PLA Examples for CS Courses

[truthling]

Can anybody provide me with an example of a successful computer science portfolio for a course(s) which they earned credit for with TESU?


TESU provides a bunch of sample portfolios, but they all seem to be for nursing.

[cookderosa]

Can anybody provide me with an example of a successful computer science portfolio for a course(s) which they earned credit for with TESU?


TESU provides a bunch of sample portfolios, but they all seem to be for nursing.

You're entering a land where no man has gone before.... or at least that's probably true. Most people DON'T PLA something - it's possible that they've never received a portfolio before - even if they have, there may not have been enough to generate "samples" for them to share.

[High_Order1]

There is at least one or two on here that I think has PLA'd a computer course.

I have not, but all said and done, I'll have probably a dozen successful portfolio submissions when this set rolls around. The closest would be web page design.

In a nutshell, you are going to demonstrate that you have the opportunity for college-level learning to the equivalent a fresh graduate of that particular class would have had.

This is significant, and it is not the same as just having equivalent experience.


To prove this is nebulous. There are no terminal objectives for you to knock through. Instead, you'll receive from the PLA Office a list of... something. Whatever that list is, you have to show how you had a college-level opportunity to learn it.

So, if it says, knowledge of pantone color charts; you could say your grampa was big into graphic design, and he ran you through it. Or, you took a course (see attached certificate - bonus if you have the course syllabus), that's where you were exposed to it. Or, you read this book, and this book (see bibliography) and this gave you that experience. Or, no one ever directly taught you. But every day, I mix paint at home depot. We use pantone colors in the mixmaster 9000x. I read the users' guide, and I have successfully mixed 759 gallons of paint this month, meeting customer expectations.

Then, you figure out a way to bulk each individual point up until you have a decent-sized narrative. Then, you build a resume, and upload it. Every job or place, you think; how does that apply to the point. As a security guard, you were trained on pantone colors corresponding to various signal and danger cues. As a bottlewasher, the chlor system used pantone color schemes to tell me which chemical or pack to load in which port of the warewasher system.

See?

Finally, you have an evidence document. In this document, you beg people to write you letters saying, hey, I don't know what pantone is, but this dude was a whiz at colors on the computer. You put in pictures of you using photoshop to alter colors. You include a sample copy of something you did with pantone colors. Maybe a certificate, maybe... anything that proves to a person researching your case that you were, in fact, exposed to an equivalent to a college-level opportunity to learn the list they provided.

Then, you have a google website. The PLA office goes in, and builds a page per each course attempted. In that page are subpages where you load up your resume, your evidence, and your narrative. It takes word and pdfs, dunno about other formats.

They don't specify a resume or evidence format, and there is a weak skeleton for the narratives, as I recall.

Once you upload, and check and recheck, you email the PLA office, and they assign a person, and then... you wait. Can be a month, can be over three months in my experience.

So, that's the ten-thousand foot view. Hope it helps!!