ePortfolios and Assessment

Personal development planning, portfolios, e-portfolios, assessment and reflective learning George Roberts Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Falmouth 14 December 2006

3 Computers
4 Careers
Chef
Community education
Oil industry
Lecturer
Big Fire Kitchen by Gonzalo Barrientos Land Rig by Roozbeh Feiz Computers from the bad old days Bike by Marin Me by Al

Personal development planning, portfolios, e-portfolios, assessment and reflective learning
Aims
To use this session to illustrate and explore the use of electronic portfolios to support learning: we may touch on
Assessment for learning
Objective-based assessment and constructive alignment
Feedback and dialogue
Peer and self assessment

Introductions
Name
Role
One thing to do with IT in education in Cornwall that rocks your boat

Stance
What have we done?
Channel
Relationship
Topic
Illustrate phone conversation: Bodgett, Scarper & Donne

Virtual reality
Imagine the opportunities and the barriers offered by the use of “virtual” or “online” tools
While in a face-to-face situation.
How would you do this with a distributed group?

Personal development planning, portfolios, e-portfolios, assessment and reflective learning Free mind is also used at Goldsmiths’ College, London as front end to an ePortfolio (IMS ePortfolio, BS8788)

Wider aims: good practice
encourage student-tutor contact
encourage student-student co-operation
encourage active learning
give prompt feedback
emphasise time on task
have and communicate high expectations
respect diverse talents and ways of learning
(Chickering & Ehrman, 1987)
independent of the mode of engagement

“ Assessment is at the heart of the student experience”
(Brown, S & Knight, P., 1994)
“ From our students’ point of view, assessment always defines the actual curriculum”
(Ramsden, P.,1992)
But… “ Assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as students and then as graduates.........If you want to change student learning then change the methods of assessment” (Brown, G et al, 1997)

“ Students second-guess the assessment and make that their syllabus; they will underestimate the requirements if the assessment tasks let them. In aligned teaching … assessment reinforces learning” (Biggs 1999, p 160).
“ The assessment tasks need to be ‘authentic’ to the objectives” (Biggs 1999, p 161).
Course design and assessment

Bloom’s taxonomy
6. Evaluation Ability to make a judgement of the worth of something
5. Synthesis Ability to combine separate elements into a whole
4. Analysis Ability to break a problem into its constituent parts and establish the relationships between each one
3. Application Ability to apply rephrased knowledge in novel situation
2. Manipulation Ability to rephrase or paraphrase knowledge
1. Knowledge That which can be recalled
Bloom. B.S. (1965) A Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay 2nd Edition

Good Learning
based on
reciprocity
authenticity
credibility
Good Teaching
sets ground rules
provides alternatives
exemplifies models
gives access to experience
Qualitative typologies
Good Design
Permeability
Variety
Legibility
Robustness
Visual appropriateness
Richness
Personalisation
Good Practice
encourages
contact
co-operation
active learning
gives prompt feedback
emphasises time on task
has high expectations
respects diversity

If we accept the statements of good practice, there are consequences for our assesment practice.
What are they?

Reciprocity
Authenticity
Credibility
Exemplification
Student-tutor contact
Student-student co-operation
Assessment consequences of …

Reciprocity Self/institutional exposure
VLE, annual review, league tables, dashboard, QA, CPD
Authenticity Simulations, diaries, witness evidence, testamonies,
Knowledge management, CRM
Credibility Evidenced, empirical,
published, cited, examined,,
reviewed
Exemplification Criteria-referenced, apprenticeship
Student-tutor Feedback, marking, personalisation
Student-student Peer assessment
Assessment consequences of …

Outer Layers : Re-engaging with formal learning, e.g.: * Access to HE in FE * Building a CV using simple tools online and on a memory stick Community Core Middle Layers: acculturation to education; people move towards the core through legitimate peripheral participation in communities of knowledge and inquiry, e.g.: * Virtual personal tutee network * From Foundation Degree to * Final year Inner Layers: Moving towards mastery, e.g.: * Modelling authentic learning experience on a publishing project * Students mentor other students in a virtual social learning space Learning is a journey through concentric layers towards the core or heart of communities of knowledge, inquiry or practice

