-up work for excused absences -Completes most readings -Sometimes adds to discussion -Completes all major assignments on time (or has an approved extension request) -Completes at least four SAs -Meets minimal expectations on assignments; shows limited growth in response to feedback -Completes required collaborative work

First-Week Introduction

The five goals that I chose were : skills for life long learning, problem solving skills, Reading, Critical and creative thinking, and oral communication. I decided on these five goals because when picking out these goals I wanted them to be based around assignments from last semester. That way I’m able to have evidence to show for these goals and it’s easier for me to show others who view my contract how I was able to grow in this class. For this semester, I’m very excited for the lab we’re going to be doing later on. Just excited for the fact that we’ll be doing a hands on activity rather than listening and taking in information from organizations. The one assignment that I feel as though will be the most challenging this semester is the group work, just because out the amount of writing and reading that goes into the assignment and also having to work with others and the possibility of them not fulfilling their duty in the group. Some strategies that I want to set for myself to make this semester for successful is time management and organization. I’ve noticed that the reason why I didn’t do so good last semester was because I didn’t take time out of my week to prepare myself mentally for the following week.

Midterm Introduction

Now that the middle of the semester is here, looking back I really did and do enjoy the research that my group and I do in regards to Cahokia Heights. The readings are very important and informative, yes, but I also feel like research is supposed to be enjoyable in a way, and I feel like it been somewhat that. For example, we have this old archival newspaper that shows you what life was like in Cahokia heights back in like the early 1900s. To some that may some boring, but to me I was truly fascinated by the condition of the archival piece as well the information that it was showcasing. I also did struggle with our archival research as well because I felt like the information that I was consuming began to come off as repetitive and it wasn’t as engrossing anymore because I felt like I was reading the same stuff over again. Due to this I feel as though it helps improve my researching skills because I’m learning how to properly analyze and evaluate given information so that if I do feel as though I’m reading the same stuff over, I’m able to point of information that’s more reliable in one than the other and what makes one source more stronger that the other. I do want to keep working on this skill because I do find it very useful, even outside of class because research is very important. You’re able to tell what information is good and reliable versus information that won’t be any beneficial. I feel as though all the goals that I set out for myself, I’m in the process of progressing them so that they are their full potential. This goes for my writing, oral communication and life long skills.

Final Introduction

Now that the semester has come to an end, I can now say that I have learned so much about my academic self. Over these past few months I have gotten the chance to learn more about the ways of research and how much fun it can truly be. For my research class I had the chance to conduct oral and archive research which I thought was very engrossing; just having the chance to learn more about Cahokia, now and past speaking, as well as hearing the residents speak about their living experience in Cahokia has really opened my eyes when it comes to how different my living situation is compared to theirs.

Course Goals

Goal 1 (25%) skills for life long learning (7b)
Process and use given information in a way that I’ll stay with me forever so that it may be a time that it will be reliable to me in some kind of way.

What will you do to learn the content/ develop the skill?	What examples will you add to the portfolio to demonstrate your learning?	What characteristics of the chosen examples demonstrate you have met your goal?
when I visit organizations such as JJK FAN, Heartlands, or any other future companies, I can jot down any information that I find interesting and useful to surrounding communities. Also when I do collaborate with these organizations there will be times where physical activity is something that I’m going to be doing and because of this I will be ensuring that the skills I pick up along the way is something that I can always refer back to down the line.	– SAs -Partner visits -community visits -community visits -labs	Show proof of evidence that I’ve taken down from any labs, meeting, sources and explain how the chosen pieces of evidence will be something I deem as reliable in the moment and for the long run.

As someone that gets easily frustrated when it comes to solving certain issues, after I watched the video I was able to understand the importance of actually taking my time to solve a problem, piece by piece, rather than attacking it as a whole. That way I don’t get as easily frustrated and makes the journey to a solution a little bit more easy flowing. This will stick with my in the long run because I will always pick at the problem, in a sense of me solving it little by little.

Goal 2 (20%) Problem solving skills
Based on (9b): Find solutions that take into account all the different circumstances at play

What will you do to learn the content/ develop the skill?	What examples will you add to the portfolio to demonstrate your learning?	What characteristics of the chosen examples demonstrate you have met your goal?
I will create solutions that consider all different circumstances involved in creating a solution.	-SAs -Group projects -Community visits -Community visits	When it comes to the issue that me and my group are focusing, I wouldn’t just focus on one aspect of it, instead I’ll suggest that we look at the bigger picture and take into account the many conditions that are relevant to our solution. So when it comes to meeting with residents of centerville the issues that they state they are facing at the time, I would suggest multiple solutions to my group for the residents of centerville and we can also create mini solutions so that any run in that we have, we can also have some kind of solution.

