In this unit you are required to complete a weekly and consolidated portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous and cu
ent experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this unit. Your portfolio will provide an account of your learning based on your practice and your critical reflection.Further information is available on the Moodle site.
Task
Your task is to write weekly portfolios reflecting upon your learning from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify:
· the learning outcomes and module/topic of the unit,
· a description of your experience, including reading samples or records,
· your learning from your experiences, and
· any supporting documentation of prior or cu
ent learning.
Purpose
The primary purpose of this assessment item is to help you to develop skills for undertaking research and translating, via your technical and creative skills, underpinning concepts about project management methodologies. The secondary purpose of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to enhance your analysis, critical thinking and written communication skills; particularly in the areas of thinking about and reflecting on different project domains and project management methodologies. Developing a portfolio, as a result, makes your learning more explicit as you translate your workplace and personal experiences into documented evidence. You can then learn to critically examine the nature of your learning on this unit in relation to specific experiences in your project management practice and demonstrate that you have learned from those experiences and how you have achieved or maintained your professional competence as a result.
The assignment will also give you the opportunity to enhance your analysis and written communication skills; particularly in the areas of rigorous structured assignment writing.
Structure
You will be provided on the Moodle web site with a template for the weekly portfolios. You should use this template to structure each weekly portfolio and then upload weekly portfolios to the Moodle web site as directed (Portfolio Submission 1 contains portfolios for weeks 1 to 4, Portfolio Submission 2 contains portfolios for weeks 5 to 8 and Portfolio Submission 3 contains portfolios for weeks 9 and 10). At the end of the unit you will consolidate your portfolio submissions into a single document and upload an overall consolidated portfolio submission.Your portfolio should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature related to the project management topics for each week. You should also include a weekly reference list formatted in the prescribed Harvard style. You are also encouraged to include a bibliography.
This assessment item involves researching the topics to enhance your understanding of each concept through an utilisation of academic literature and secondary sources. Whilst you must use the recommended textbooks and web links, you should also refer to other sources on the Moodle web site and additional relevant peer reviewed academic journal articles of your choosing.
Weekly Portfolio
Each weekly portfolio is to be no more than 4 pages long.The portfolio shows your development of understanding during the unit. Naturally, this will make the portfolio different for everyone. Each student’s background, education, cu
ent and past work experiences is what makes it different. Each student’s personal researches will be different.What you need to do is to give yourself enough time to reflect and show how you have thought and come to grips with the ideas that address the learning outcomes of the unit. The amount of time you should be allocating to the unit is 12 to 16 hours per week (which includes writing the portfolio). So there should be a fair bit of time for you to make the reflections and reach a depth of insight that will make the portfolio meaningful. With each week's portfolio that you submit you do not include the writing that you made for a prior week. Instead you use the same portfolio template using only the section for the week you are writing about. In other words each week’s portfolio is a reflection upon that week. You should however, revisit the whole of the unit learning outcomes each week.The portfolio for any previous week is a reflection of your insights and thoughts for that week. Over the duration of the unit you will find that there is a development and change of your ideas as you study the material. You will then have opportunity at the end of the unit to consolidate everything and show how you have gained the insights that the unit is seeking to provide. At the end of the unit you should review your weekly portfolios and consolidate them into a single submission. You should make a personal reflection in this submission. This is the assessment that gets marked in detail.
It is to your benefit to have the personal discipline to make sure that you do not get behind. If you are allocating 12 or 16 hours per week for the unit then there is plenty of time for the portfolio. If you find that one week you slip then ok, but the unit is fundamentally planned so that you need to allocate 12 to 16 hours each week. Two hours lost in one week means that you need to do 14 to 18 hours the next! The unit is straight forward, but there are lots of web sites to visit and material to download. The text books are only part of the story and you won’t be able to do the unit with just the text books. Unfortunately, much of the material is written from a North American perspective. You will need to consider other industry sectors and also to be able to translate the learning outcomes into an Australian or other cultural perspective. Therefore, you will need to download other files and visit web sites to be able to gather the material you need in your portfolio. There are no bonus points for getting the weekly portfolio perfect from the first week but marks will be awarded for timely submission (as per the schedule) and for content that generally addresses the tasks for weekly portfolios listed above. Understanding and familiarity will only develop over time. As you prepare the portfolios’ each week and keep revisiting the learning outcomes and adding the unit material then you will gain insights required. Unless you do that on a weekly basis you won’t have the appropriate perspective to make the journey and reach the destination by the end of the unit.
