Documenting Learning with ePortfolios

A Guide for College Instructors

John C. Ittelson, Helen L. Chen, Tracy Penny Light

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780470636206
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118204962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Documenting Learning with ePortfolios

Documenting Learning with ePortfolios provides higher education instructors with a theory-to-practice approach to understanding the pedagogy behind ePortfolios and to helping students use them to record and reflect on their learning in multiple contexts. The authors outline a framework of six critical iterative tasks to undertake when implementing ePortfolios for student success. Filled with real-life models of successful ePortfolio projects, the book also includes guidance for faculty development to support the use of ePortfolios and covers the place of ePortfolios in institutional assessment efforts. Finally, the authors offer considerations for deciding on which technological tools to deploy in implementing a successful ePortfolio initiative.

"These authors achieve the very rare accomplishment of combining their years of practical experience, broad conceptual and research underpinnings, and incredibly useful examples and applications into a single, concise volume for enhancing student learning through an ePortfolio approach to our shared educational purpose."
—TERREL L. RHODES, vice president, Office of Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment, Association of American Colleges and Universities

"Educators keep asking for more information about how to use electronic portfolios. This book provides answers, guidelines, examples, and scholarly insights about learning based in the wisdom of the ePortfolio community of practice—what a powerful addition to our collective knowledge! I am thankful to the authors for this boost to our field and for providing a blueprint for implementers to follow."
—TRENT BATSON, executive director, The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning

Part 1

Documenting Learning with ePortfolios

Part One discusses some of the theories that inform how ePortfolios can be used for documenting learning. We explore the reasons why instructors would implement ePortfolios and how documenting learning can assist learners to be more engaged and responsible citizens.

Chapter 1

Why Document Learning?

Learning today is a complicated business. New technologies are pushing the boundaries for learners as they seek to navigate a global world where information is quite literally at their fingertips. Yet, the way that learners use the information is often in question because they do not seem to be effectively analyzing the material that they find (Batson and Watson, 2011). More and more, instructors lament their students' lack of critical thinking abilities that will allow them to be successful learners and yet, increasingly, critical thinking is becoming a core competency for colleges and universities. Documenting learning is perhaps one of the most important ways for students to develop their critical thinking skills. Proponents of the ePortfolio movement have argued for well over a decade now that learners need to document what they know, reflect on their knowledge, and present that knowledge to specific audiences in order to learn deeply (Barrett, 2004, 2006; Cambridge, 2010). As many have pointed out, deep learning (Ramsden, 2003 Biggs, 1987; Biggs and Tang, 2007; Trigwell, Prosser, and Waterhouse, 1997; Kuh, et al., 2005), should be the goal of learners today and that learning should be lifelong. Ideally, students should internalize what they are learning because they are genuinely interested in the task, want to challenge themselves, and wish to increase their competence—that is, students should follow a mastery orientation to learning, rather than a performance goal orientation aimed at giving the teacher what they think he or she wants in order to get a good grade (Dweck, 1986; Ames and Archer, 1988). As Darren Cambridge notes in his book, ePortfolios for Lifelong Learning and Assessment, “a major purpose of education is enabling individuals to have agency in the world through their evolving understanding of themselves, their capabilities, and their connections to others” (2010, ix). In other words, learners need to understand what they know and are able to do but, more important, how they know what they know in addition to what they do not know, as a way of strategizing where to learn next. Without this agency and ability to take control of their learning, students can “swirl” while in school and this can continue into their working life (Batson and Watson, 2011). Documenting learning in an ePortfolio, then, is a way for learners to explore and reflect on their knowledge by asking critical questions about where and how their knowledge was derived and what to learn next. As Cambridge puts it, “ePortfolios provide a lens for examining these questions and a means to put the answers into practice” (2010, ix). The process of reflecting on and questioning knowledge while thoughtfully articulating next steps is important for all types of learners whether they are individual student learners, faculty members, administrators, or even entire institutions.

The practice of documenting learning is not restricted to individuals; however, we focus in this book on student ePortfolios from the perspective of faculty instructors while also paying attention to the ways that student ePortfolios are valuable for different stakeholders, specifically, students themselves, faculty instructors, student affairs practitioners, and those interested in various types of assessment. Because ePortfolios enable learners to represent their own learning in a way that makes sense to them, they provide a window into the way that they have both lived and experienced different curricula—what Kathleen Yancey (1998) in Figure 1.1 refers to as the multiple curricula within higher education: the delivered curriculum, which is defined by the faculty and described in the syllabus; the experienced curriculum, which is represented by what is actually practiced by the student in the classroom; and the lived curriculum, which is based on the individual student's cumulative learning to date.

