From J3 Physics

About unit portfolios

The portfolio represents your collected work for the course. It will be collected and graded at each test. It is not meant to be a large time sink. You should work on assembling the material throughout the course of the unit. If you put a little time into it on light homework nights for the class, you should not have to devote much time to putting this together before the tests.

I am always happy to discuss the portfolio at any time.

It will include the following:

• Chapter summary - Summarize the key points of the chapter in your own words. Make this useful for your own review. This can take any form that is useful to you. It can be paragraphs, complete sentences, or an outline. Defining key terms used in class can also be useful. Use your own words and take this time to make the material your own. Use colloquialisms and analogies that help you understand the concepts and share them in class.

• Focus questions - Most units will have questions drawn from various sources that are intended to put emphasis on certain topics within the unit. These are in addition to the chapter summary. Focus questions – or related questions and problems – have been known to make appearances as test questions, so take them seriously.

• Model homework problems - You must select five problems or questions from the homework assignments throughout the chapter. These should be representative of the unit and provide an overview of the types of problems in the unit. They will be evaluated on completeness of the presentation of the solution and on how well the set of five problems represents the unit. When selecting problems, ask yourself what are the most important problems for the unit.