SIT223 – Information Technology Professional Skills Portfolio Assessment This assignment is assessed against ULO2, GLO2, GLO6, GLO7 and GLO8. 1 Introduction All the learning activities in this unit are designed to provide you with the opportunity of achieving the second learning outcome: Develop a portfolio that demonstrates evidence of emerging professional skills for practice in the discipline of IT. The professional skills that this learning outcome encompasses are:  communication (GLO2),  inter‐personal (GLO7),  self‐management (GLO6), and  global citizenship (GLO8). When you are completing each activity throughout SIT223, you need to think about how your learning impacted upon each of these professional skills. Your participation in the learning activities will provide the evidence that you need to show you have emerging professional skills which are under continual development. You will be given the opportunity in your seminar in Week 8 to gain feedback on your draft portfolio from your tutor. The final submission is due in Study Week (Week 12). 2 What do you have to provide? At a minimum, for each of the professional skills listed above you must provide evidence that demonstrates that they are developing or being refined to professional standards and are reflected upon in a cohesive portfolio. Use the submission template included below in section 5 to prepare your response to each learning outcome. Although the assessment for this unit focuses on specific graduate learning outcomes, the learning activities contribute to all learning outcomes in some way. For example the learning activities associated with the Media Watch assessment contributes to digital literacy (GLO3) and critical thinking (GLO4). For higher marks, a more inclusive portfolio which includes the specified professional skills plus other graduate learning outcomes is encouraged. You need to be aware that your learning is not neatly packaged into activities that are directed solely at one learning outcome. The assessment maps to specific learning outcomes but there are others that are not explicitly assessed. For example, self‐management is not assessed as part of assignments 1, 2 or 3, but the learning you achieved through the activities supporting these assignments includes a significant amount of self‐management. Self‐management is not just about being an independent learner but includes skills that you develop through activities such as teamwork, including communication, collaboration and emotional awareness.In preparing and compiling your portfolio, you will need to be explicit in identifying which skills you are referring to throughout and, given portfolios are a communication medium, you will also be demonstrating your communication skills. You should be constantly updating your portfolio with your experiences in the seminar activities and the other assignments from this unit as they are all key sources of evidence. Your submission will be a single document (.docx, .pdf) or CloudDeakin portfolio that includes your response to all items listed in Section A. You may choose to include responses to one or more of the items listed in Section B:  SECTION A (compulsory – total marks 36 out of 40): o An opening, overarching statement describing how you have met the requirements of ULO2 o A completed template (see section 5) for GLO2 o A completed template for GLO6 o A completed template for GLO7 o A completed template for GLO8  SECTION B (optional – total marks 4 out of 40): o A completed template (see section 5) for one or more GLOs not included in section A (one template per GLO). 3 What is a reflection? Reflective learning is about helping you make connections between what happens in the classroom and what you need to do in practice. It is an opportunity for you to think more deeply about your learning, about the connections between what you are thinking, what you are being taught, and what you are doing. Put simply, a reflection will help you look at an event, understand it and learn from it. The written reflection serves as evidence of the learning you have achieved. In order to achieve reflective learning, the type of learning needs to be active rather than passive (passive learning occurs in a lecture theatre for example whereas active learning is where the learner, i.e. you, is fully engaged with and in control of the learning activity). Reflective learning allows you not only to learn from the activity itself but also to learn from your participation in the activity. One approach is to use a similar structure from SIT101 and other units last year, what, so what, now what. As far as this Portfolio is concerned, your commentary on your reflective practice should include your observations about: 1. Experience – what learning impacted upon this particular skill? You need to be specific and cannot, for example, simply reference “in‐class” but rather “in the Media Watch presentation class…”. Make sure you present your experience, not the team, or others in the class or seminar. You need to be egotistical in this context.2. Reflection – so what, discuss what you have learnt; examine what you have learnt about yourself, relationships, attitudes, understanding, practice etc.; how your experience differed from the theory; what was significant to your learning. 3. Outcome – now what, a new perspective, a change in behaviour; how will you apply the learning in the future; what you need to do to improve future outcomes. An excellent example of how to implement the what, so what, now what model has been developed by Academic Liaison, Employability and Skills (ALES) at Cumbria University and can be found at www.cumbria.ac.uk/Public/LISS/Documents/skillsatcumbria/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf. 4 Resources for further assistance There are a number of resources available in CloudDeakin to assist you with this assessment including:  Cottrell, S. (2015): Skills for Success: Personal Development and Employability. Palgrave Study Skills. Chapter 8: The art of reflection.  Deakin Air (2014): Portfolio and reflection – Study support. Available via https://video.deakin.edu.au/channel/Portfolio+and+reflection+‐ +Study+support/49238832  Williams, K, Woolliams, M, and Spiro, J (2012): Reflective writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Pocket Study Skills.  VCC Baking & Pastry Arts (2013): What is Reflective Learning? Available via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIsznZR4hzY  Exemplar ULO responses are available in CloudDeakin in Resources>>Assignments. 5 Submission You will prepare either:  a single document which will be submitted in CloudDeakin to the appropriate dropbox as a Word document (.docx, .doc or .rtf) or in Adobe PDF format, or  a CloudDeakin Portfolio presentation, which will be submitted to the appropriate dropbox. In both cases, you must include:  An overarching statement addressing ULO2  A completed template (see below) for every learning outcome listed in Section A above  A completed template (see below) for any learning outcome listed in Section B above.You do not need to stick with the tabular format of the template nor do you need to only include text. We encourage you to include images etc. as evidence. Although the portfolio assignment is about the learning you have achieved in this unit, you are bringing skills to the table from previous learning and life experiences. So you need to emphasise how your skills have grown, improved, extended in the context of this unit. Learning Outcome Template: Learning Outcome Specify which ULO or GLO, this entry is referring to What? Suggested approaches to your response. … was the problem, the situation, I trying to achieve, actions did I take, the response of others, consequences for me or others? So what? Suggested approaches to your response. …does this tell me, imply, mean about me, others? …other knowledge can I bring to the situation, what should I have done to make it better, is my new understanding of the situation? Now what? Suggested approaches to your response. …do I need to do to improve, resolve the situation? … broader issues need to be considered if this action is to be successful? … might be the consequences of this action? (the prompts in this template are adapted from Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model) Your submission must be concise and to the point. You may include more than one relevant example from this unit in relation to the What? component but each must relate to different aspects of your reflection. So for instance, if you include several examples in relation to GLO2 – Communication, you have to make it clear how each contributes to your learning in your reflections in the so what?/now what? components of your submission for GLO2. You can expect to prepare approximately one to one‐and‐half pages per learning outcome. This equates to approximately a total of 8 pages if you address just the compulsory requirements of this assignment. Remember that this assignment is worth 60% of the marks for this unit so you can expect it to be a substantial piece of work. As you have already completed a number of weeks of learning activities you should start building your portfolio as soon as possible so you have a significant draft to share with your tutor in week 8. It is worth noting that of the 150 hours you are expected to allocate to this unit during trimester, you should anticipate to spend at least 25% of the time on assignment preparation, more realistically half the time (so at least 30 – 40 hours). This assignment is worth 60% so you can anticipate you need to spend at least 18 hours preparing your portfolio submission. If you are aiming for a good mark (as opposed to a pass) you will need to put in more effort, and hence more time into the preparation of your portfolio.