FLC Project 2020

For my Faculty Learning Community project, I will be focusing on developing activities to encourage students to visit and interact on one another’s ePortfolios. Integrative social pedagogy in ePortfolio development focuses on the key concepts that learning should be visible to real audiences, and meta-awareness of learning will deepen students’ investment and purpose in their ePortfolio. My goals are to assess points at which students are interacting with each other’s ePortfolios (to comment upon, view, or discuss the content) and to identify and/or create resources to support integrative social pedagogy in ePortfolio, from beginners to graduating ePortfolio users.

Since our ePortfolio platform offers the possibility of a wide audience, I would like to work with faculty and students to scaffold a structure for meaningful interaction and feedback on students’ learning ePortfolios as they develop and eventually transition the portfolio to a showcase ePortfolio. Currently, students are mostly using their ePortfolios for required course work and reflection. In English, ePortfolio work is used as an assessment tool for the department’s English Composition course, and it is used for regular and structured reflection and sharing within most sections of the course. This may take the form of peer-to-peer interactions or may be primarily between the student and the professor. I would like to expand peer-to-peer interactions by offering review activities to encompass the design as well as the unassigned content that students are adding to their ePortfolios.

Using my understanding of effective peer review strategies for composition, I plan to create resources and provide support to students through peer-review activities that offer targeted instruction (focused primarily on site terminology such as page, post, category, theme, etc.), short peer-review activities, and multiple opportunities for feedback from peers, professors/advisers, and the “untrained eye” (or visitor who does not have an insider’s understanding of the major) on design and content of student sites. I will start with a survey of the way professors are using ePortfolio in their courses. Then I will determine the courses that already include some form of peer-to-peer interactions to build student skills. I will also seek out expertise on design to build my own knowledge.

In terms of assessment, I will need to consider the value of these activities in helping students to invest the time and effort into developing their ePortfolios. I will need to understand student-perception of the purpose of their ePortfolio and their intended use as well as the perceived value of the activities.