[SAs

When completing my SAs I had to re read the assigned text so that I can thoroughly process the information that was given to me. By doing this, I rarely ran into any issues because as I continued to read the text over and over I was able to understand it.

-group projects

Since my group and I had to conduct a lot of archival research, I will say that I ran into a lot of issues because this was my first time ever doing this kind of research and I had to realize that there was no rush and that actually taking my time to pick out the evidence to best support our research was crucial in the journey. 

-open discussions 

Over the course of this semester I will say that I have now gotten use to participating in open discussions and I think this is because I give myself a little pep talk before the open discussion take place and remind myself that it’s not big of a deal and it’s literally your classmates.

– partner visits

I think that the few partner visits that we had was very helpful because they helped us come up with ways to approach the residents when it come to our oral interviews and I feel like this can be an example of be working towards the goal set out for myself because I did have trouble with taking the information that I already gathered and figuring out how I can make questions out of it without offending the residents.

-community visits

when we did take our trips to Cahokia to conduct archival research I did find it very hard to go through all of the information because it was just so much. But I just had to come up with ways that best worked for me when it came down collecting information that I though stood out the most. This could be because the information was more on topic compared to the rest. ]

Goal 3 (10%)Reading
Based on (11c): Read in a critical way to engage in ongoing conversation with other people

What will you do to learn the content/ develop the skill?	What examples will you add to the portfolio to demonstrate your learning?	What characteristics of the chosen examples demonstrate you have met your goal?
I will ask myself questions about the authors argument and evidence. I will try to figure out their main point and look at the given sources in different perspectives to be able to engage in discussion with my peers and outsiders.	-SAs -Group projects	Evaluate given texts and break them down to better my understanding in hopes to have strong open discussion with my peers.

[SAs

Since the majority of our SAs are centered around assigned readings, I try my best to interpret the given text in a way that’s more understanding so that I can pull pieces that I find interesting and include it in my SAs, that way I can share my ideas with my peers and able to open and hold conversations amongst my peers.

Group projects

This supports the goal that I’ve set out for myself because throughout our research process, I had to read articles about Cahokia and share what I pulled from the text amongst my group and also why I decided that it was more valuable compared to the rest of the text, what made it stand out.

Goal 4 (25%)
Based on (2a): I will carefully examine information and develop solutions to address certain issues within the given information thoroughly

What will you do to learn the content/ develop the skill?	What examples will you add to the portfolio to demonstrate your learning?	What characteristics of the chosen examples demonstrate you have met your goal?
When it comes to finding solutions to whatever problem I may be facing at the time, instead of me going head first I will start off by breaking the problem down by asking myself questions from different angles just to figure out how I’m going to attack without getting frustrated along the way because that is something I notice that I do quite often when it comes to addressing any issue.	-SAs -group projects -open discussions – partner visits -community visits	Success for this goal would look like me having minor issues when it comes with dealing with problems within my group or any assignment within the class. I would explain what the issue is at the time and I was able to come over it. This could be an issue that I faced with another peer within my group project or a writing issue that I may have run into when completing my SAs. I would also show the many different approaches that I took to solve this issue

For the community visit, my group and I visited the Cahokia library where we conducted some archival research. During that time, I was able to in take information pertaining centerville watering issues during the late 1900s.

SAs

My source analysis support this goal because it shows that I understood the text that was assigned to me and that I was able to explain what I pulled from it and elaborate more on the text in my own words.

-group projects

My group projects support this goal because the archival research was very challenging and the fact that I had to come up with different approaches when trying to tackle this issue so that I wouldn’t get frustrated when it came to going though all the old documents and collecting information.

-open discussions 

Having open discussions amongst my peers supports this goal because when I do find myself wanting to avoid frustration or overthinking I try to give myself a pep talk and go over what I want to say before actually engaging and always just clearing my mind so that I won’t get thrown off track. 

– partner visits

This supports my goal because just hearing how our partners approach certain challenges that they’ve come into contact with has helped me think more clearly and it also gave me a real-world in sight as well as different perspectives that helped me break down problems more effectively.

Goal 5 (10%)
Based on (8a): Present information in a organized way that is easy to follow and understand

What will you do to learn the content/ develop the skill?	What examples will you add to the portfolio to demonstrate your learning?	What characteristics of the chosen examples demonstrate you have met your goal?
To progress this given skill, I will work on time management because in order to for me to present any information as best as I can, I must work through the given information thoroughly. This will ensure that I separate the strongest information from the weakest and what important from what’s not as important. Also make sure that everything that I gathered is organized so that when I present the information it isn’t all over the place.	1.) open discussions 2.) presentations	When it comes down to me presenting the information that I gathered to my peers, I would flow it out naturally. The feedback I would receive from others should be focused on how clear my purpose was during my presentations.

This shows that I’m able to present information in an organized way that is easy to follow because my question was very on topic? I feel like it was a good way to get the conversation going and on point.