PPMP20012 Course Portfolio Instructions 1 of 4 Overview of the weekly portfolio In this course you are required to complete a weekly portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this course. Your portfolio provides an account of your learning based on your prior and current learnings and your critical reflection. A portfolio is increasingly being used in Universities as a means of:  Being able to tell much more about you than exam results;  As a means of reflecting your development through the course;  To reflect your attitude and values as well as your skills and knowledge. (Race 2010, p. 58) Timmins states that 'A portfolio is a cohesive account of work based learning that contains relevant evidence from practice and critical reflection on this evidence. Its primary purpose is to 'display achievement of professional competence or learning outcomes and knowledge development' (Timmins 2008: p. 115). You'll find much more information about the use and application of portfolios on the Internet. However, it will need you to take some time to think through how you are going to complete the portfolio on a weekly basis. It is very easy to trivialise the portfolio and write nearly the same thing each week. But that won't gain you many marks. Instead you should try to focus on the topic and learning outcome for the week and your reflections regarding them. Future directions of portfolios In the future you should expect that portfolios will be used increasingly at the academic post graduate level. Eventually they may even replace exams as has occurred with this course. Therefore there are a number of things to note for your future educational experiences: 1. You will be required to complete more portfolios in other courses as you progress in your academic career; 2. As portfolios begin to replace exams you will need to make your portfolio comprehensive and deeply reflective to gain a good grade;PPMP20012 Course Portfolio Instructions 2 of 4 3. You may find that other course assessments, such as presentations, will be aligned with the content of your portfolio submissions as a means of validating your knowledge. Acknowledgement and references This portfolio structure was based on an example (a psychology course) located at Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/Psych205/Model/FinalPaperModel.pdf you can download the example to see how a completed portfolio looks. Race P. (2010) A Practical Guide to Assessment, Learning and Teaching. Abingdon, England: Routledge. Timmins F. (2008) Making Sense of Portfolios: An Introduction to Portfolio use for Nursing Students. Glasgow, Scotland: McGraw-Hill Education. Your task with the portfolio Your task is to write a weekly portfolio reflecting upon your learnings from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify: 1. The module/topic and the learning outcomes that the topic applies to; 2. Any readings from this or other courses and any personal or workplace artefacts that you might think relevant; 3. Any learning from your experiences. This will usually be from your workplaces, but could also be from your personal experiences; 4. Any supporting documentation of prior or current learning. Only reference the source, unless you feel that it is particularly relevant. Note: the process of reflection is particularly important since it will hopefully show your inner thoughts. It will also allow you to show how those thoughts have changed over time as you progress through the course. Instructions for completing the portfolio 1. Type your name and student id at the top of the page in the header section. 2. You can then delete this first section, save the file so that it can be used each week, and concentrate on writing your weekly portfolio. 3. Each week's topics and readings appropriate for the learning outcome have been included in the first two columns of portfolio table on the next page. You should review these and make changes as the course progresses and you gain more familiarity with the learning outcomes and coursePPMP20012 Course Portfolio Instructions 3 of 4 content. You will find that you will progressively elaborate on the content of the third and fourth columns "Learnings from your experience" and "Supporting documentation including your prior learning" as you work through each of the weeks of the course. 4. I have provided you with my insights for this week in the template below. You should supplement or replace this with your thoughts. 5. The purpose of the portfolio is to allow you to reflect each week on the topic for the week and be able to relate the readings and activities to the learning outcomes for the course. So try to think about the relationship between the week's material and the overall course learning outcomes in a reflective and holistic manner. Don't use the portfolio as a diary or journal of your readings and activities. 6. Please appreciate it takes time to complete the portfolio therefore you must think always of what is required and be taking notes to update your portfolio as you read, study videos, or undertake other course related activities. You are expected to be working 12 hours each week on this course so you have plenty of time to make the portfolio meaningful. 7. The portfolio will be discussed in the course during online videos and tutorials – please listen carefully and you may find the portfolio is easier to complete than it first appears. 8. You may disagree with the initial allocation of the learning outcomes to the topics in the portfolio table. This is your right and you are free to move things around as you become more familiar with the portfolio and the course material. 9. At the beginning of the course all of the learning outcomes are not covered therefore you should delete what you believe is not required from the portfolio for each week. The content of this template has included all of the learning outcomes to save your time in typing. As the week's progress then you will find that you will be able to include more and more learning outcomes and eventually you will have covered all the learning outcomes in the course. 10. At the end of the course you should review your weekly portfolios and then consolidate them into a single submission. This is the assessment that gets marked. Since the objective of the portfolio is to show your learning journey as well as your reflections then you should not be surprised to find that your opinions have changed during the course. You do not have to change your portfolios from prior weeks since they show your journey. 11. Your consolidated portfolio should be made as a single submission. In producing it you could:- a. Merge all your submissions into one and provide a single big file. b. Alternatively zip all of the previous portfolios into one and use a single 'master' portfolio file to refer back to each week. You must NOT use an index and numbering system in your consolidated portfolio to identify material from prior weeks and then expect that the reader will find each portfolio on the course web site. You should reference your weekly portfolios according to the Harvard method. Whatever way that you do it; the final portfolio is the important one! It's important that you make it clear to the marker what your consolidated portfolio refers to otherwise you may not get the marks you expect. An analogy for the final portfolio is that you can imagine that you are going before an examination board at the end of the course andPPMP20012 Course Portfolio Instructions 4 of 4 presenting to them a complete portfolio of your journey through the course. You will hand each board member a package that they should then be able to read and from it appreciate everything that you have done and learned during your work life and the course. 12. Your consolidated portfolio should show how you have reflected on high level, independent judgements in context of the manner that owners and operators of large assets initiate, plan, implement and evaluate broad functions within project management contexts also how a project manager would take responsibility and accountability for personal outputs and all aspects of the work or function of others.