Assessment Preparation

I've spent most of the last month preparing for assessment. Pulling together all the work from the module and presenting it in a coherent and easily navigable manner is a crucial final step - one that shouldn't be taken lightly. I had a phone chat with my tutor, Keith Roberts, about my presentation plans and I explained my approach. I want to make envelopes from thick tracing paper for each of the assignment's printed output. The reasoning for this is because of the different sized formats that I used over the course of the module. They would all rattle around inside a portfolio box big enough for the largest piece of work (A3). I had two different sized photo-books for assignments 1 & 5; an A4 printed image for my assignment 2 book cover, assignment 3, as mentioned, is printed on A3 sized photo paper. Hopefully the envelopes would help to pull the visual look of the presentation together.

To accompany each envelope is a wire-bound A4 binder containing my essays, original images sent to my tutor, the tutor feedback, my response, and notes and sketches for each assignment.

The whole lot was to go into a bespoke portfolio box to keep everything held in place but I was cautioned against overworking the presentation. This is good advice (I tend to tinker far too much) along with the caution to not present with material that looks like it came out of Rymans. I guess it is up to me to decide where on the spectrum my presentation will sit.

I ditched the bespoke portfolio box idea and the separate envelopes and binders will now be packaged up securely in bubble wrap and boxed for transit by courier. I'm not sure how assessment material is dealt with exactly but I'm hoping that an assessor will find all my materials laid out neatly on a table rather than having to unpack it all themselves.

I had a few false starts with the making of the envelopes but once I got into the swing of it they didn't take too long.

Each envelope and binder has a matching Polaroid indicating it's number.

I'd bought a wire binding machine earlier in the year for making these binders. All the material for each assignment is neatly held together and hopefully will be easy for the assessor to navigate. The black covers match my physical learning log which will also be submitted.

Print outs and notes from my learning log. I've also put small numbered tabs against pages which directly relate to assignments.

There is also a small navigation card to direct the assessor through the presentation and providing the URL for my blog. The fourth assignment is the critical review and the final revised version has a clear facing cover to visually connect with the opaque envelopes.

Seeing it all laid out on the table it looks quite simple and not over fussy. This is the overall look that I'd planned for. The sheer amount of work that is contained in those binders and envelopes (not to mention my blog) is quite staggering now I think back on it. I've found working at level 2 quite a jump. It was worth it though. I've really enjoyed working on this module and the help from my tutor has been exceptional. I really hope I've managed to find a path through the pitfalls and avoided overworking the presentation - time will tell.