Figure 1.1 Yancey's Multiple Curricula of Higher Education

Source: Adapted from Yancey, 1998, 18

This chapter explores the ways in which learning can be (and should be) documented and how ePortfolios can be used for this purpose. Folio thinking, the reflective practice of creating ePortfolios (Chen and Mazow, 2002; Chen, Cannon, Gabrio, and Leifer, 2005; Chen, 2009), is central to this documentation and we pay particular attention to the rationale behind this process-oriented practice as it is connected to learners' abilities to develop the intellectual and social identities of responsible and engaged citizens who are capable of complex decision making in a democratic society. We conclude the chapter by considering how documenting learning can also provide coherence for the work that students, faculty, student affairs, and assessment offices perform and how this can also inform the ways that evidence of learning from different contexts is collected via ePortfolios to support learning in an increasingly technological and globalized world.

Folio Thinking and Reflection: The Key to Documenting Learning

ePortfolios offer a framework within which students can personalize their learning experiences, and create different representations of their learning experiences tailored to specific audiences while also developing multimedia capabilities (Chen and Penny Light, 2010). Though the ePortfolio tool itself serves as a central place to capture the learning that happens in a variety of contexts (academic, workplace, and community) by collecting evidence from those contexts, making sense of that learning requires focused reflection on those experiences. Figure 1.2 illustrates the University of Waterloo's ePortfolio project, which emphasizes the need for integration of learning in different contexts. Students develop competency in the domain of their choice (i.e., their disciplinary major) while also reflecting on and integrating the learning that happens in academic, workplace, and community learning contexts).

Figure 1.2 University of Waterloo Competency Portfolio Project

Source: Adapted from Chen and Penny Light, 2010

Folio thinking is a reflective practice that situates and guides the effective use of learning portfolios. Drawing upon the literature in experiential learning, metacognition, reflective and critical thinking, mastery orientations to learning, and, of course, learning portfolios, folio thinking aims to encourage students to integrate discrete learning experiences, enhance their self-understanding, promote taking responsibility for their own learning, and support them in developing an intellectual identity. (Chen and, 2002; Chen, Cannon, Gabrio, and Leifer, 2005; Chen, 2009).

Central to folio thinking and ePortfolios is the process of reflecting on the growth of one's knowledge and capabilities over time with an emphasis on metacognition (Brown, Peterson, Wilson, and Ptaszynski, 2008) by intentionally providing structured time and space for learners to consider and document the process of their learning and not just the product (assignments, tests, and so on). This process highlights the affordances of ePortfolios as not only potentially transformational with respect to individual learning and development but also the effectiveness of ePortfolios as assessment tools (Chen and Penny Light, 2010). Their use for both formative and summative assessment is seen in learners assessing their own knowledge. At the same time, others (instructors, employers, institutions) can use ePortfolios to assess the learners' skills and abilities for a variety of purposes, whether it is their ability to meet objectives in a course; to perform certain tasks, such as their suitability for a particular job; or to demonstrate institution-specific outcomes for accreditation. However, ePortfolios are much different from other assessment tools because they enable students to authentically represent their own learning in a way that makes sense to them and encourages them, ultimately, to take responsibility for their own learning.

Opportunities for Documenting Learning for Identity Development

The ability of learners to take responsibility for what they know through self-authorship is an important skill (Baxter Magolda, 2004; see Figure 1.3). In her work on learning partnerships and study of several national reports on higher education, Marcia Baxter Magolda asserts that a holistic approach to learning is required today in order to promote intentional learning, which allows for the integration of “cognitive, identity, and relationship dimensions of learning … [to illustrate] the complexity of undergraduate learning required to address the complexity of contemporary campus and adult life” (2004, 5). In essence, students need to be able to understand where their knowledge comes from and how they have come to know what they know, but also to apply that knowledge in a changing world. She suggests that “the systemic thinking, the ability to judge knowledge claims offered by authorities, constructing convictions, and openness to new possibilities” are all part of what higher education is about. The ability of learners to be aware of their “own role in composing reality” (3) is important for their eventual role in the world. Ideally, learners should be able to engage with the world in a variety of ways as they develop an integrated sense of themselves through their interactions with the world. Of course, these abilities call into action a wide variety of skills ranging from critical thinking to more specific skills related to knowledge acquisition and construction. At the heart of the process, though, is reflection; Baxter-Magolda defines self-authorship as the “capacity to internally define a coherent belief system and identity that coordinates mutual relations with others” (8). This capacity is best developed through reflective (guided and unguided) practices that engage learners in the process of asking questions about what they know and how they know it in terms of their “epistemological,” “intrapersonal,” and “interpersonal” foundations; her argument forms the basis for developing “cognitive maturity, integrated identity, mature relationships, and effective citizenship” (8).

Figure 1.3 Baxter Magolda's Model of Developmental Foundations of Learning Outcomes

Source: Adapted from Baxter Magolda and King, 2004, 8

These different foundations for learning represent the knowledge development (both intellectual and social) that we advocate to achieve success in our world and which ePortfolios so richly enable. They provide structure for learners to manage the knowledge that they gain both inside and outside the classroom. Students today have access to more information than in the past. They have the ability to network with their friends and family members online, to make connections to a variety of contacts for both professional and personal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Introduction
• Part 1: Documenting Learning with ePortfolios
• Part 2: Creating and Implementing ePortfolios
• Part 3: Practical Considerations for Implementing ePortfolios
• Conclusion
• References
• Index