Final Exam: Performance Review

Goals

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
• Conduct research appropriate to workplace problem solving, such as literature review, evaluation of online resources, interview, and site inspection. [CLO 2]
• Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications. [CLO 3]
• Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
• Apply principles of effective visual design for print and electronic presentation, including hierarchical, chronological, and spatial arrangements. [CLO 6]
• Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications. [CLO 7]

The Task

This exam is optional. If you are happy with your current course grade, you need not submit a final.

Note: there is no grace period for the exam.  If you do not submit your exam by 11:59 PM on Friday, August 14, you will earn zero points for the activity.

For your final exam, write a performance review that evaluates your work in the course and proposes the grade you should receive on the final, using information from your Weekly Work Log (in OneNote) to support your recommendation. In the workplace, this report would be similar to a annual self-evaluation.

Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the characteristics and features of performance reviews.
Chapter 8, “Communicating Persuasively,” has strategies that can help you with your exam. The following articles also offer advice on writing self-evaluations:

• Guidelines for Writing Your Employee Self-Assessment Links to an external site. from UC-Santa Barbara Human Resources
• Evaluation Resource Central: Peter Elbow Links to an external site. from Evergreen State College
• What is a Self-Assessment?  Links to an external site.from the Ohio National Guard
• Tracking Performance Accomplishments and Writing Self‐Assessments Links to an external site. from the USDA

Step 2: Review your work in the course and gather your data.
You need to collect the data on your work in the class. You should find much of what you need in your Weekly Work Log. Consider these questions:

• What have you done to work consistently during the entire term?
• Which document demonstrates your highest quality work? Why?
• What demonstrates that you invested your best effort in the course?
• How have you supported members of the course in your Feedback Posts in Piazza?
• What (if anything) did you do to go beyond the basic requirements of the course?

Gather the relevant evidence (e.g., links to examples, quotations or other evidence from your work).

Step 3: Compare your findings to the course expectations.
Once you have gathered your findings about your work in the course, compare them to the expectations for the kinds of work in the course Links to an external site., and conclude how well you did:

• Reading
• Writing
• Giving, Discussing, and Responding to Feedback
• Tracking and Reflecting

Be sure that you consider your work in the entire course, and if relevant, be honest about where you fell short. You can use tables and charts as appropriate to present your evidence.

Step 4: Pay attention to the expectations for the final exam.
To meet the requirements of the final exam assignment, your performance review should include the following sections and information:

• details on your overall work in the course.
• a comparison of your accomplishments to the course expectations for labor in the course
• a conclusion of the grade you should receive for the course.

Your performance review should be specific and detailed, since I will go by the information in your report as I determine your final exam grade. If you do not provide adequate, specific details, your grade will be lower.

Step 5: Compose your final exam.
Once you have gathered all of your information and drawn conclusions about your performance in the course, write your review in your word processor. Explain your findings, present your evidence, and include an indication of how your work in the course compares to the expectations. Your report should be professional, and avoid any whining, begging, or the like.

Use what you know about layout and design to create a report that is clear and easy to read. If it’s also fun and interesting, that’s great too.

Be sure that you specifically state how many points the final exam should add to your course grade (maximum: 40 points). Explain how you arrived at the number.

Step 6. Review your exam for design and basic writing errors.
Everything you write should use accurate image editing, grammar, spelling, punctuation, mechanics, linking, and formatting.

Step 7: Submit your project in Canvas.
Upload your completed final in Canvas by 11:59 PM on Friday, August 14. There is no grace period for the exam.

Grading Process

I will read your final, looking for evidence that supports your argument for a specific number of additional points.

If necessary, I will adjust the number to better represent your work in the course. In such cases, I will add a comment the explains my decision.