Portfolios in
Higher Education:
Capitalizing on the
Digital and Interactive
Darren Cambridge
Grapevine, TX
March 5, 2009

Objectives
• Learn about
– Contributions of the digital to portfolio practice
– Models from the Inter/National Coalition for
Electronic Portfolio Research
• Reflect on these concepts and models in
relationship to your own current and future
work in teaching and assessment
• Identify heuristics for further exploration
– Metaphors
– Theories

Portfolios
• Collection
• Reflection
• Selection
• Projection
• Connection

Contributions of the Digital
• Easing management and archiving
• Offering rapid feedback and facilitating
collaborative learning
• Scaffolding the learning process
• Documenting and promoting lifewide learning
• Enabling multimedia and hypertextual
reflection

Discussion
• Easing management and • Are there way in which
archiving you do these things now?
• Offering rapid feedback and What are their strengths
facilitating collaborative
and limitations?
learning
• Which of these
• Scaffolding the learning
capabilities might help
process
you reaching an objective
• Documenting and promoting
lifewide learning you have in your courses
• Enabling multimedia and or program?
hypertextual reflection

Easing management
and archiving

Georgia Writing Portfolio
• Assessment of first year composition
outcomes
• Three essays, one revised, and cover letter
• Collected and analyzed through <emma>

Seton Hall First Year
• First-year portfolio focused on
four non-cognitive factors
related to retention
• Research demonstrates all four
factors predict persistence and
success (GPA) beyond
otherwise available data
• Social integration and quality of
effort most significant  new
curricular emphasis

Offering rapid feedback
and facilitating
collaborative learning

Folio Thinking at Stanford
• Folio thinking:
learning principles
and processes
associated with
portfolios
• Reflective “Idealogs”
composed
throughout the
semester
• Wikis and blogs

Folio Thinking at
Wolverhampton
• Julie Hughes’ students in classroom
placements at Wolverhampton
• Community of practice through blogging
• “Everyday theorizing”

Scaffolding the learning
process

Learning Record Online
• Five dimensions of learning and course goals
• Observations and samples of work throughout
semester
• Interpretation and grade recommendations at middle
and end
• Midterm moderations

George Mason Leadership
Portfolio
• Leadership portfolio
for an audience of
their choice
• Identity,
relationships,
community, future
directions
• Portfolio using
template; matrix
“pre-writing”

Beginning of Semester
• Expanding thinking
about evidence
• Reflective writing in
response to chosen
prompts
• Organized around
categories for social
change model of
leadership

Mid-semester
• Reconceptualizing
as leadership
• Organizing evidence
and reflections in
relationship to
shared conceptual
framework
• Matrix Thinking

End of Semester
• Presentation
portfolio for an
audience of their
choice
• Identity,
relationships,
community, future
directions
• Portfolio using
template

Matrix Thinking at Kapi’olani
• First-year courses
• Six native Hawaiian
values and four stages
of the journey of a
canoe
• Impact on student
engagement and
learning strategies

Kapi’olani Research Results
• Significant positive difference between
ePortfolio students and college and
national benchmarks for
– Student engagement
• Six of twelve CCSSE questions
– Learning strategies
• Eight of ten Learning Strategies and Study
Skills (LASSI) categories

Documenting and promoting
lifewide learning

Three curricula
Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom

LaGuardia ePortfolio
• Recent immigrants and
first-generation college
students
• Bridging home and
disciplinary culture
• Impact on retention,
student engagement,
grades
• Portfolio studios
• Visual design and
iteration

LaGuardia CCSSE Results
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
Nat'l Mean LaG Mean eP Mean
2.67 2.85 3.12
Critical Thinking
How much has your coursework emphasized synthesizing &
organizing ideas, information, or experiences in new ways?
1 = Very Little, 2 = Some, 3= Quite a Bit, 4 = Very Much

LaGuardia ePortfolio & Retention
78
76
74
72
70
68
66
64
Fa05->Sp06 Sp06-> Fa06 2 Smstr Mean
71 69 70
College
76.5 74.7 75.5
ePortfolio

• Used by 60,000 residents
• Most active users demographically representative
• Use across roles suggests intrinsic motivation and
lifelong learning
• Integration of different life roles in single
representation with user control over contents and
visual design key success factor

Enabling multimedia and
hypertextual reflection

Virginia Tech

Linking/Thinking at Clemson
• Psychology
undergraduate
research program
• Complexity of
arrangement mirrors
sophistication of
disciplinary and
professional identity

Stanford Learning Careers

An Emergent Typology of Use of
Evidence in ePortfolios
• Characteristics of item used as evidence
– Agency
– Media
• Purpose of incorporating evidence
– Rhetorical Function
– Object
• Characteristics of associated learning activities
– Sponsorship
– Participation

Write about …
• If you were a student, which model(s) would
be most appealing?
• Which model(s) appeal(s) most to you as an
educator?
• Which best match current or anticipated
practice in your classroom, program, or
institution?
• What challenges might you anticipate if you
were to build on one of these models?

Metaphors
• Mirror • Digital self
• Map • Conversation piece
• Sonnet • Museum exhibit
- Mary Dietz • Interface
• Test
Which metaphors
• Story
appeal the most
-Helen Barrett
to you?

Kathleen Yancey’s Dimensions
of Reflection
Reflection-in-action Constructive reflection
“reviewing, “developing a cumulative,
projecting, multi-selved,
revising” multi-vocal identity”
Reflection-in-presentation
Reflection as conversation
“articulating the relationships
with artifacts,
between and among” creation,
with self,
creator, and context of creation
with others
(— Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom)

Network Self
Creating intentional connections
Symphonic Self
Achieving integrity of the whole

• How does the portfolio model
Authenticity • Ownership
help students articulate their
Validation through reflexivity
self-understanding?
• Creativity
Articulation the inchoate self
through reflection
• How can the way portfolios are
Deliberation Decisions made through
evaluated be defined by and
discussion that
involve everyone affected?
• Is reasonable
• How do we ensure that the
• Is inclusive
information about learning that
• Takes into account information informs such decisions is broad
from all enough to take advantage of
• Allows for both consensus and individual differences?
dissent
• How does the portfolio help
Consistency of values and
Integrity
students represent their identity
articulation of relationship
as “whole human beings”?
between
• How does it invite connections
• Different spheres of life
with learning beyond the context
• Different social roles of the course, discipline or
institution?

Electronic Portfolios 2.0:
Emergent Findings and
Shared Questions
• Collection of 24
chapters detailing
research from
cohorts I, II, and III
of the Coalition
• Out next week from
Stylus

Stay in touch
• dcambrid@gmu.edu
• +1-202-270-5224
• http://ncepr.org/darren