Exploring the Diversity of ePortfolio Practice

Exploring the Diversity of ePortfolio Practice

An international sharing of practice, activities, & assessment

Edited by Lisa Donaldson,
Eportfolio Ireland & Dublin City University

Contents

Forewords 3

21st century skills for HRM students, Roisin Donnelly & Ann Masterson, Technological University Dublin 7

Creating Geographical Digital Stories with ePortfolio, Anne Dolan, Mary Immaculate College 11

Implementing a Pilot ePortfolio Initiative, Conor O'Neil, Waterford Institute of Technology 15

Designing a Culminating ePortfolio Showcase, Helen L. Chen, Stanford University 19

Embedding Digital Literacies with Audio, Jen Gennaco, University of New England 24

Evidencing Apprenticeships, Jonathan Murphy, Griffith College Dublin 28

Supporting Teaching Portfolio design with learning recall prompts, Margaret Keane, Maynooth University 34

Letter to My Advisor, Nora McCook, Bloomfield College 39

Journey Mapping for ePortfolio, Rachel Swinford, Lisa Angermeier, Rose Baker, Stephen Fallowfield, & Mark Urtel, IUPUI 44

Implementing Digital Ethics Support & Practice Principles for Faculty, Sarah Zurhellen, Appalachian State University 47

Writing in STEM, Theresa Conefrey, Santa Clara University 51

Tell Your Story with ePortfolio, Tracy Penny Light, St. George’s University 56

English As a Second Language, Rita Zuba Prokopetz, Educational Consultant 62

Cross Programme ePortfolio with a Student Centric Ethos, Andrew Harver, University of North Carolina 66

Transforming a Nursing Clinical Competency portfolio to an ePortfolio, Barbara Anne Nicolls, Buckinghamshire New University 70

Contact & Citation, 73

Foreword

By Lisa Donaldson, Founding Member Eportfolio Ireland

Hello readers, and welcome to this book which is a result of the international collaboration of eportfolio practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. We are are so grateful for the openness of eportfolio enthusiasts to share their practice; particularly so in this time of uncertainty and complexity caused by the Covid 19 pandemic.

In recent years, it can be seen that ePortfolio practice is finally delivering on its potential to support and indeed transform the student learning experience. Since 2016 it has been considered a High Impact Practice which have been shown to engage students and elevate their performance (Watson et al, 2016). Farrell (2020) states ePortfolio adoption has now become widespread in higher education, a situation that has been facilitated by a global pandemic which forced educators to seek out alternative assessment strategies that could be supported in the online classroom. This may well serve to be the tipping point for this student centered, authentic, and flexible method of assessment.

A previous ebook focused on examples of how ePortfolio could support assessment across many domains and disciplines. This book seeks to harness the collective knowledge and experience of many educators who utilise ePortfolio to support learning activities, placement, professional development and more. We hope that it will serve to spark conversations and explorations of the diversity of ePortfolio practice.

References
Farrell, O. (2020). From Portafoglio to Eportfolio: The Evolution of Portfolio in Higher Education. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), 19. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.574
Watson, C. E., Kuh, G. D., Rhodes, T., Light, T. P., & Chen, H. L. (2016). ePortfolios–The eleventh high impact practice. International Journal of ePortfolio, 6(2), 65-69.

Foreword

By Tracy Penny Light, President AAEEBL

Welcome to this collaborative ebook exploring the diversity of ePortfolio practices! At AAEEBL, we are often asked to share examples of activities in different disciplines that our members can adapt for their own ePortfolio implementations. It has long been our desire to create a repository of resources that practitioners can learn from, review, adapt, and reuse in their own contexts. At our most recent AAEEBL Annual meeting, we were asked again for such a resource and Board member, Lisa Donaldson, rose to the challenge. This ebook is what we hope is the first of a set of resources created and curated by members of the AAEEBL and Eportfolio Ireland communities to share practices with each other and with the wider ePortfolio community.

Researchers have argued that for ePortfolios to be done well, they should be viewed as a social pedagogy. The practices associated with social pedagogies facilitate “…collaboration and exchange as well as learning-centered connection…” (Eynon & Gambino, 2017, p. 176). Indeed, the contributions here honour that notion as educators generously share their practices and activities with others to foster community learning and connection primarily aimed at assisting others to implement ePortfolios effectively.

