CIE100: Common Intellectual Experience - Participation Self-Assessment (10 Points)

The Assignment

At various times during the course, you will be asked to write a brief self-assessment [1] (one page is fine, though there is no limit) that includes a grade on your performance to date (out of the number of points given here).

Self-Assessment

During each self-assessment, you should evaluate and provide a grade on your performance in light of the areas you highlighted in the Pre-Assessment stage. Areas to consider in your self-evaluation might include some or all of the following items (and beyond) [1]:

  • Completing your work on-time
  • Showing up regularly
  • Participation, including the quality of your contributions in Zoom, on Canvas, in both small group and big group discussions, listening and note-taking as well as speaking; the quality of your written work, including reflections and activity question prompts
  • How happy you are with your performance and the effort you put in
  • The extent to which you engaged deeply with the readings and class discussions
  • Your role in contributing to your classmates’ learning, including asking questions and active listening
  • What this class has led you to question, realize, and/or understand

Specifically, consider not only passive participation but your thoughtful engagement with the material and with your peers. Some ways you might expect to do this (for which you can comment here), include:

  • Asking questions during class discussions
  • Responding to classmates or the instructor in active discussions
  • Leading or presenting small group conversations and activities
  • Raising points directly from our course texts
  • Building upon points raised by others, and directing your perspectives to the class as a whole
  • Listening Actively
  • Actively participating while avoiding dominating the conversation
  • Making connections between readings
  • Attending class with the books in hand (and having read them)
  • Encouraging others to engage in class discussions

The grade you assign should be based on your ability to speak to the considerations above and in your pre-assessment. The grade you assign will be the grade recorded for these activities unless there is a significant disparity between the assessment and your observed classroom performance. To do this honestly, and not overly harshly, consider your evaluation from a third-person perspective: how might you evaluate yourself if you observed your activities and behaviors from another’s perspective? Have you contributed to the class in ways that has enhanced someone else’s learning experience? Have you engaged with others in ways that has enhanced your own learning experience?

Consider the following ratings to grade yourself on each of these criteria:

A Level Participation: Brings books every day; speaks every day and often more than once; never behind on readings – always prepared to discuss. Makes class discussions more collaborative and constructive. Speaks often but does not dominate the discussion. Encourages others to participate by posing interesting questions and by identifying key areas of agreement/variation; listens carefully and uses what’s said by others as part of one’s own contribution. In short, ready, vocal, and collaborative virtually every day. Never misses class.

C Level Participation: May speak often enough but only rarely encourages the collaboration and participation of others. Has missed an occasional class (perhaps one in two or three weeks); speaks sometimes but not every day (generally once per class); may speak up more than once one day then stay silent for a couple of days; usually, but not always, current with the readings; participates regularly when the group leads.

F Level Participation: Makes little effort to contribute to or establish a sense of shared interest. Misses one or more classes per week; speaks rarely (once a week or less); current with the readings only half the time; participates irregularly when the group leads.

In which areas do you consider your performance to be the strongest? In which do you think you have the most room to improve? Provide an honest assessment that reflects on specific examples.

  1. This evaluation is adapted heavily from materials provided courtesy of Dr. Abby Kluchin ↩ ↩2

Submission

In your submission, please include answers to any questions asked on the assignment page in your README file. If you wrote code as part of this assignment, please describe your design, approach, and implementation in your README file as well. Finally, include answers to the following questions:
  • Describe what you did, how you did it, what challenges you encountered, and how you solved them.
  • Please answer any questions found throughout the narrative of this assignment.
  • If collaboration with a buddy was permitted, did you work with a buddy on this assignment? If so, who? If not, do you certify that this submission represents your own original work?
  • Please identify any and all portions of your submission that were not originally written by you (for example, code originally written by your buddy, or anything taken or adapted from a non-classroom resource). It is always OK to use your textbook and instructor notes; however, you are certifying that any portions not designated as coming from an outside person or source are your own original work.
  • Approximately how many hours it took you to finish this assignment (I will not judge you for this at all...I am simply using it to gauge if the assignments are too easy or hard)?
  • Your overall impression of the assignment. Did you love it, hate it, or were you neutral? One word answers are fine, but if you have any suggestions for the future let me know.
  • Using the grading specifications on this page, discuss briefly the grade you would give yourself and why. Discuss each item in the grading specification.
  • Any other concerns that you have. For instance, if you have a bug that you were unable to solve but you made progress, write that here. The more you articulate the problem the more partial credit you will receive (it is fine to leave this blank).

Please refer to the Style Guide for code quality examples and guidelines.