1.15

The Circular Course Portfolio Assignment

You’re almost at the end of part 1 and it’s time to get into the details of the final assignment of the course. We have created an open-ended, creative assignment that will hopefully be useful in your professional life or studies after the course.

What is a portfolio?

A portfolio assignment is a systematic collection of a student’s work that demonstrates their learning, skills, and accomplishments over a specific period. Unlike a simple collection of work, it often includes a reflective component where the student assesses their learning process, analyzes their successes and failures, and plans for future learning. These assignments can be used for assessment or as a learning tool, providing a holistic view of a student’s capabilities beyond traditional tests.

The Circular Course Portfolio Assignment

The aim of the portfolio is to create an easy-to-access catalogue of the things you have learned in the course, and how to put that knowledge and those skills into practice. The portfolio can be digital only, digital then printed or created physically using paper, materials, handwriting (scrapbooking or similar).

The structure of portfolio is up to you to decide, it doesn’t have to have this exact order, but it needs to include these parts:

Introductory text (cover memo) summarizing the content of the portfolio, and briefly explaining the context it was created in (this course) and a few lines about you
Your more in-depth introduction of yourself that you completed in step 1.2
Weekly assignments summarized and reflected upon, with emphasis on visuals, accessible text and practical applications
Other highlights or important parts of the course you want to include – feel free to copy parts of or whole pages of this course (with a reference at the end)
A concluding action plan with concrete, bullet points focusing on what you have learned in the course, and how you and others could use that knowledge

Just to give you an example of how this could look – a portfolio could start with point 5 your action plan, go on to point 1 intro, then point 4 your highlights, after that point 3, and finally point 2. Any order that makes sense is okay.

In the next two steps, you’ll start the planning of your portfolio and get a list of useful tools.

Further reading, learning and references

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa – Using Portfolios in Program Assessment https://manoa.hawaii.edu/assessment/resources/using-portfolios-in-program-assessment/

© Daniel Mossberg, CEMUS, Uppsala University and Sonali Phadke, studio Alternatives and Stephanie Foote