This is an informal interview with someone who is familiar with your learning processes. You can do the interview in person or not, and you can even conduct the interview via email or text message. After the interview, you will summarize it briefly and then offer your own reflections on that interview. The interview is completed only once, at the beginning of the semester.

During the interview, you should ask the following questions. However, you are free to add your own questions or to ask follow-up questions.

1) What is most interesting to you about the way I approach learning?
2) If you had to pick my greatest strength as a learner, what would it be?
3) If you had to pick something that is a challenge for me in learning situations, what would it be?
4) What is something you've observed in my learning process that you think I might not notice about myself?

At least twice per week, you will record observations about your learning. These aren't observations about the course content but are instead observations about your own learning processes.

So, an observation wouldn't be "Easterling's arguments about media offer a useful way of thinking about digital writing." Instead, an observation would be more like, "I'm having a hard time understanding Easterling's text" or "Easterling's text was challenging for me, so I decided to take some extra notes."

We will talk about observations during class and share our observations as we go. You'll have plenty of opportunities to make sure you're on the right track.

While we are completing in-class exercises and workshops, you'll be responsible for recording as much evidence of your learning process as possible. This means saving bits of writing or notes you're taking, taking video or pictures of your work, or any other ways you can think to record your activity. Work samples will be saved in your Google Drive folder, and they will be what you analyze and evaluate during your midterm and final portfolios.

You'll complete two portfolios in this class, one at the midterm and one at the final. Each portfolio will consist of two sections: Analysis and Evaluation.

Analysis

You will analyze your work in class (and in other classes during this semester, if applicable) along with the observations you record throughout the semester. That analysis will look at your learning development in terms of the five dimensions of learning and the learning goals of this course.

Dimensions of Learning
The five dimensions of learning have been developed by teachers and researchers, and they represent what learners experience in any learning situation:

1) Confidence and independence
2) Knowledge and understanding
3) Skills and strategies
4) Use of prior and emerging experience
5) Reflectiveness

You can find detailed descriptions of the dimensions of learning on the Learning Record Website.

Course Goals
Your analysis will also consider the specific goals for this course:

• Effectively explore and tinker with media technologies
• Understand the constraints and affordances of media technologies
• Compose with various media technologies in medium-appropriate ways
• Articulate their approach to writing and design processes
• Reflect on their own learning process and strategies

Evaluation

In this section, you will evaluate your work in the course (assignments and observations as well as work you have completed in other courses this semester) in terms of the below criteria to make an argument for your grade. You are making an argument in this section, so you'll need to provide specific evidence that your work fits with the grade criteria you've chosen.

A
Represents outstanding participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed and submitted on time, with very high quality in all work produced for the course. Student has perfect or near perfect attendance. Evidence of significant development across the five dimensions of learning. The Learning Record at this level demonstrates activity that goes significantly beyond the required course work in one or more course goals.

B
Represents excellent participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed on time, with consistently high quality in course work. Student has near perfect attendance. Evidence of marked development across the five dimensions of learning.

C
Represents good participation in all course activities; all assigned work completed, with generally good quality overall in course work. Evidence of some development across the five dimensions of learning.

D
Represents uneven participation in course activities; some gaps in assigned work completed, with inconsistent quality in course work. Evidence of development across the five dimensions of learning is partial or unclear.

F
Represents minimal participation in course activities; serious gaps in assigned work completed, or very low quality in course work. Evidence of development is not available.