CLASSROOM-AS-ORGANIZATION PORTFOLIO ASSIGNMENT

Self Evaluation and Summary of the Portfolio (submit with portfolio)

NAME: Alicia Yoder

ROLE(S): Awareness Committee (Chair)

PROJECTS:
Creating informational handouts
Maintaining organizations Facebook page
Take minutes for Awareness Committee
Help organize and attend awareness events
Determine roles of organizations president and vice president
Interview and select organizations president and vice president
1.

Strengths of your portfolio: I think that I was greatly involved within the organization and
can show it through documentation on my portfolio. I think it is well-organized and easy to follow
and find certain assignments and pages.

2.

Limitations, or disappointments, include: Because of the design of my website, so pages

may take a lot of work to get to. Additionally, some pages seem very blank. Certain documents
may benefit from some more thorough explanation.

3.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.

(On items 3-5 below, circle those that apply)

Content is:
Well written
No spelling or grammatical errors
Paragraphs flow
Sentences are complete
Research is substantiated
Reference lists and appropriate citations
Reference format is ___APA, ___not APA, ___APA not applicable

4.
a.
b.
c.
d.

Appearance is:
Professional
Neat
Organized by topic areas
Clear and focused

5.
a.
b.
c.
d.

Your work demonstrates:

Critical thinking
A focused presentation
Emerging insights
Self-directed learning

6.

You have included a table of contents

___yes ___no (If no, why not?)
A table of contents is not included in this portfolio because it was put into a
website-form. Because of this and because navigation is much easier with this
format than with a hard-copy portfolio, I found a table of contents to be
unnecessary.

7.

A cover page for the group entries indicates who receives credit ___yes ___no

8.

Overall, you recommend how many points for your portfolio? ___________________
10 poor

20 fair

30 satisfactory

40 very good

50 excellent

(For items below, use the back side of the page)

1. What is your rationale for the number of points you recommend?
While I do think that I could have taken more initiative in the course, I believe that I
worked very hard to help our organization reach its goal, and I think that the work
and documents in my portfolio reflect this hard work and dedication that I had to
this course, my committees, and the organization as a whole.
2. What should be considered regarding your attendance/participation?
I attended every single class period and every awareness event that I was
available for. I tried hard to remain involved with this organization, even outside of
normal class meeting hours. During class time, I always participate in executive
board meetings and led Awareness Committee meetings. I took minutes and tried
hard to make productive strides toward our overall goals during every class
period. I will admit, however, that I did not work as hard I could have some
evenings, simply due to exhaustion and stress.
3. How do you rate your electronic communications? Did you follow recommended
guidelines?
I could have used electronic communications better in this class. There were
some instances where I did not reply to emails from other committees in a timely
manner, or when I waited longer than I should have to make information available
to all members of the organization (such as waiting too long to post the flyers and
brochures to the Blackboard site). I was always open to electronic
communication, however, and encouraged others to email me with questions or
concerns. Any emails that required an immediate response were responded to
appropriately.

4. What comments do you have for the instructor regarding your portfolio and the
classroom-as-organization experience? Include your recommendations for future
classes.
I like the freedom that we had in this course. I really felt like we, the students, were
the ones making the decisions and, therefore, making the differences. I do think
that more instruction and direction would have been helpful in the beginning of
the course, to help us fully understand what we were to be accomplishing in the
first few weeks of the course. I felt as though we did not accomplish much with
this organization until the last one-third of the semester, and I think that more
guidance in the beginning could have helped us to begin accomplishing our goals
sooner. Overall, I liked the idea of working as a real-life organization, because it
made me feel like I was really doing something and really making a difference,
which I think motivated me to work harder in this course than I may have
otherwise. That being said, however, I think that this method left us with less
freedom, as we had to follow rules and laws of the organization that were already
in place and actions that were already being taken. For instance, the Awareness
Committee planned to design a website for the organization from the beginning as
one of our main projects. We found out halfway through the semester that
somebody was already designing a website for the organization, so we felt as
though our work toward creating a website was wasted, and we quickly had to
find a new direction and new goals for our committee. Also, I do not feel like I had
as much experience in the startup aspects of an organization and I would have
hoped to gain, because we were working with an organization that was already
well-established. For instance, I would have liked to learn more about developing
constitutions and bylaws, but we did not discuss this much, because the HoimaUganda Education Foundation already had a constitution and bylaws in place.