CSCI-3656 Portfolio

This repository is your personal space to write your goals, keep a journal, and collect ideas and experiments that relate to class.

Goals

In this class, we're putting your personal learning experience first. We won't be scoring assignments or activities, but we will discuss in small groups and provide feedback, and revise. We'll use "issues" in this repository to define your own personal goals, self-evaluate, and revise over the semester. It'll be a living document.

Your goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. (h/t Yael Niv) You should have between 3 and 5 goals at any time.

Specific

We're here to become better learners, and that requires making our abstract or longer-term goals concrete. Behaviors such as starting activities early, discussing with peers or asking for help, and applying concepts in real-world applications are examples of specific behaviors.

Measurable

Your goal should be objectively measurable. If you share the statement of your goal a log of what you've done with a peer, they should reach the same conclusion of whether the goal has been achieved. It should be possible to fail (your goals are too easy if you never fail).

Attainable

Goals can be ambitious, but should be attainable if you apply yourself and don't encounter unforeseen obstacles. We'll revise and recalibrate goals as we go through the semester.

Relevant

This class does not exist in a vacuum, and achievement of your goals in numerical computation may depend on other aspects of your life. I encourage you to set and reflect on goals in other realms of your life, but please write goals here that are relevant to this class.

Timely

Goals should have a timeline on which they can be assessed. Goals with a timeline from a week to a month are good because you'll be able to assess whether they were completed and set new goals, versus a difficult-to-assess sense of progress during the entire term.

Journal

It's important to regularly reflect on your progress and strategy. Failure is a healthy and normal part of learning: it's how we adapt and cope that matters.