School of Education & Social Policy
Master's Portfolio
The master’s portfolio serves as an integrative reflection on the student’s work and experience for the year. It includes course reflections, samples of course and project work, and a brief Master's Project description. This portfolio is discussed and presented in an exit interview, usually in early September, with the program director and the faculty who supervised the student’s project work. Students often appreciate this opportunity to synthesize and discuss their reactions to the program, and they generally report that it helps them to appreciate the depth and breadth of the new knowledge and skills they have gained. The following are key components of the Master's Project:
  • Objective: To gain experience in research, although the project is not a master’s thesis. The research involves the design, implementation and/or evaluation of an educational artifact, ranging from a piece of software to a museum exhibit.
  • Abstract: A one-page proposal of the project is due to the academic director in January.
  • Advisor: The project is usually completed with the academic guidance of a Northwestern faculty member, not necessarily a Learning Sciences faculty member.
  • Supervisor: If students select to work on an ongoing LS project or other Northwestern project, the faculty advisor is most often the supervisor. For projects completed in off-campus organizations, the supervisor is the outside professional at that organization.
  • Independent Study: Students must take at least one independent study with their faculty advisor who informs the project. This occurs in the spring quarter.
  • Final Deliverable: A brief description of the project’s goal and accomplishments are included in Master's Portfolio. Other project deliverables are only those required by the project supervisor.


Recent Master's Projects

  • Developing Virtual Peers for Assessing Social Skills in Children with Autism
  • Understanding Diverging Parent-Teacher Socialization Practices: The Effects on Black Students
  • Designing Remote Laboratories for a Pre-College Audience: A Preliminary Analysis for the CI-TEAM iLab Network Project
  • Memory Products of Perfecting Text
  • Mastery Learning for the Contemporary Law Student
  • Reading for Critical Understanding: Supporting Adolescent Reading Comprehension Across Content Areas
  • Learning to Make Systematic Decisions: Scaffolding and assessing decision-making tasks in socially relevant, case-based curriculum
  • Step Up to Kindergarten Program at the Chicago Public Schools
  • Examining Teachers' Strategy Use and Topic Mentions While Watching Video of Mathematics Instruction
  • PhraseLab: A NetLogo Microworld for Music