Process Letters
At the end of the first and second terms, students will be asked to write a critical self-evaluation (critical in the sense of "using logic and evidence to argue"), describing their learning and how their work evolved over the year. It should be a reflection on your work, including links to examples of work you find most representative (even work that you don't otherwise turn in).
I will post a form on Teams for students to submit, but you may submit a long form written answer (an argument rather than answers to specific questions) if you prefer.
What do I need to include?
The goal of the Process Letter is for you to make an argument for the overall grade you will propose for yourself. I provide here some of the guiding questions that should be taken into account to provide evidence/ justification for your suggested grade. The form posted on Teams will ask you similar but not identical questions to those below. I will ask something like:
Based on your work this semester, and taking into consideration the context of Fall 2020, select a letter grade for your work and your learning in this course. Write a narrative that addresses the following major prompts:
Discuss your process as a learner: evaluate your engagement with course content by reflecting on how you handled all aspects of this course. What specific parts of your process worked and what parts would benefit from some adjustments? Why?
Discuss the products you generated as demonstrations of your learning: evaluate how your work has changed across the semester. Did certain elements improve more than others? Did certain elements become easier or more challenging? Describe.
What will you do with this knowledge in future semesters? Make a commitment to yourself.
What have you learned about yourself—as a learner and a member of a learning community—in this course?
You might also be asked more detailed feedback such as:
Outside of class time, how much time did you spend on the class each week?
Describe how you spent this time and offer, if possible, a breakdown of time spent on different activities (i.e. socializing/texting, plotting, researching, reading, writing).
What are you really proud of doing or getting accomplished in class? Why?
What is the one thing that you would like to change about how you performed in class? Why?
Consider what you did in the class compared to what you thought you would be doing when we began in September. What do you see as the most important thing about early medieval society that you learned in class?
Reflect on what you learned in the class as a whole. List any skills, methods or techniques that you have acquired or additional knowledge you gained.
What else would you have liked to learn in order to be better prepared for the class? I.E. If you could go back in time to the beginning of the course, knowing what you know now about the experience, what piece of advice would you offer? What do you wish you knew then?
Identify someone in class who helped you to do/ produce better work than you expected. Describe how they helped you.
Describe if and how you helped someone else in class with their work.
Identify one person whom you would categorize as a model student and explain how/why.
Did you ever hand in work after the expected deadline? How often?
One purpose of the class is to help students to develop better collaborative and leadership skills. Part of this is identifying one’s own strengths and weaknesses in this regard while also realizing what makes an effective working group and what does not.
Some of the things that are being important for a successful group effort are as follows:
Being prepared for lecture/ tutorials
Being open-minded and a good listener
Helping each other
Meeting outside of class to strategize and prepare
Being organized
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