Consolidated Portfolio
Since you’ll have made your own journey studying during the unit then the material that you will want to include in this portfolio will be unique for you. Your final portfolio will explain how you have developed your understanding of the learning outcomes and the topics with each week’s study.You final portfolio MUST be made as a single submission. For example:-
· You could merge all your submissions into one and provide a single big file.
You must NOT use an index and numbering system to identify material from prior week’s leaving each portfolio on the unit web site. Whatever way that you do it, the consolidated portfolio submission is the important one! It’s important that you make it clear to the marker what your consolidated portfolio refers to otherwise you may not get the marks you expect. An analogy for the final portfolio is that you can imagine that you are going before an examination board at the end of the unit and presenting to them a complete portfolio of your journey through the unit. You will hand each board member a package that they should then be able to read and from it appreciate everything that you have done and learned during your work life and the unit.
Referencing
Ensuring you have accurate references is important and will allow the marker to easily identify where your portfolio maps to the unit or other peer reviewed material. Also you need to show how you have made critical reflection on the material and added your own unique insights. Referencing should be made according to CQU’s Harvard referencing guide. To locate the guide then Google “CQU Harvard referencing” and download the PDF file for the cu
ent year.It is as a consequence of your references and academic proficiency with critical analysis that you will be able to gain MAXIMUM MARKS.
(Insert Student Name) / (Insert Student Number) - PPMP20009 Unit Portfolio for Week (Insert week number)
Weekly portfolio
In this unit you are required to complete a weekly portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this Unit. Your portfolio provides an account of your learning based on your prior and cu
ent learnings and your critical reflection.
A portfolio is increasingly being used in Universities as a means of:
· Being able to tell much more about you than exam results;
· As a means of reflecting your development through the unit;
· To reflect your attitude and values as well as your skills and knowledge.
(Race 2010, p. 58)
Timmins states that ‘A portfolio is a cohesive account of work based learning that contains relevant evidence from practice and critical reflection on this evidence. Its primary purpose is to ‘display achievement of professional competence or learning outcomes and knowledge development’ (Timmins 2008: p. 115).
You’ll find much more information about the use and application of portfolios on the Internet. However, it will require you to take some time to think through how you are going to complete the portfolio on a weekly basis. It is very easy to trivialise the portfolio and write nearly the same thing each week. But that won’t gain you many marks. Instead you should try to focus on the topic and learning outcome for the week and your reflections regarding them.
Task
Your task is to write a weekly portfolio reflecting upon your learnings from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify:
1. The learning outcomes and module/topic of the unit;
2. A description of your experience, including reading samples or records;
3. Your learning from your experiences;
4. Any supporting documentation of prior or cu
ent learning.
Instructions for completing the portfolio
1. Type your name and student id at the top of the page in the header section.
2. You can then delete this first section, save the file so that it can be used each week, and concentrate on writing your weekly portfolio.
3. Each learning outcome and the topics appropriate for the learning outcome have been included as the first column of portfolio table on the next page. You should review these columns and make changes as the unit progresses and you gain more familiarity with the learning outcomes and unit content. You will find that you will progressively elaborate on the content of the second, third and fourth columns as you work through each of the weeks of the unit.
4. Please appreciate it takes time to complete the portfolio therefore you must think always of what is required and be taking notes to update your portfolio as you read, study videos, or undertake other unit related activities. You are expected to be working 12 to 16 hours each week