In this module, you will prepare your “Buddy Checks” – two extensive reviews of your classmates’ portfolios. You will also receive two checks on your own portfolio. The goal is to review the feedback you receive from these Buddy Checks and get your portfolio as polished as possible before your final exhibition.
WHAT TO DO
Make sure you do each of the following activities to successfully complete this module.
🔍 Identify your buddies
For your buddy checks, you will give detailed feedback to two classmates. Who you give feedback to is based upon the exhibition signup form. Once an exhibition is full (you might have to wait), your exhibition will have four group members (in some circumstances only three spots are allowed). For example,
- Lando Calrissian, cloudcityadmin@msu.edu, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lando_Calrissian
- Lagy Gaga, pokerface@msu.edu, http://www.ladygaga.com/
- Miley Cyrus, wreckingball@msu.edu, http://www.mileycyrus.com/
- Malcom Reynolds, brownshirts4ever@msu.edu, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Reynolds
Think of the slots as a circle (see image), and you give buddy checks to your neighbors.
For example, slot 2 (Lady Gaga) will give feedback to the students in slots 1 (Lando) and 3 (Miley).
🔍 Review portfolios
We ask that you spend 60 minutes (or more, if you wish) going over your first buddy’s portfolio (and then repeating for your second buddy!). While we don’t want to limit what you consider, we would recommend you look for aspects such as:
- things that are done particularly well
- unique, creative, and personal components that stand out
- writing mechanical issues: spelling, grammar, wording
- formatting issues: alignment, overlapping, consistency of font
✍️ Write your reviews
Given all of the items you might comment on, we expect these postings to be rather long, informative, substantive, specific, and constructive. We do not want to put a specific length, but it is difficult to imagine doing a good buddy check in less than 749 words. We know you have provided a lot of video feedback, so this is an opportunity to provide written feedback to your buddies. Here are some examples of high-quality buddy checks that do a good job being specific, complimentary, and critical:
What format should you put your review in? – We try not to get too formulaic when it comes to a buddy check. Even within the expectations that we list, we have seen a lot of different strategies and formats that have worked for students in the past. If you’re looking for some advice, here are some examples that we think have worked pretty well:
- The Letter Approach
- The Multimedia Approach – the original version of this buddy check had screenshots, which made it even more effective
- The Rubric Approach
- The Bullet List Approach
📩 Share your feedback with your buddy and instructors
Please email your buddies and instructors with an attachment or a link to your feedback.
- You can get email addresses from our roster page, the exhibition signup page, or their portfolio (which hopefully has a “contact me” option).
- Make sure to include us in the email (contact us) or sharing invitation.
- Note: Our email filters may catch your email if it is very large. If this happens you will receive an email letting you know that your email is waiting “moderator approval.” Not to worry! We will approve your email as soon as we can.
🔍 Review the buddy check feedback you've received
Because many of the buddy checks will come late in the week, it is okay if you go beyond the module deadline (by a day or two) to complete these steps.
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- Read your Buddy Checks – Make sure that you have received and can access the feedback that your buddies have sent you. If you have not received buddy checks, please contact the instructors. If you can’t access a buddy check (for example, because you don’t have permission to view the Google Doc), please contact your buddy directly.
- Process and Reflect – Spend some time thinking about the feedback you received from your buddies. Compare and contrast it with the feedback you’ve been receiving from your peers and instructors since the beginning of the course. Does everything make sense? Do you have questions? How would you like to move forward?
📅 Reminder - Your 3rd Piece of Flair is due in Module 11
Your third piece of flair is due at the end of Module 11. You can check out the full requirements for each of our pre-approved Pieces of Flair and following the instructions.
As with your regular work, there you can give and receive feedback using one of the approved methods (your own meeting with another student, or teams). If you use Teams, use the flair #3 channel.
When you submit a piece of flair, please fill out the corresponding columns in the sharetracker which are on the far righthand side (you may have to scroll right quite a bit).
✔️ Update the ShareTracker
At the end of each module, you will update the Sharetracker to submit your work for this module, and let us know about any revisions to previous work.
OPTIONAL: DEEP DIVES AND QUESTIONS
Make sure you do each of the following activities to successfully complete this module.
❓ When are Office Half Hours?
Office half hours are optional times that instructors are available for you to meet online in our capstone coffeehouse to discuss your work, ask questions, or get additional feedback. They are completely and totally optional, although office half hours is one way you can meet the tech-check requirement.
Our office half hours are held in the capstone coffeehouse (under the “Communicate” menu).
Office half hours are:
- With Matthew Koehler
- By appointment — just send an email to arrange a time (mkoehler@msu.edu)
Exhibition preparation
Office half hours are opportunities to prepare for the end-of-semester exhibition in Module 11. This is particularly true from a technology perspective, since we want to help you iron out any bugs or problems well ahead of time. However, this is also true from a face-to-face perspective; one of the most common things we hear every semester is that people wish they had had more opportunities to meet with classmates and instructors face to face. Although we don’t have any “mid-semester exhibitions,” office half hours are meant to provide this kind of opportunity throughout the semester!
By appointment
If any of these times don’t work for you, and you need help or need to meet the Tech Check requirement by the end of Module 10, contact us to schedule an alternative time for you that works.
Please also keep in mind that you can use the Coffeehouse to meet with your classmates! If you’d like to get some face-to-face feedback from someone in your house, just set up a time to meet together and use the Coffeehouse to do it!
Where are office half hours?
Access office half hours by clicking the ☕ button on the menubar on the top of this page, or by reading our full overview of and instructions for the Coffeehouse.
❓ Why peer-to-peer Buddy Checks?
While you have had opportunities to provide and receive feedback in Teams or Zoom and while your instructors have provided you with feedback throughout the semester via your feedback notebooks, we think it very valuable to have another round of detailed peer feedback before our Exhibitions. While you will not be in the role of grading, you will hopefully be able to gather insight and ideas about your own portfolio through helping others.
Why peer to peer instead of instructor to student?
This assignment is intended as a rich learning opportunity for the person giving the feedback as well as for the recipient. Our hope is that the experience of judging complex work, like these portfolios, will encourage your thinking about how to hold such evaluations of work of your own portfolio and your own students.
You will end with a sense of how much time it takes to form fair and thoughtful judgments of artifacts like portfolios, for which there are no right answers or bell-shaped curves. We truly hope you feel this assignment is fruitful for your own thinking.
❓ Have a question not answered here?
If you have a question that isn’t answered here, check our our FAQ, or contact us
