Standing on the shoulders of giants: learning and researching value as a community of practice

Standing on the shoulders of giants: learning and researching value as a

community of practiceInternational Coaltion of ePortfolio Research

Kate Coleman, Cai Wilkinson and Sophie McKenzie, Deakin University

Cohort VII of the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research is focused on assessment through the lens of four propositions.

The propositions center on the interaction of pieces of evidence, the relationship of evidence and reflection, material practices, and meaningful comparison without standardization.

The propositions are:

• For meaningful assessment, interaction of pieces of evidence within an eportfolio is more important than single pieces of evidence.

• Reflection on pieces of evidence within an eportfolio and on the eportfolio as a whole provides information for assessment that is not available by other means.

• The material practice of eportfolio composition generates distinctive knowledge about learning.

• Eportfolios enable meaningful comparison of student learning across institutions (and other contexts) without standardisation

Activity 1

• How many artefacts and/or pieces of evidence are in the portfolio?

• How many units/learning experiences are

represented in the portfolio?

• What kinds of relationships do you perceive among the artefacts in the portfolio?

• What difference do you think it makes if any, to have a number of artefacts together in the portfolio?

Examples of Reflection from IT

• Within a portfolio

– Current practice at Deakin

Examples of Reflection from IT

• On a portfolio

– Building…We are developing career portfolio

Graduate Portfolio Template

Examples of Reflection from IT

• In either case requires coaching (Moon 1999)

Examples of Reflection from IT

• IT subject: Building a portfolio of game assets

– Possible to translate into a CV item

• http://air.deakin.edu.au/public/media/Reflection+in+SIT253+-+stepping+out+of+the+cube/0_0q7778c8

• What, so what, now what approach

• Focusing on folio development with an eye for future activities

– Emotional, practical (abilities and skills), critical, mindful, problem solving

Activity 2: Artefacts and Reflection

• How is reflection defined? What constitutes reflection?

• What is the role of reflection in your ePortfolio?

• What roles does ePortfolio play in facilitating reflection?

• What kind of ePortfolios are best to situate reflection? How do we build reflection in the different portfolio types?

• How do we get students to consider the relationship between artefact and reflection via portfolio?

• How do you build skills in reflection?

• How do we assess reflection?

Activity 3ePortfolio Curation

Proposition 4

Eportfolios enable meaningful comparision of student learning across

institutions (and other contexts) without standardisation

Focus of discussion at most recent INCEPR meeting

Recommit or revise?

Three central issues/concerns emerged:

1. What does “meaningful” mean? 2. Standardisation vs. standards3. How to read eportfolios?

“Meaningful”

Standardisation vs. Standards

• Standardisation suggests one size fits all, which is not possible in practice due to range/diversity of artefacts, degree of personalisation, different understandings of role of reflection and how to evidence it

• But still need standards for assessment

– Threshold/Minimum standards

– “Rules of the game” facilitates good/best practices and (potentially) creativity

Multiple Levels of Standards

Reading eportfolios

• What does learning look like in an eportfolio?

• Agreed on centrality and distinctiveness of reflection, but vague on what that looks like

• Context-specific – what assumptions does the reader bring to the process

• Tension between reviewing for the sense of accomplishment and evidence; a felt sense of what students have achieved but evidence isn’t there. If not, why not?

Rubrics, Rules and Reading

• Rubrics as a way to– help make the rules explicit

– help to make aims explicit

– guide on how to read the eportfolio

• Inevitably need tailoring/tweaking to fit with aims and context(s), but ACCU’s VALUE rubrics a potentially useful starting point– http://www.aacu.org/value

VALUE Rubrics

Discussion points

References

• Richard J. Shavelson and Stephen Klein (2009) http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/16/shavelson#ixzz2qE2dGrD1in Inside Higher Ed

• Jennifer A. Moon (1999), Reflection in Learning and Professional Development, Kogan Page Limited, London