Semester Long YOGA

3 Phase YOGA Assignment

Three times during the semester you will be asked to think about, set, revise, and assess your learning goals for the course. These will be short written exercises that aim to assist you, your project team colleagues, and the teaching team to curate activities that will support these goals.

Phase 0 – Set Learning Goals

Please submit a typed 1-2 pager (1.5 or doubled spaced, 12pt font, 1in margins) that describes your personal learning goals for the semester. We strongly recommend creating and sharing a Google Docs link as your submission, as you’ll be revisiting these goals throughout the semester. Goals should be specific and concrete – it should be clear what the goal is (and how it is specific to CompRobo), how you may go about pursuing that goals, and how you will know when you’ve achieved or met your goal. This assignment will be marked as complete or incomplete; the overall YOGA project will not be assessed until the end of the semester when you grade yourself. You will be provided some feedback on these initial goals in terms of focus, ability to be assessed, feasibility, and sincerity.

Tips for Generating Goals

These are your goals – there is no magic number of goals, no right or wrong, etc. This activity is designed to encourage you to be thoughtful about the semester ahead, and to help you create a concrete assessment plan at the end of the semester. To assist in setting your initial goals, you may want to consider the following:

  • Why CompRobo for you? What would you like to get out of the class this semester? Are there topics you are hoping to cover or skills you want to develop / practice? How does the class fit into your broader academic or career goals? Looking back on the semester, what would make you say it was a success for you?
    • You might consider having a look at the Course vision, philosophy, and objectives statements – do any of these align with your own intents for the class?
    • When you glance over the course schedule, is there anything that piques your interest?
  • What learning themes speak to you? You might consider organizing goals around different “learning themes” like skill mastery, content mastery, process mastery, communication, teaming, creativity, design, context development, synthesis, etc. Are you keen to get in the weeds of coding in this class, or interested in learning about robots in general? Is this a foray into a possible career direction, or an outlet to pursue an idea you’ve already been chewing on? Your goals can cover one or many of these themes!
  • How will you assess yourself on your goals? How will you measure whether a goal is mastered or only partially accomplished (would it be via effort, accomplishment, production of an artifact, ability to perform a task, etc.)? Why is the goal meaningful to you? How are your prioritizing your goals?

Tips for Writing Goals

  • Name your goals – consider having a pithy label for each of your goals (e.g., “Intermediate Skill Mastery in Architecting Robot Code” or “Becoming Familiar with Robotics / Robotics-Adjacent Careers”) which captures the essence of your goal.
  • Describe your goal to be understood by others – write in clear language about your goal so that someone else can understand what you’re aiming to do, why, and how you’re aiming to do it. The importance of the goal to you should be clear. An explanation will likely be a few sentences (2-4 sentences).
  • Explain your assessment strategy – provide a brief explanation for how you will know you’ve met your goal. An explanation may be brief (1-2 sentences).

Some examples of goals could be:

**Intermediate Skill Mastery in Architecting Robot Code** 
I would like to understand what makes developing software for robots different from other software development I've done in the past (e.g., mathematical modeling, GUI design). Beyond engaging with class activities, I will aim to, through the open-ended projects, focus strongly on good coding practice and interaction with hardware (as opposed to leaning only on simulators). Through version control history and a practice of using pull requests and peer code review, by the end of the semester I will have a record of how my coding practice has improved, and a set of complete projects that will be unique in my portfolio.

**Becoming Familiar with Robotics Careers**
I know I am really interested in robot systems, and I'm working on determining what my major will be at Olin. Through engaging with the course readings and the "Broader Impacts" project, I want to examine different sectors that are heavily influenced by robots, and identify the types of engineers/technicians/people that work on those projects. At the end of the semester, I will be able to list specific sectors and companies / researchers in each of those sectors of work. I will also be able to more clearly articulate what major I may declare (or not declare!) and why.

Phase 1 — Revise Learning Goals

Take a moment to review your learning goals from earlier in this semester. With three projects now complete and the final project kicking off, consider:

  • Do these goals align or resonate with your experiences in CompRobo so far? If so, are there new goals you would like to pursue looking ahead? If not, are there changes to the goals you would like to make or resolutions regarding the final project you’d like to establish?

  • Are your assessment plans well-scoped and actionable? The last phase of this project will ask you to assess your learning goals using a point scale out of 50. Consider whether you would like to develop a formal rubric, or modify your assessment plan to assist with this stage.

  • Are there experiences, beyond the final project, that would help you meet your goals? Are you looking for certain class content, additional resources, 1-on-1 meetings with the teaching team, etc.? What is your plan for scoping and asking for these resources?

For this phase, please submit a tracked-changes edit of your initial learning goals for the semester (link TBA), with special attention to adding/changing/modifying goals, refining assessment plans, and including any notes to the teaching team directly about how we can support you.

Phase 2 — Assess Learning Goals

In the final phase of this assignment, please assess how you have met or addressed your learning goals. You will be scoring yourself out of 50 points, using your assessment plan as a guide.

Please submit a final copy of your learning goals, and a rubric matching your assessment plan with scores and commentary supporting your assessment (link TBA). You may allocate point totals in whatever way you deem fair and a reasonable interpretation of your goals, and your score + commentary should note your strengths, areas of possible improvement, and notes for any point deductions. The score you assign yourself will be applied directly to this assignment (unless there is concern from the teaching team about the score allocation, in which case a brief dialog will be sought to confirm the score before grade assignment).