Part B: Challenges, Future Learning, and Grade
For this part of the reflection, you will document challenges experienced in this course this semester, identify things that you still need to learn in the future, and propose your course grade.
Overview
For Part B of the reflection, you will document the challenges you experienced in this course, both internal and external. One way to assess how well you understand something is to think about what you still don’t know, so you will consider areas of possible future study. Finally, you’ll propose your course grade.
General Course Grade Guidelines
For CSCI 435, use the following general guidelines to help you narrow down a course grade:
- For a course grade of A:
- You should have submitted all 10 Milestones.
- Each Milestone worksheet should be substantially correct (averaging at least 90%). Your worksheets don’t have to be perfect, as long as all 10 have been completed with substantially correct answers after any revisions.
- Generally speaking, a course grade of A implies overcoming internal and external challenges to finish your work.
- For a course grade of B+, B, or C+:
- You should have submitted through at least Milestone 8 for a C+ or through at least Milestone 9 for a B/B+.
- Each milestone worksheet should be mostly correct (averaging at least 80%).
- If you had significant internal and/or external challenges, as noted in your Part B worksheet, you can justify a 1/2-grade increase (e.g. from a C+ to a B or from a B to a B+) in your explanation (Part B, number 12).
- For a course grade of C:
- As noted in the Syllabus, you must have completed through Milestone 7 with all worksheets revised and corrected in order to pass this course with a grade of C or better.
- If you continued beyond Milestone 7, you can use correctly answered questions in later Milestones to offset incorrect ones in previous Milestones on a one-for-one basis. For example, if you missed a total of 10 questions (after revisions) on Milestones 1-7 combined, you can use 10 correct answers on Milestone 8 to offset those missed questions.
- For a course grade below C:
- In the event that you fell short of Milestone 7 and didn’t drop the course, the difference between an F and a D or D+ depends on how far you managed to get in the course.
- Since this course isn’t offered frequently and is normally taken during your junior or senior year, repeat forgiveness might be impractical. For this reason, a grade of D can be assigned as long as you attempted at least 4 Milestones in the class and got at least half the questions correct.
- A D+ grade can be assigned if you did the minimum work (submitted through Milestone 7) but came up short of having all the worksheets correctly revised, even after the Hitchhiker’s questions. Alternatively, completion through Milestone 5 with fully revised worksheets, or completion through Milestone 6 with mostly correct worksheets (80%), could also be used to justify a D+.
For all worksheets, an incorrect response (frowning face) on Question 42 does not count against you, since these Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy questions were intended for comic relief. However, you may treat correct responses (smiling faces) as “extra credit” to offset incorrect answers in the Milestones. You should have accounted for these extra correct answers in your Part A worksheet. If you got all the questions correct on a worksheet and also got the Hitchhiker’s question correct on that worksheet, you can use the “extra credit” question to offset an incorrect regular question on another worksheet.
Part B Worksheet
Please download the following worksheet for Part B of the Reflection. To be sure your browser downloads the file instead of trying to open it, right-click the following link and choose “Save As,” “Save Link As,” or similar language from the menu. (Each browser is a little different in what wording it uses.)
Submission Guidelines
Follow the instructions provided in the worksheet in order to complete it. Refer to the General Course Grade Guidelines above for guidance on the grade section.
Check Your Work
Be sure you’ve answered each question in the worksheet. Proofread your answers and check that your proposed grade falls within the general guidelines listed above.
Prepare Your Submission
Export your completed worksheet to PDF format. Upload the PDF document as the submission for the Moodle assignment activity for Part B of the Reflection.
As a reminder, here are the instructions for editing the worksheet in either LibreOffice or Word Online:
ABET Assessment
Your overall Reflection responses are used to assess all the ABET Performance Indicators that are mapped for this course:
- 1.1 - Define requirements and/or specifications for a computing problem.
- 1.2 - Analyze a complex problem by breaking it down into smaller components.
- 2.1 - Design a solution to meet requirements.
- 2.2 - Implement a solution to meet requirements.
- 2.3 - Evaluate a solution against requirements.
- 4.1 - Assess ethical/legal issues in the discipline.
- 4.2 - Identify a violation of a professional code of ethics (ACM, IEEE).
- IT 6.1 - Analyze user needs to determine requirements of a computer-based system.
- IT 6.2 - Create appropriate IT-based solutions based upon user needs.
- IT 6.3 - Select systems appropriate for different user and environment requirements.