FINAL Reflection & Goals Evaluation

Projects in CS II, Spring 2015

Your Name: ______Latest Due Date: Monday, June 8th, 2015

Final Instructions: You can use document file and fill in your answers to the sections, or start with a new file to record your responses. Please return the completed Final Evaluation to Mr. Bergquist by Monday, June 8th, 2015. For reasons of confidentiality, you may want to either email the file to me OR copy it to a thumb drive at the end of class. Make sure I have a copy of this before you leave class on Monday, June 8th, 2015 – I need to score it promptly since most of you are seniors.

Document Guidelines: Strive to assemble your thoughts into full sentences and paragraphs; recommended format is to follow standard technical writing layout of about five paragraphs of five sentences each. Feel free to combine your answer to the common questions into single paragraphs.

Addendums: If you wish to add later thoughts to your reflection feel free to send them to me later, but I will be assessing the copy I receive from you at the end of the Final period, so make sure to answer all sections completely. If you need more time, let me know.

Part I: Class Reflection:
Please respond to these topics:

A) Most Important Insight: What is the most important thing you have learned in this class over the past semester? May be best to come back to this question after going through the following ones.

B) Class Expectations: This class is intentionally not formally structured, you basically set your own goals, identified tasks and then worked on them – this is much how a real work place functions, except you spend many more hours and get paid. Did you feel this was engaging and motivating to you or would you have preferred more structured guidelines & formal requirements? Did the class meet your expectations? What kind of students would you recommend this class to or suggest to not take it?

C) Assessment/Feedback: If you were the instructor of this course, what assessment – a way of measuring student progress & accomplishment – would you add to provide feedback to students and record their development?

D) Mentors*: How effectively did your team use our mentors for assistance? What would you suggest to look for in next year’s mentors and how can we use them best for future student projects?

E) Improvements*: How would you suggest changing the execution of projects for future semesters of this class? Have more formal lessons on material? What additional assessment/feedback would you find the most beneficial? How can we better use the mentors? Any other suggestions for the class?

* Yes, I ask these questions every semester, if you don’t have anything new to say, that’s fine.

(Section II continues on next page…)


Part II: Goals Evaluation:
At the start of the semester, you created two goals:
1. Professional Competency Goal: Choosing one of our professional competencies: Technical Excellence, Efficient use of Limited Resources, Teamwork, Willingness to do what is needed to achieve goal, Dealing with Ambiguity, Innovate & Simplify, and Communications.

2. Project-based Goal: What would you like to accomplish through our projects this semester?

For each goal please respond:

A) The Goal: Briefly restate the goal.

B) Success: Let me know if you feel that you have accomplished the goal or not. You are not being graded on its completion, but honest reflection on your progress toward the goals. Growth comes from being honest with yourself and identifying areas that you can improve. Were you happy with the results of your semester’s work??

C) Measured Progress: Your goals were to be “Specific” and “Measurable” – are you able to specifically measure your progress on the goal? Hint: this is not always easy to do, but it is a good exercise to try to assess your development. Again what are your thoughts on this and how could you improve this?

D) Resources & Improvements: What do you think could help you succeed more in accomplishing the goal? Your response can include improvements & resources from yourself, team members, mentors, our class structure/process and/or anything else. An important skill to develop is identifying what you need and where you can get assistance to help reach your goals and flourish.

Part III: Adding App’s Contest: Feedback, Suggestions & Thoughts?

Having the Apps design and Challenge contests gave a more concrete focus on releases of code and practical designs to our class this year. Now that we have followed it through to completion, let me know what you thought of this addition to our class. I know that there were different levels of usage of the App Design process (brainstorming, research, personas, MVP, etc.), what parts do you think helped you create a more useful App – what elements will you consider in future projects? The Technology Alliance will be sponsoring another Youth Apps Challenge next year, should we work toward that?

Lastly, for those doing both semesters, so you feel you have mastered using Git & GitHub? (Let me know if you already knew it before the school year.)

As always, your thoughts are greatly appreciated by me and future students of Projects in CS.

Thank you!

Mr. Birck, Mr. Sloan & Mr. Bergquist

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Projects in CS II, Garfield HS, Earl Bergquist, June 2015