If you are currently in any of my classes, and you want to know your interim grade, please e-mail me. You should hear back from me in a day or two. If you want to discuss particular projects email me again.  Be advised that your grade is subject to change during a semester, feel free to contact me to that regard as often as necessary. One of the reasons I don't post grades on Blackboard is because  your grade may change each time you submit or don't submit a project.

Final grades will be posted on the SIS, Student Information System, you'll need to log on to the NVCC web site to see them. From my posting date it may take as long as 24 hours for you to see them.

If you are taking any of my ELI web based courses, I will accept work in progress, rather than waiting until the end of the semester to see your work. Also the grading criteria is a bit different from that used for regular classroom students.

Here's my grading criteria:

1) The Quality of you production (including: execution, understanding, originality, response to the instructor suggestions, and number of project due, (that number is 11) will fetch 660 points, 60 points for each project.

2) Tests: midterm, will fetch 110 points.

3) Tests: final, will fetch 200 points.

4) Participation (postings on BB discussion board) will fetch 30 points.

For a possible total of 1000 points. here's how that number relates to grades.

1000 to 900 points = A

900 to 750 points = B

500 to 750 = C

Below 500 = D

If you want to know your interim grade, please e-mail me

All the work you'll email to me as attachments will be stored in my office computer in dedicated folders, each one bearing your name. To evaluate your work I will look into that folder, therefore if you ask me for your interim grade you'll have to wait until I'm on campus, as I can't access your folder from home, although I can read your email from there.

If you are in one of my CG courses, there are a number of ways you can hide your work from me, including saving it in the wrong folder, in the wrong format, not saving it at all, or overwriting a file. I sincerely hope that none of these mishaps will ever take place. In the CG lab we currently have a network drive where you can save all your work. I can also access that drive to evaluate your work. You must create a folder bearing your name and inside that folder create another named Presentation, and save all your final pieces there. Including, if you have them, multiple versions of the same project. If you work in the CG lab you must post your work in the lab's network drive 1/2 hour before the end of each class. Your graphic images must be saved using the Save for the Web command, and the format must be the .JPG for still images and .GIF for animation.

Occasionally, I have a few students, each semester, asking me how they can improve on their grade. Or how I can help them in doing so. Let me explain my idea of "helping students" in the best possible way I'm capable of: there is a huge difference between helping students in performing better in their upcoming work, and help them fix their work only for grade improvement purposes.  I'm always willing to help, but it will be up to you to put my help to work in resolving future challenges.

This is the kind of help you can expect from me:

• All my assignments and related lectures are in writing and available to you 24 x 7 from the www. Although the material may not be written professionally, it is legible.
• in the classroom I draw extensively on the blackboard, anyone who pays close attention to what I do can see the logic that I employ in constructing an image.
• If you are taking one of my online courses you can relay on hundreds of illustrations that I have created for  my online courses, and lately some videos.
• You can also meet with me in person. I'll be happy to sit down with you, and show you how you can speed up the process of creating images of all kinds, traditionally, or by using a computer. But my help doesn't automatically translate into a better grade. You still need to show me in the near future, within that semester, that you have picked up something from that lesson, regardless if the lesson was in writing, a demo, or lectured. The question remains the same, how much, and how well you have adopted and applied my teaching to your work. Your progress, regardless if based on my help, my input, or your own personal effort and talent, is still subject to my evaluation.

1) Execution of the assignment. I will respond to the execution of each assignment, or a group of assignments, with a grade, regardless if work will be done in the classroom or at home, as it maybe the case for students taking hybrid course. I usually look for good craftsmanship and clarity in the execution. In a traditional drawing class like Drawing I, what is meant by craftsmanship, and clarity, can be quite different than what I would expect in a CG course. In a drawing class I expect expressive free hand sketches that do not have the "hard edge" personality of what maybe created with CG tools.  In general what I would like to see from you are complete concept drawings that are clearly stated as a whole, rather than in their details. A product that communicates effectively the idea it was designed to communicate. Your work must be visually strong, so it can be appealing when viewed from the distance or when reduced in size. I tend to prefer work that is simple and strong to work that highly detailed, labored, but visually weak.

Because you'll be working on a new assignment each class, it's your obligation to show your work to me before the end of each class. YOU MUST APPROACH ME to find out how well you did with any given projects. You got to learn how to do that, if you lack the necessary social skill, or you are afraid of criticism, or you don't want to bother with it, you simply will not receive an interim grade, but just a final one. You need to shown your work always following the guidelines inherent to those of a formal presentation. In a brief sentence discuss the general concepts you work with, not how hard it was or if you like it or didn't like it, keep your personal feelings out of it.

2) Understanding of the assignment. You must demonstrate that you understand what I am asking you to do. It's unacceptable that at the college level you don't understand what you are asked to to and why. In particular when each project is based on a specific concept which is explained in class as well as in the online syllabus.

You need to adopt a proactive approach to your life and education. You must take responsibility, if you don't understand something ask. If you don't accept responsibly you'll tend to reverse that situation and believe that because you don't understand the content of this course it's not your problem and responsibility. That will be never the case.

