Emily Springfield 2004 Educational Portfolios: an Overview

Emily Springfield 2004 Types of Portfolios Creators: –Students Details on subsequent slides –Faculty For tenure review Benchmark course portfolios (current state of learning) Inquiry course portfolios (track change across sections) –Institutions Accreditation Recruiting

Emily Springfield 2004 Student Portfolios Functions: – Career portfolios demonstrate skills and supplement resume and cover letter – Assessment portfolios help determine if students have mastered information – Developmental portfolios help students make connections and articulate the intangible Forms: –Paper, Web, CD-ROM, video, combination

Emily Springfield 2004 Career Portfolios Often viewed as “Electronic Resumes” Demonstrates skills, samples of work, pictures, etc. Allows employers to view the level of detail they want to see Motivating power: High: similar to a resume

Emily Springfield 2004 Career Portfolio: Dangers Resume and cover letter must stand on their own –Employers may not take time to look at them –Technology may be a barrier Too much “flash” and not enough “substance” Mid-level computer skills might not be good enough

Emily Springfield 2004 Career Portfolio: Example Lisa Abate (Student of Indiana University's Instructional Systems Technology program, which requires a final professional portfolio) Instructional Systems Technology

Emily Springfield 2004 Assessment Portfolios Determine if students have mastered information, skills, concepts Used to assess writing, studio or applied art, teaching materials, etc. Require collections of “artifacts”--papers, photos, drawings, lesson plans, etc. Mid-term and final assessment of learning Motivating power: Mid: similar to an exam

Emily Springfield 2004 Assessment Portfolios: Dangers Poorly expressed or nonexistent goals for the Portfolio Collecting too much information End of course may be too late May be redundant or inefficient, esp. for objectively-evaluated materials. –Do you really need a Portfolio to do the job?

Emily Springfield 2004 Assessment Portfolios: Example Mark Kenefick (Student of Indiana University's Instructional Systems Technology program, which requires a final professional portfolio) Instructional Systems Technology

Emily Springfield 2004 Developmental Portfolios Help students make connections and articulate the intangible Enhance experiential learning through reflection Help students make informed, intentional decisions MAKE STUDENTS THINK ! Motivating power: Low: similar to a journal

Emily Springfield 2004 Developmental Portfolios: Dangers Collection without reflections Runs risk of becoming “just another requirement” Must be completed thoughtfully to be beneficial Web format does not guarantee connections Students and faculty both need to understand why they are participating

Emily Springfield 2004 Developmental Portfolios: Example Kate Jenks (Student of Kalamazoo College, which requires an ongoing developmental portfolio)

Emily Springfield 2004 Portfolio “Types” Misnomer – most portfolios serve more than one purpose Need to address each purpose individually and consciously

Emily Springfield 2004 Web vs. Paper Portfolios Web advantages –Easy accessibility and storage –Cross-linking capabilities –Improvement of computer skills Web disadvantages –Software learning curve –Too much focus on format instead of content –Software and training costs

Emily Springfield 2004 Portfolio Software Overview Disciplines usually create new electronic structures that suit their needs –  too much time programming and not enough time developing program structure Have not yet found any commercially available software suitable for all three student portfolio types Flexible, usable software could save time and money, possibly be marketed

Emily Springfield 2004 Portfolio Software Needs Essential for all disciplines: Easy to use A central, sharable place to store pfolios Hyperlinks Suitable for multiple disciplines Highly desired for most disciplines: Multi-purpose, multiple views w/o re-entering data Comment feature

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Easy to Use Software: A computer-literate person should not need more than 10 minutes training Artifact creation: Docs, PDFs, photos should upload and link easily The structure of the software templates should “explain” the portfolio’s conceptual requirements

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Server Space Portfolios are shared – need a central repository for documents. Ideally, objects are created, reviewed, and commented online – reduces confusion of multiple copies Developmental pfolios might be restricted- access Career pfolios need full access

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Hyperlinks Need to be able to link among pages –All doc types No coding – visual link procedure –Highlight text, click “Link”, then browse to file

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Suitable for Multiple Disciplines Education, sociology, art, architecture, business, nursing, etc. all have different uses/needs Format must be generic enough to suit all, but specific enough to be of some use Must be completely customizable so sections of the portfolio can be added/changed without losing data

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Multi-purpose, Multiple Views Most portfolio programs have an assessment or developmental purpose AND a career purpose Ideally, can create new views with a few clicks  database driven Writing style can be a serious issue Privacy issues: public/private sections of portfolio

Emily Springfield 2004 Software Need: Comment Feature Works like comments in Word or Acrobat Allows faculty (or others) to comment on reflections or artifacts Must be in-line (i.e., positioned next to the item they comment on) Word has been used in the past, but this causes complicated upload/download issues

Emily Springfield 2004 Common Conceptual Features Comparing pfolios from several disciplines, most have the following features: Requirements (set by the college) Benchmarks (set by state or a board) Artifacts (collected student work) Reflections or annotations (by student) Comments (from professor or advisor) “Resume” view (for employers)

Emily Springfield 2004 Schematic