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E-Portfolios: An Emerging Authentic Assessment

Yves Labissiere, Ph.D., labissy@pdx.edu

Portland State UniversityPortland, OR August 6, 2010

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Context

PSU’s 4 level general education program Four goals:

– Inquiry and Critical Thinking– Communication– Diversity of Human Experience– Ethical and Social Responsibility

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UNIVERSITY STUDIES REQUIREMENTS

45 credits

credit

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12

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FRESHMAN INQUIRY

UPPER DIVISION CLUSTER

SENIOR CAPSTONE

SOPHOMORE INQUIRY

1 2 3

1 2 3

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The Portland State Model (cont.)

Three Upper Division Cluster Courses Capstone Courses

– Interdisciplinary teams of students– Address problems in the community over two to

three terms– Projects led by faculty and/or community

practitioners

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Emphasis on Connections

With your teacher With your mentor With your classmates With the material in and out of class

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E-Portfolio Assignment

Index Page—guide for the viewer– Organized around goals

Reflection on each goal– Provide your definition of the goal– Why important to your education?– Why important to your life?– How would you recognize this goal?

Evidence for each goal from work products– Including bulletin postings, websites, group projects, PowerPoint

presentations, essays, term papers, journal entries

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E-Portfolio Assignment, cont.

Reflection on Evidence– For each work product, describe what specifically in the

work product is fulfillment of goal-- “highlight themes, passages, insights or processes”

– What insights did you gain from the assignment?– What part did you do particularly well?– With which part are you least satisfied?– If you were to do it over again, which part would you do

differently?

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E-Portfolio Assignment, cont.

Reflective Essay– Sum up what you have accomplished this year– What impact freshman inquiry had on you– Assess your place in the world and state your hopes for the

future– For end of term portfolio: What would you like to see more

of next term? (think of activities, movies, readings, assignments, group projects, service, etc.)

**

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Eportfolio Examples

http://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/unst-ep-resources/ http://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/the-eportfolio-way

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Underlying Guideline for success

Place Student Learning at the center of this practice NOT just assessment or showing “best work”

Identity Transformation as core element of Learning

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Underlying Guideline for success

What happens when we elevate learning to the level of Identity?

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Epiphany

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Underlying Guideline for success

Congruity between eportfolios practices and pedagogy-culture – Embeddedness– Emergent

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Stereotype Threat/ Vulnerability and Stereotype Threat/ Vulnerability and DisidentificationDisidentification

Claude Steele has argued that Identity Claude Steele has argued that Identity can impact performance on high stakes can impact performance on high stakes teststests

His research argues that African His research argues that African Americans, when faced with highly Americans, when faced with highly challenging tests of their abilities, challenging tests of their abilities, frequently attribute any difficulty they frequently attribute any difficulty they may be experiencing to the possible truth may be experiencing to the possible truth of the stereotypeof the stereotype

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Underlying Guideline for success

Embeddedness as the extent to which a practice is reinforced and supported by other practices, norms, pedagogies, values, beliefs, and technology tools, etc. of that a particular learning community.

Scaffolded Practices

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Underlying Guideline for success

Emergent as the extent to which a particular practice or trend flows from a leaning community’s extant needs and or past practices.

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Strategy One

Make the creation of the e-portfolio a social activity

– Capitalize on the fact that learning is inherently a dynamic, social activity (e.g., Vigotsky, Erikson, Dewey, Rogoff)

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Examples of Strategy One

Create to opportunity to work together on the creation of e-portfolios– Mentor sessions– Inventory of skills– Group assignments

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Strategy Two

Build in the practice of public review Builds motivation Need to think about audience Reinforces norms that scholarship is a public enterprise Sets norms regarding effective standards and practices Develops coherence

– e.g., Social comparison theory (Festinger)

Reinforces Norm of Scholarship as a collaborative practice

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Examples of Strategy Two

Portfolio Feedback Sessions– Students provide formal feedback on content and

design to each other End of year competition where student

scholarship is honored and recognized

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Strategy Three

Practice dual coding principle of learning

– Learning is generally enhanced when learners are required to represent their learning in more than one way

– Visuospatial and auditory-verbal

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Examples of Strategy Three

Meta-cognitive Reflection Mind Maps or Concept Maps Can be either an individual or a group

activity

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Strategy Four

Embed activities for creating the e-portfolio throughout the process (e.g., courses, projects, programs)

Not just a culminating product Need to be working on the portfolio throughout Students need to understand and experience how the portfolio

fits into their learning Creation of portfolio is a developmental process

– There is ample evidence that effort and practice enhance learning and facilitates transfer (e.g., Halpern)

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Examples of Strategy Four

Journals Blogs Mid-term assignment Periodic mind mapping Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

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Strategy Five

Provide opportunities to develop reflective practice Can’t expect students to know how to reflect Complex cognitive skill

– Directed– Frequent

– Reflective practice is an important component of learning (e.g., Dewey)

– Activities that demand reflection, organization and connection enhances meta-cognition (e.g., Alexander, et.al, 1995; Shaw, 1994)

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Examples of Lesson Five

Prompted reflection Practice at reflection

– Journals– Mind Maps– Blogs– Letters to professor

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Evidence Growth

Shift focus from best work to improvement and growth

Ask students to provide evidence of their progress Self location as a critical aspect of learning

– Developmental theory (e.g., Erikson)

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Reflection

Directed Reflection – Comparison of early and later work

Encourage learning from mistakes or failure

– Public critiques– Faculty feedback

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Strategy Seven

Invite the ineffable Creating a space for unanticipated connections Bridges academic knowledge with their life experience.

Making the work personally relevant and meaningful.