You'll have the opportunity of practicing your presentation at the end of each class. If you don't take this opportunity and wait until the midterm and the final to talk about your work, you are taking a big risk. The risk of not being able to address the issues in a comprehensible manner that meets my approval. The only way for me to understand that you are getting anything out of what I'm asking you to do is to hear from you, in your own words.

A good presentation can raise your grade of a whole letter grade. Please read the contents of the  Mid term and final presentations page. During these presentations you'll be expected to talk about your work pointing to the concepts clearly stated in the syllabus, and not about your own interpretative personal point of view.

If these concepts are not clear to you , you must let me know, so I can do something about it. Don't use it as an excuse, and don't wait until the end of the semester to raise that issue.

If you are taking one of my web based hybrid courses, each email addressed to me, should contain in a short sentence, the manner in which you have resolved a particular assignment. It is very important that you learn how to articulate your visual experience in writing, or in words. If you have difficulty comprehending a specific assignment it is your obligation to let me know. You should point to specifics in my writing that may need clarification, and I will rewrite them, or add on to them. Don't wait until the end of the semester to tell me that you didn't understand a particular project, at that point it will be too late. A poor presentation can be the product of confusion, and no preparation at all. That can be prevented.

3) Originality. The art work, as a final product, cannot be borrowed in its entirety, or copied and pasted from art found on the Internet. In a traditional drawing class collages are in part acceptable. In a CG class be careful about what you are grabbing from the Internet. On the other hand borrowing ideas is acceptable and common place in all civilizations. There's a difference between emulation and plagiarism. In a drawing course copying is a good way of learning as long as it is done in your own hand. The solution to a project must be your own. Feel free to find inspiration anywhere you wish, as long as its is directed toward resolving the course's assignments using your own means. Originality may also imply the student's ability to go above and beyond what is required by a given assignment, without disregarding the assignment. Concerning the contents of each assignment, be advised that fabrications, interpretations, or making things up routinely is not always welcome. It usually indicates no preparation and disregard for the assignment. Even though imitating the examples provided for each assignment is acceptable, using a subject matter that his your own can be considered as research.

4)  Positive response. You must show a positive response toward the instructor's expectations, comments, and criticism. If you are taking a web based hybrid course you must replay to my comments with a note indicating that you understand the nature of my remarks concerning your work, regardless if you are ready to make improvements to your work or not. I will try to make specific suggestions regarding your work, some will have a grade change attached to them some will not. Don't make changes to your work in a haste only because of my suggestions, or because you think that those changes may improve your grade. A regular semester is 16 weeks long, you should have plenty time to improve on some of your work. You must put your creativity on a schedule, be prompt, and come to class prepared, to work on a specific assignment. All the assignments are available to you now.

5) Attendance. You must have fewer than four absences to avoid incurring in a grade penalty. More than four absences, will cause your grade to drop one letter grade. The physical attendance factor doesn't apply to students enrolled in web based hybrid courses, but you still need to communicate with me via email on a regular basis, that type of communication is equivalent to attendance. If I don't hear from you for a considerable amount of time, let's say 3 weeks, your silence may effect your grade. Waiting until the end of the semester to turn all your work in, or up to 50% of it, is unacceptable. You cannot expect me, at that point in time, to replay to that production, and I can't expect you to mind my comments when the course is over. My comments will not be forwarded to you past the deadline set for receiving your work, if you care about my comments, I must received your work in a timely fashion, regularly, every two weeks, or preferably more often.

6) Classroom conduct. No chatting during my lectures, and don't engage in conversations that may annoy others. Don't wear earphones, if you wear them constantly in class they simply send me the message that you have something better to listed to, no cell phones, no iphones, they must be turned off. No naps or falling asleep in class, I can't even begin to tell you how bad that is, and how bad it looks on you and on me, I can't tolerate it. If you are falling asleep in class, you need some help, but not the kind of help I can give you, other than telling you to go home and sleep it off. No books, or magazine reading. Don't use my class time to do work for other classes. If your behavior becomes severely disruptive you'll be ask to leave the classroom.

Please read what some prominent psychologists are saying about the negative effects of multitasking http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html

Criteria # 1 is the fundamental criteria upon which your grade is based. I will communicate that grade to you in two ways: if you are in the classroom I can write the grade in the back of each drawing. That grade will be updated if improvements will be made. Keep in mind that often there is not much you can do to improve dramatically your level of your artistic ability within a semester's span. If that was not true then all students could work their way up to an A. Improvements in a drawing, the kind that warrant a grade change, must be substantial in nature, and they must meet my approval.

Criteria # 2: can lower or raise your grade of a letter grade.

Criteria # 3 and # 4: Each of these criteria can lower or raise your grade of 1/2 of a letter.

Criteria # 5: poor attendance will lower your grade of a whole letter grade.

Criteria # 6: Poor or negative classroom conduct will lower you grade of a whole letter grade.

The answer to most of the questions you may have, concerning what and how I teach, may be found here in these pages at www.nvcc.edu/home/nvportg . If you still have further questions please call  me at 703-3232135 or email me . Email is my preferred manner of communicating. I will return your phone call once, but if you are not available, or your message box is full, I will not call back. PLEASE USE EMAIL.