HCDE 321 Portfolio

Class Information

Meeting Times: Wednesday 9:30 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.

Location: More Hall, Room 234

Website:

Lecturer: Brook Sattler ()

Office: Engineering Annex 205

Office Hours: By appointment

Course Description

This class will prepare you to draw upon the body of knowledge you will gain about human-centered design in a variety of HCDE courses in order to design and produce an artifact that solves a complex problem. The artifact that you will produce is a portfolio website, and the complex problem that you will solve is how to make a coherent, persuasive case for your preparedness for the next step in your professional life: e.g., getting a job in your chosen profession or getting accepted into a graduate program in your chosen field. You will use central elements of the HCDE program to convey a coherent, persuasive, and focused professional identity.

Through careful reflection upon the readings, analyses of job descriptions and professional portfolios, iterative design of your own portfolio, oral presentations, and peer-led feedback you will begin to develop (1) a picture of your next professional goal, (2) a clear, coherent professional identity, (3) an online artifact conveying that identity, and (4) experience verbally articulating that identity.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this class, you will be able to:

  • Understand Portfolio Components: Explain the basic components of a portfolio and how they function together, engage in the type of reflective thinking required for constructing portfolio components, and produce a professional portfolio appropriate to your experiences.
  • Prepare for future course: Be prepared for engaging in future coursework in relationship to one’s intended goals. This includes being a self-directed and life-long learner.
  • Engage in professional identity development: Demonstrate a rich understanding of your chosen profession, clearly articulate your personal aspirations and identity within your chosen profession, and effectively communicate your professional identity using multiple avenues.

Class Website

The majority of information you will need to be successful in this class is available on the class website: this site, you will find detailed assignment descriptions; the class schedule; access to the readings; and links to the Catalyst Tools you will use to participate in the class discussion board, view your grades, and submit your assignments.

Schedule

The schedule below identifies the discussion topics for each class, readings, and assignments due
(all due at the start of class posted on the designated catalyst space, either GoPost,Collect It, and/or bring to class).

Week 1: January 9

Class Topic: Course introduction, setting expectations, examining portfolios

Week 2: January 16

Class Topic: Getting orientated to the portfolio

Readings Due: At least four of the six readings below.

  • TC focused, how to make an annotated portfolio, has good examples:
  • What should interaction design portfolio look like, contrasts with traditional graphic design:
  • Don’t need UX portfolio (he thinks this b/c context and process and problem solving is missing from most portfolios):
  • Good, bad, ugly of portfolios; short, basic but some specific tips:
  • Tech writing portfolio, lots of copyright warnings and ideas for where else to get experience:
  • Designer-focused article, differentiates between portfolios for employers (getting a job) and for clients (getting freelance work):

Assignments Due:

  • Summary of themes (due to Collect It)

Week 3: January 23

Class Topic: Self-reflections, guest speaker- IdrisHsi

Assignments Due:

  • GoPost entry link to your portfolio
  • Go Post entry your professional mantra (bring to class)
  • GoPost entry two questions for guest speaker (bring to class)

Week 4: January 30

Class Topic: Professional statement

Assignments Due:

  • Professional statement draft (due to Collect It and bring two copies to class)
  • Professional statement elevator pitch (due in class)

Week 5: February 6

Class Topic: Supporting your preparedness arguments, guest panel – recent graduates of the course

Assignments Due:

  • GoPost entry ten job descriptions (bring to class)
  • GoPost entry two questions for guest speaker (bring to class)

Week 6: February 13

Class Topic: Artifacts and annotations

Assignments Due:

  • GoPost entry artifact scavenger hunt (bring to class)
  • One artifact annotation draft (due to Collect It and bring to class)

Week 7: February 20

Class Topic:Preparing to use your portfolio, guest speaker– Chad Driesbach

Assignments Due:

  • Revised artifact annotation (bring to class)
  • GoPost entry two changes made to annotation

Week 8: February 27

Class Topics: Portfolio analysis

Assignments Due:

  • Populated portfolio
  • Analysis of your own portfolio (due to Collect It and bring to class)

Week 9: March 6

Class Topic: Using your portfolio, guest speaker – Eva McCord Snee

Assignments Due:

  • Three copies of your résumé (bring to class)

Week 10: March 13

Assignments Due:

  • Final portfolio website (due to Collect It)
  • Portfolio presentation (bring to class)

Wrap-up: 9:30 a.m. March 16

Assignments Due:

  • Final learning reflection (due to Collect It)

Grading

Your grade for this class will be based the high-quality completion of all class assignments and class participation. Credit/no-credit will be assigned based on the rubrics on the Assignments page of the class website (see each assignment description).

Assignments

Below are the assignments that comprise your final credit/no credit grade for this class. Note that your participation grade is a part of your class grade and that it includes many components.

