Posts Tagged ‘portfolios’
By: Katrina Carter-Tellison, Ph.D.
The saying goes, “you have to bet big to win big” and there’s no doubt about it –e-portfolios are a “big bet.” Whether it is the effort needed to engage students, the time required by faculty, or the commitment of institutional resources, e-portfolios are an enormous endeavor. However, what has emerged from The Search for VALUE Symposium, is that there can be no more effective way to assess student learning and no greater tool to make changes to that learning process than e-portfolios. The workshops focused on three key areas: the philosophical argument of “why” use e-portfolios; the nuts and bolts of using e-portfolios for assessment; and how to accurately evaluate institutional technology needs.
As educators, we find ourselves facing a difficult challenge. As Darren Cambridge stated in his session, “the outcomes we most value are often the most difficult to measure.” How do we measure empathy and personal and social responsibillity? Can there be a standardized test for such outcomes? E-portfolio methods allow us to examine these principles and concepts in a contextual way across time. E-portfolios allow students to engage in the all-important principles of Integrative learning. Students can make links and synthesize learning across courses, semesters, and disciplines over time. In fact, that time does not have to be restrained to the period during which the student is enrolled, but depending on the technology employed, the e-portfolio can be utilized indefintely throughout students’ lives.
On October 16, Inside Higher Ed (IHE) posted a truly wonderful interview with three Chinese students who studied at Bowdoin, Bucknell, and Franklin and Marshall, respectively. As someone who spends a lot of time making and listening to arguments on behalf of liberal education, I have never seen it better done.
It was especially heartwarming to see these students recognize their own responsibility to help chart a sense of coherent educational direction in the context of the many-splendored options that a liberal arts college opens to its students. I took special note of their clear explanation that a key difference between the liberal arts approach and their own earlier schooling was the determination to wean students from any inclination to come up with only the “prescribed” answers. Read the rest of this entry »