Thank you to all the contributors to this collection for sharing your activities, experiences, and lessons learned with the international ePortfolio community – I am sure this resource will be valuable to many practitioners and researchers as they work to deepen learning among their stakeholders.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to all the educators and ePortfolio enthusiasts in Ireland, the United States, and beyond who generously contributed their ePortfolio based activities and resources to this book.

It was a collaborative effort between the Steering Committee of Eportfolio Ireland and the Board of the Association of Authentic Experiential and Evidence Based Assessment (AAEEBL). We hope this open and collegial sharing of practice will inspire others to explore the many affordances of ePortfolio.

Lisa Donaldson, Dublin City University, January 2022

Lisa Donaldson
Tom Farrelly
Orna Farrell
Karen Buckley
Laura Costelloe

Tracy Penny Light
C. Edward Watson
Helen L. Chen
David Hubert
Kathleen Blake-Yancey
Gail Matthews-DeNatale
Susan Kahn
Kevin Kelly
Terrel Rhodes
Jordi Getman-Eraso
Patsie Polly
Candyce Reynolds
Lisa Donaldson

Introduction

This ebook shares a wide range of exemplars in many different contexts but all with the goal of deepening the student learning experience. Each contribution maintains a consistent format although the processes and end products may be very different.

The At a Glance section should provide a very high level overview of the content of each author's contribution. Each entry contains a description of how the ePortfolio activity was designed and concludes with Lessons Learned and an overall Reflection which we hope will prove illuminating.

21st century skills for HRM students

At a glance

What was the challenge?

Roisin Donnelly & Ann Masterson, Technological University Dublin
roisin.donnelly@tudublin.ie, ann.masterson@tudublin.ie

B.Sc. & M.Sc Human Resource Management | Full-time & Part-time | 250 students | Blended | Brightspace

The School of Management in the Technological University of Dublin are amalgamating a full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) programme offering in Human Resource Management (HRM), where the FT cohort have a 30 credit work placement. The programme team are proposing to utilise an ePortfolio for both the part time and full time learners to capture their individual professional development throughout the programme and position them for the future with the ePortfolio showcasing 21st century skills for all HRM students

The Human Resource Management (HRM) programme in the School of Management in the Technological University of Dublin is undergoing a full redesign in 2021-22. For the programme team, this work offers an opportunity to consider an ePortfolio as part of larger curricular revisions, and to explore how to embed the use of an ePortfolio at the core of the UG and PG student experience. The current redesign involves amalgamating a full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) programme in Human Resource Management (HRM), where the FT cohort have a 30 credit work placement, and it is an opportune time to consider the integration of an ePortfolio to capture their individual professional development throughout the programme and for the placement in particular. This challenge presents an opportunity to look at the Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs) and the assessment strategy for the redesigned HRM programme and explore whether an ePortfolio is an effective vehicle for evidence-gathering and reflection by UG students in relation to their learning from their work placement and modules (both horizontally across the programme and vertically from first year-final year; Fig 1) and as a means to have an evidence-base for PGs students seeking employment.

21st century skills for HRM students

How was the activity designed?

It is important that this is designed as a collaborative integrated activity involving the programme team, with feedback from students and alumni. FT students can undertake it as part of their work placement output. PT will be an ongoing piece - spanning the 3 years of their programme, with the aim of enhancing skills development and enabling students’ employability prospects. In year 4 of the programme, the focus will be on supporting project and time management, engagement with external partners and HRM industry, developing transversal and research skills.

The conceptual framework for designing a programme-wide ePortfolio approach is shown in Figure 2. The work is informed by findings from Donnelly et al. (2020) which suggest that final year students could clearly identify the development of skills, knowledge and competencies for the workplace through an internship/work placement and also highlighted was value in undertaking a dissertation for researching a topic of personal interest. Having appropriate levels and different types of support for students facing the challenges in final year was a significant outcome in that study. A model emerged for final year support in three contexts which will be interesting to explore for the HRM ePortfolio: pedagogic, workplace and research, with the need for ‘cohesion’ workshops to be integrated to final year to synthesise student learning, embedding a formalised support structure in order for students to have a greater understanding of choices available to them post-graduation, and introducing a scaffolded approach to ePortfolio development to encourage innovation.

Going forward, discussions with the HRM programme team will focus on how to design and integrate learning activities for ePortfolios, how to support the learning activities with authentic assessment that then contributes as evidence for collection and inclusion in ePortfolios, and how to assess ePortfolios using rubrics.