– What and how much is learned depends heavily on prior experience (Bransford, et. al., 1999).

– Multiplicity of connections enhances learning.

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Examples of Strategy Seven

Prompted reflection– Make connections between the content of the

class to your life– Make connections with this class and other

classes Allow flexibility in requirements for the

portfolio– Invite additions

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More information and examples:

http://www.cyborglab.pdx.edu/portfolioproject

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Assessment of Portfolios

Freshman Inquiry Rubrics– Locally developed six point rubrics for 5 areas Average

freshman would be expected to score at Levels 2- 3– Portfolio review process

Faculty across campus serve on committee 1 rubric per day Norming/calibration 2 raters for each assignment 3Rd rater if scores do not match

– Summative evaluation for program– Formative assessment for faculty teaching teams

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Student Benefits-Identity Development

“Creating my teaching and learning philosophy seemed easy at first. The assignments in the class as well as my pre-existing ideas about what made for good teaching made me overconfident in my ability to articulate my thoughts. I found, however, that when I went to “upload” my philosophy, that again and again, I had to stop myself and ask once more is this what I believe? Is this what I can live up to? Knowing that others would see this and that I would be held accountable (even if only in my own mind) caused me to take this task very seriously. I was comforted when I realized that the process of naming my beliefs, seeking feedback from my peers about them, and then being able to reflect back on them as I began to mentor was exactly where I needed to be. I realized that one’s teaching and learning philosophy was not a static or individual endeavor. I must return to it repeatedly and I must constantly engage in discussion about it. I finally pushed the “upload” button with both the hope and fear that my teaching philosophy wouldn’t change.”

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Meta cognitive development

One mentor commented on the survey:“As a student who has participated in University Studies since I was a

freshman, I have completed several reflective paper portfolios. I thought at first that doing this electronic portfolio would be a repeat of that process and frankly, I was bored thinking about doing it. However, as I started the process of building the webpage and making my links, I discovered that there was a richer and deeper process happening. I began to see how my own learning has influenced my teaching and learning philosophy in new ways. The process of creating links made me think about links more. Because a webpage is more easily navigated than a paper portfolio, it called upon me to think more about the linkages and how things fit together.”

An English Literature graduate student commented, “Call me lazy, but the electronic portfolio allowed me to make links easily

to examples of skills I possessed. Because of the ease of making these linkages, I found myself searching for more of them. At the end, I found it amazing that I had so many ‘marketable’ skills as an English major and so much evidence to document them.”

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Sense of Mastery

“I can’t believe I made webpage! I sent the URL to my mother. She can’t believe it either. I learned by making this portfolio that I can complete something that is frightening to me. It shows me that it is possible to learn something difficult and be proud of the outcome when one works hard and seeks help. I plan on sharing this story with my students and helping them see that hard things are possible to achieve.”

“Completing the electronic portfolio assignment helped me see that I have a lot to offer my future students. I am a good student; I have skills to offer, and I can now teach them how to do a webpage!”

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Confronting fears

“The biggest learning I had was that I am not alone. Other new mentors and those before me have been scared too. I am not the first. I learned a lot from watching others practice their lesson plans but also learned a lot from reviewing others’ electronic portfolios. Again, I am not the only one who feels as passionately as I do about teaching and who is petrified at the same time;. I also realized that while others have skills in certain areas, that I have skills in others. We can work together to help each other out.

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Developing competencies

“As I finish my third year of mentoring along with finally graduating, I take my electronic portfolio with me. I have updated it continually and added and subtracted from it over the years and it has provided me with a framework for thinking about what I have learned and what I have to offer a future employer. I have added the link to my resume but even if they never look at it, I can still speak more articulately because of the electronic portfolio.”

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Scholarship as collaborative

“I am indebted to my fellow future mentors for their support and assistance as I was learning the ropes of being a mentor and starting on this new and scary adventure. Everything we did in this class allowed me to understand more fully that academia does not need to be competitive and individualistic in order for it to be rigorous or of value. Creating our electronic portfolios is an example of this. I was (and still am for the most part) a technophobe. With the help of my peers I learned about the technology and got valuable feedback about the content. While the work in the portfolio is mine it would be less without my peers help as theirs would be without mine. I will take this lesson to my work in the classroom.”

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Benefits to Students:

Students understand and can articulate what they have learned.

Students can organize and display key performances and other material to demonstrate what they know and can do.

Digital medium allow a variety of kinds of work samples (i.e. art, oral presentation, performances…).

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Benefits to Students:

Digital structure gives students the flexibility to organize their presentation portfolios in different ways for different audiences.

Provides students with the opportunity to communicate their accomplishments to graduate programs and employers in ways that give meaning to the transcript and grade point average.

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References

Candyce Reynolds, Yves Labissière and Patti Hack, Developing Reflective Practice in Teaching Assistants through Electronic Portfolios, Journal of Faculty Development, 2005.

Yves Labissière and Candyce Reynolds, Using Reflective Electronic Portfolios to Enhance Student Learning. Creative College Teaching Journal, 2004, 49-61.

Labissière and Reynolds, Using Electronic Portfolios as a Pedagogical Practice to Enhance Student Learning, Inventio, Fall, 2004.

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Recommended Resources Tagg, John. The Learning Paradigm College. Anker

Publishing, 2003. http://www.ankerpub.com/books/tagg.html

Wiggins, Grant, McTighe, Jay, McTiche, Jan. Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 1998.

Zull, James E. The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning. Stylus Publishing, LLC., 2002.

 

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Examples

http://www.cyborglab.pdx.edu/portfolioproject http://www.elon.edu/student/portfolio http://sites.google.com/site/

eportfolioresources/