Assessment for learning
AfL is more than marking and feeding back grades. It involves teachers in identifying the next steps for learning as well as responding to the errors pupils make and the difficulties they experience. Essential to good AfL are:
the sharing of learning objectives and outcomes with pupils
pupils’ peer and self assessment
feedback to pupils to inform next steps in learning
Good planning and teaching skills are crucial for making AfL a productive part of lessons.
Source DfES, Standards site, http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3/respub/afl_ws

ePortfolio Practice

Portfolio-like practice
ePortfolio
Identity presentation tools
Framed by policies (there is never only one)
Global
Local
National
Institutional
Assessment
Employability
Diversity
WP admissions (APEL)

Travel required Access to HE in FE Professional Pathways Professional CVs for Recruitment HND Multimedia Access to Art PGCE Primary Refugees in HE Arts Foundation Wine Studies Brookes: Social Care Brookes: Certificate Teaching in HE CMALT BLITZ CV Builder

Questions
What do you use computers for?
Social contact?
Games?
Study?
Shopping?
What do you like most about computers?
What do you like least about computers?
How do you think computers will be used in your future?
What do you think about the e-portfolio system?

Responses
Uses : MSN and Yahoo Messenger, e-Blueies, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, Skype conferencing (“10 of us have all gone off to study and we meet on line every weekend”), Skype video, e-Bay, mySpace ("I love mySpace"), IM
But note Colleges block sites (Live Journal, Bebo, others?)
Likes Most : instant info at fingertips, cut and paste, shopping (Next, Top Shop), comparison shopping, friendly, pretty pictures, banking, Yahoo, Google, Dogpile, not taking notes, MSN Messenger (“we set up a self-help network using IM as a study tool to share challenges and relay information on the Access course”)
Likes Least : impersonal, unsociable, when it doesn't work, freezing up, limiting what we can do, killing the high st, hate pop-ups, junk mail,
Future : more Skype, more online admin, will be used a lot more
See JISC Learner Experience Studies:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elp_learneroutcomes.htm
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_learnerpresentations.aspx

Learner voices: Laura http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_learneroutcomes/elp_learnervoices.aspx

Response to ePortfolio -
Hasn't got a front end, needs personalisation, “UCAS system is more immediately obvious”
Need it for life not duration of term, put feedback link on the system
can't log on, need step-by-step guide, do not know what you want me to do exactly
issue of trust, personalisation of templates, need to go to so many places. Scroll down click, scroll, click. It is hard when you are cooking tea at the same time.
Like a 2d photocopy. Not simple to use. I am a visual learner: too much text; need more structure in the white spaces; needs spell check; feels like hard work
Why can’t we use Blackboard to do this?
Do not know "if we are doing it right"; limited to certain things; sometimes it "throws a head fit".

Response to ePortfolio +
So it is like a diary system where you can keep all your course work and then like give it to someone to look at
Good start to a CV
Good you can keep stuff
Like your own website for College
It’s not all or nothing. You can choose what to show.

Social Software: Web2.0
Blogs
Other people
Stephen Downes
Seb Schmoller
Josie Fraser
My Blogs
Benchmarking
Pathfinding
Portfolios
Research
Wikis
Collaborative work space
Project development
Flickr and Flicker Creative Commons
Others?
Identity presentation tools? Authoritative and yet very personal Detached voice Authoritative and personal Project voice Personal voice Collective voice Common voice

Social Software
Blogs
Livejournal , Elgg
Wikis
Open source development documentation: Moodle
Wikipedia
Others?
YouTube
mySpace
e-Bay
Google docs
SlideShare, Gliffy
ePortfolio: PebblePad, Sakai/Petal , Vitaetality, Giunti, Careers Wales Online
Dating
Second life
… ?
Podcasts and threaded audio messaging

Beyond the filing cabinet case studies 1: Blogs http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ http://del.icio.us http://www.downes.ca

