16.01 D6: Final Reflection
Finals week · 15 points · about 45 minutes · Canvas discussion board
What this is
A short, honest look back at the seven objectives this course set out to teach. It is graded on thoughtfulness and specificity, not on how well you say you did. Saying "I still do not really understand X" is worth full credit if you can say what about X and where you lost the thread. That is genuinely useful to me for the next offering.
There is no right answer here and no reason to perform confidence.
Objectives assessed
This is a self-assessment against all seven terminal objectives. It does not score any single objective: it asks you to judge your own position against all of them. It counts toward the discussions and reflections category.
Time estimate
| Re-read the objectives and your own work | 20 min |
| Post | 25 min |
| Total | 45 min |
Before you start
Open the Objective Alignment Sheet and read the seven terminal objectives and the 34 supporting objectives under them. Then skim your own graded work from the semester. The labs are the fastest way to remember what you actually did.
Post Directions
Due: the last day of finals week. About 400-500 words. No replies required.
Four parts.
1. Strongest and weakest
Name the terminal objective you are most confident about and the one you are least confident about. For each, name a specific supporting objective (by number) and say what you can or cannot do.
Not: "I understand cryptography." Instead: "I can do 3.4 (I can explain what a failed signature verification does and does not prove), but 3.5 is shaky; I can read a certificate chain but I could not explain to somebody what actually goes wrong if a CA is compromised."
2. The thing that changed how you see something
Name one idea from this course that changed how you look at something outside the course: a product you use, a system at work, a news story, an argument you had. Say what you thought before and what you think now.
If nothing did, say that, and say what you think the reason is. That is a real answer and I would rather have it than an invented one.
3. The hardest part, and why
Name the week, the lab, or the concept that was hardest, and diagnose it. Was it the reading, the tool, the math, the writing, the time, or the fact that it built on something you had not understood two weeks earlier? Be specific enough that I could act on it.
4. What you would tell the next section
One paragraph addressed to a student starting this course in a future semester. What would you tell them to do differently in week 1? What did you spend time on that did not pay off? What did you skip that you should not have?
Rubric
| Row | What is assessed | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | All four parts addressed; parts 1 and 3 refer to specific objectives, labs, or weeks by number rather than in general terms; the reflection is candid and specific rather than a summary of the syllabus | 15 |
| Total | 15 |
Length is not the point. A specific 400-word reflection scores full marks; a vague 900-word one does not.
AI disclosure
You may use AI tools. If you do, add a sentence saying which and what for, per the AI policy.
This one is genuinely about you. An AI tool does not know which lab you found hardest or what you believed in January, and this is the one assignment in the course where the honest answer is the only thing worth submitting.
Thank you for the semester. If anything in this course was useful to you, or if anything was broken, part 4 is where to tell me: I read every one of these before I rebuild the course.