Course Portfolios 1st Meeting SE Disciplinary Commons 29th August 2009

slide 2 Portfolios Marine Architecture

slide 3 Portfolios Computer Modeling

slide 4 Portfolios Photography

slide 5 Portfolios Investment

slide 6 What do they have in common? The purposeful selection of artifacts to achieve an end Selection is not random: content is chosen to reflect the parts that are most important to you (and/or your theme) What end? This requires consideration of audience and purpose Our Commons Portfolios may be quite different from a portfolio you would compile for promotion – different audience, different purpose (or it may be the same)

slide 7 The Lab Report Title Hypothesis Materials Procedure Data Calculations Results Conclusions Title page Abstract Introduction Materials and Methods Results Discussion Literature Cited The Journal Paper

slide 8 The power of form Allows comparability Allows for different sorts of research, with different emphases Content is guaranteed by peer review The Journal paper is to research as …

slide 9 … the Portfolio is to teaching? Context (or environment or place and space) Content Instructional Design Delivery Assessment Evaluation Allows comparability Allows for different sorts of practice, with different emphases Content guaranteed by the nature of the evidence (and how it is structured) and peer review

slide 10 The Nature & Structure of Portfolio Content Paired elements Nothing admissible without an evidential artifact Necessity of capture Artifact – Commentary Evidence – Analysis What – Why

slide 11 The Portfolio? Common headings … but how do they fit together? “I would propose four different formats and themes that might be useful frameworks for our course investigations and documentation: the course as anatomical structure; the natural history of a course; the ecology of courses; and courses as investigations.” Lee Shulman, "Course Anatomy: The Dissection and Analysis of Knowledge Through Teaching", in The Course Portfolio, Hutchins, Pat (ed.), 1999.

slide 12 The Portfolio? Anatomy parts, structure, part-part relations, aggregations of parts, function of parts and aggregates. Natural History developmental trajectory; narrative, journey, itinerary, coherence. Ecology programmatic context; it's “fit” within the scheme of things. Investigation course as series of experiments to test learning conjectures. What do you want to understand about your students? Summarized list by Josh Tenenberg

slide 13 Developing Reflective Practice The Course Portfolio can be thought of as a document that provides different levels of access to different audiences: Private Protected Public

slide 14 Portfolio: Levels of Access Private: The Individual Teacher - just you  This material is for your eyes only. A diary space for self- disclosure and reflection. Protected: The Group of Peers - a few friends  This is material that you share with your peers. For our purposes, we can certainly consider one another as peers, though you might want to consider colleagues in your department or in the broader discipline as part of this group as well. Sharing here is relatively safe and contained, and will be where we’ll draw most of our peer reviews from.

slide 15 Portfolio: Levels of Access Public: The Wide Wide World  This is the material that we will post on the Internet, for all eyes to see, the final product that is often referred to as The Course Portfolio. We’ll want to ensure that there are no gaffes or errors, and, as a result of this being accessed by a wider audience, we might want to include more context and navigational aids

slide 16 More questions What is your purpose?  Personal reflection  Promotion  Documentation  ??? Implementation?  HTML  Word  PPT  ???

slide 17 Design space for Course Portfolio Implementation Audiences Purpose(s) Based on David Gibson public, protected, private Personal reflection Promotion Documentation

slide 18 Begin with the end in mind What is your purpose?  Personal reflection  Promotion  Documentation  ??? Who is your audience?  Self  Department  Institution  Community

slide 19 Begin with the end in mind What is your purpose?  Personal reflection  Promotion  Documentation  ??? Who is your audience?  Self  Department  Institution  Community

slide 20 Original Slides by Sally Fincher, University of Kent licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales Creative Commons LicenseAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0