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/arts/diaries/home.html ! http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/groups/en-all

http://pdp.coventry.ac.uk/blog.aspx?blogoid=2824 http://www.pebblelearning.co.uk/

http://elgg.net/

http://my-world.typepad.com/my_weblog/ http://tao4learning.wordpress.com/

Landscape: social software An ‘”underworld” of digital communication among learners’ (LEX, Creanor et al 2006) Google and Wikipedia preferred information search & retrieval tools (LXP, Conole et al 2006) “ The concept of ‘time’ is changing – both in terms of expectation of information and results on demand. There is evidence of a fragmentation of the learning timetable” (LXP, Conole et al 2006) thanks to Greg Benfield for this slide ©BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3830527.stm

Reflective Practice
As critically reflective practitioners we aim to move from focusing upon self (performance) to focusing on student learning by taking on the role of learner in the context of our own teaching.
Val Clifford

Visual arts portfolios
Odilon Redon’s "portfolios” were collections intended not for display on a wall but for private viewing.
"Typically a print portfolio consists of a set of images conceived as a thematic unit and organised into a specific sequence or order. Portfolios are often accompanied by a brief text and individual captions. ...
Redon … [portfolios] rarely function in any obviously sequential way. ... [They] offer a new kind of storytelling with the viewer/reader playing a far more active role."
I am reminded of Shane Sutherland's frequent assertion that e-portfolios are a form of storytelling through which the owner of the portfolio can choose to reveal themselves in multiple ways.
The work of French graphic artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916), " Beyond the Visible ”,
Museum of Modern Art, NYC (attended 06/01/06)

Covert [meta] Curricula
The less obvious--but more important curriculum--is the covert curriculum, which is composed of the skills and characteristics the student develops as a result of successfully completing the overt curriculum. (Appleby)
http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_59.asp
Industrial era
Overt
“ 3 Rs”: reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic
Covert
punctuality, subordination, repetition
Postmodern era
Overt
flexibility, community, personalisation
Covert
piecework, normalisation, surveillance
see Roberts (2004) http://www.shef.ac.uk/nlc2004/Proceedings/Individual_Papers/Roberts.htm

Widening participation
Widening participation policies are focused in two conflicting directions:
emancipatory and empowering for the individual
stimulate the growth of autonomous, entrepreneurial, IT-literate, multi-skilled individuals capable of creating and taking advantage of the flexible opportunities inherent in a post fordist economy
ensuring a supply of appropriately skilled workers
create a compliant low-expectation labour force inured to the demands of flexibilisation in order to attract inward investment not on the basis of high skills available but on the basis of low costs

Flexible distributed Learning (FDL) QAA Precepts
Overall, the revision [to the QAA precepts] may be characterised as moving from the 'process-based' style of the earlier version to a more [flexible] 'outcome-based' approach.
The focus now is on ends rather than means. Institutions … will see that the basics remain in the content of the revised version but will, it is hoped, appreciate the flexibility now offered by the greater attention to outcomes.
Flexibility has become an epi-phenomenon, part of the meta-curriculum
are themselves flexible ( link )

Politicians would love, simply, to say "we spent money and things are better" but to do so they would need to trap children in the "criterion referencing" of past children's performances, so that they could evidence "better standards" or whatever. This would be an impossible brake on learning.
In practice they can only say "we spent money and things are different; here is why [we think] different is better" and there is an evidence gap between "better" and "different”.
Stephen Heppell, http://www.learnometer.net/

Link to legible pdf (404K) of map

Thank you!
[email_address]
Big Fire Kitchen by Gonzalo Barrientos Land Rig by Roozbeh Feiz Computers from the bad old days Bike by Marin Me by Al

References
Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University . Buckingham, The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press
Bloom, B. S., Ed. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Book 1: Cognitive Domain . London, Longman.
Brown G, Bull J & Pendlebury M. (1997). Assessing student learning in higher education . London: Routledge
Brown, S. and Knight, P. T. (1994). Assessing Learners in Higher Education . London, Kogan Page.
Gibbs, G (1992). Improving the quality of student learning , Bristol, TES
Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to teach in higher education . London: Routledge

ePortfolios and Assessment

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