  • Summary of themes (due to Collect It on January 16)
  • Professional statement draft (due to Collect It on January 30)
  • One artifact annotation draft (due to Collect It on February 13)
  • Analysis of your own portfolio (due to Collect on February 27)
  • Portfolio presentation (due in class on March 13)
  • Final portfolio website (due to Collect It on March 13)
  • Final learning reflection (due to Collect It on March 16)
  • Participation (due every class)

Quality of Written Assignments

With the exception of drafts, all written assignments for this class must be of high quality: thoroughly proofread, well organized, and stylistically appropriate for the context. If in doubt, err on the more formal, polished, professional side. Writing quality will be a graded component of every written assignment.

Class Participation

Class participation is a graded component of this class. Here are some examples of how you can participate:

  • Constructively participate in peer reviews: Provide thoughtful, specific, and respectful feedback to your peers; listen to your peers and learn from them
  • Come to class prepared: Read carefully, post on GoPost, bring all required materials, be on time, present required elevator pitches
  • Treat all with respect: Be constructive in all discussions and be considerate of others
  • Be an active listener: Be attentive, be engaged, use in-class technology with discretion
  • Ask challenging questions
  • Comment, build on, or clarify others' contributions
  • Visit me during office hours to chat, to ask questions, or to give feedback

Policies

This class follows all UW and HCDE Departmental policies. Some of these important policies are described or linked below.

Attendance

Students are expected to attend class regularly. Although attendance is not specifically graded, missing classes will have a negative impact your class participation grade, as you will have fewer opportunities to participate in discussion and in-class activities like peer reviews. If you must miss a class due to an illness or other extenuating circumstance, please email me as soon as possible.

Late Assignments

If you will miss the deadline for an assignment, you should inform me as soon as you can, indicating when you will submit the work. I will try to accommodate your needs in the event of extraordinary circumstances: e.g., surgery, death in the family, etc. Accepting late work is solely at my discretion.

Contacting Me

You are welcome to give me feedback about the course, to ask a question about an assignment, to share an interesting article or resource, to report that you will be absent from a class, or similar communication. Please note the following guidelines:

  • Email and office hours are the preferred and most reliable methods of contact
  • For office hours, you can find me in my office (Engineering Annex 205)
  • Whenever appropriate, please copy the class listserv (or post to GoPost) with your question or comment
  • Email concerning assignments might not be replied to if it is sent within 36hr of an assignment due date
  • Email concerning grades is not secure, so if you have a question please contact me in person
  • Email that is sent on Friday afternoon or over the weekend it is not likely to be replied to until Monday or Tuesday of the following week
  • If you don’t receive a reply within 2 days, please resend your email or ask about it during class

Academic Accommodations

To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services: 448 Schmitz, 206-543-8924 (V/TTY). If you have a letter from DSS indicating that you have a disability which requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to me so we can discuss the accommodations you might need in the class. Academic accommodations due to disability will not be made unless the student has a letter from DSS specifying the type and nature of accommodations needed. For additional information, see Statements to Ensure Equal Opportunity and Reasonable Accommodation, downloaded January 9, 2013,

Academic Honesty & Integrity

The essence of academic life revolves around respect not only for the ideas of others, but also their rights to those ideas and their circulation. It is therefore essential that all of us engaged in the life of the mind take the utmost care that the ideas and expressions of ideas of other people always be appropriately handled, and, where necessary, cited. For writing assignments, when ideas or materials of others are used, they must be cited. The format is less important than ensuring that the source material can be located and the citation verified. In any situation, if you have a question, please feel free to ask. Such attention to ideas and acknowledgment of their sources is central not only to academic life, but life in general. Please acquaint yourself with the University of Washington's resources on academic honesty: Students are expected to work independently unless other instructions are given. Consult with the instructor if you think your work plan might constitute plagiarism. You should also acquaint yourself with the HCDE Plagiarism Policy:

Student Rights

Please read the HCDE statement on student rights:

Privacy

To support an academic environment of rigorous discussion and open expression of personal thoughts and feelings, we, as members of the academic community, must be committed to the inviolate right of privacy of our student and instructor colleagues. As a result, we must forego sharing personally identifiable information about any member of our community including information about the ideas they express, their families, life styles and their political and social affiliations. If you have any questions regarding whether a disclosure you wish to make regarding anyone in this course or in the HCDE community violates that person's privacy interests, please feel free to ask the instructor for guidance. Knowing violations of these principles of academic conduct, privacy or copyright may result in University disciplinary action under the Student Code of Conduct.

Student Code of Conduct

Good student conduct is important for maintaining a healthy course environment. Please familiarize yourself with the University of Washington's Student Code of Conduct at:

Right to Revise

I reserve the right to revise this syllabus.