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ePortfolio for learning design K Mitchell, T cotton
- 1. Knowing learning design through portfolio, reflection, credentialling and community Kate Mitchell & Tom Cotton Session 1C. Reflecting Breakout room 1 – 300.G.24 | 12:25pm @katevideo @ReLearnings
- 2. DILEMMA Photo by Free To Use Sounds on Unsplash
- 3. Design is an ambiguous and continually evolving field Photo by Headway on Unsplash
- 4. Saying “I don’t have time to narrate my work” is akin to saying “I’m too busy cutting down the trees to stop and sharpen the saw.” Taken from Bozarth, J., Show Your Work #ShowYourWork #WOL #WorkingOutLoud
- 5. Benefits ● Reflecting on practice/s, narrative identity ● Demonstrating work and value ● Establishing credibility / expertise ● Learning through doing ● Sharing and learning with/through others
- 6. Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash Taking care of the career (not just the job)
- 8. Personal- Professional Dilemmas in Knowing Learning Design Demonstrating TEL experience Sector trend & need awareness Career adaptability Work continuity Role Value Recognition Credentialism Peer recognition Demonstrating Pedagogical Knowledge Career
- 9. Rarely - - - Monthly - - - Weekly - - - Daily - - Expressing Identity ~ The Informal Portfolio
- 10. <- - - Past - - - - Now - - - - Soon - - - - Later Expressing Identity ~ The Formal Portfolio
- 13. CMALT / accreditatn TEL edvisors Personal ‘brand’ Research Professional practice Professional & career dev Blogging LinkedIn ‘Shut Up and Write’ Networking ePortfolio practice for learning design…
- 14. Portfolio: Kate Mitchell @katevideo https://katemitchell.me
- 15. Building the Community Photo by Headway on Unsplash
- 16. Thank you! Get the slides → https://bit.ly/ep2019LearningDesign Next Lunch 12:50 1.20 pm Sponsored spot: Greg Faller, Instructure Bridging the skills awareness gap with Portfolium
Editor's Notes
- Activity 2: Everyone Hands up until… Dilemma: the tenuous nature of Higher Education employment Question: How many of you have been on a fixed term contract and/or institutional restructure: once?, twice?, three times?, …. N times? How many of you are going through one right now or concerned about your role? The tenuous nature of working in education means we need to be constantly prepared to change jobs, pivot, or justify the work we do to others. Learning design is a particularly problematic area as:
- Dilemmas: Getting others to understand what learning design is - it is ambiguous and poorly understood by others (e.g. ‘making the LMS look pretty’) - advocating for our field. What is design? How do we demonstrate and justify it to others? Professionalising a new and ambiguous industry. Most come from a similar field but historically have fallen into the profession. There is no formal accreditation per se (though this perhaps is changing). New or prospective learning designers wanting to get into the field, not sure where to start? E.g. academics or teachers that want to make a switch, Deepening personal practice - Supporting personal professional development for what is often not just an ambiguous field but one where opportunities for development are lacking - limited support for research, limited PD opportunities, a variety in roles and practice, a broad base of expected skills that is continually changing. Sustainability of the role and demonstrating our worth - ensuring we continue to have a job in a tenuous market and can continue to adapt and evolve in an evolving field. This not only requires others to see our value and worth, and for us to be continually developing our skills and professional identity, it also requires us to be highly networked individuals who are tapped into trends and the educational and learning design communities as a whole. All of these ultimately tie into professionalising the industry.
- Another quick poll: How do you describe your role to others? How many of you have been described by someone else as making the online space look pretty? In addition, how do you recognise your own skills? How might you sell learning design to others? How do others get to know if it’s the career for them? This is where ePortfolios can help.
- Evaluation and iteration of design - typically Learning Design is an iterative process - continual reflection and evaluation is beneficial (Mor, Craft & Hernandez-Leo, 2013) to demonstrate iteration/improvement of a design. Formative reflection and development - analysing one’s own strengths and weaknesses (McDonald et al, 2016) and incorporating informal reflective opportunities that are perhaps more ‘authentic’ to the ‘messiness’ of learning design (Rankin et al, 2016). Narrative and identity construction - allows for “exploration of the self for the self and others through ongoing reflection” (Coleman, 2017, p.60), and demonstrating an “educational developer’s beliefs, values, ethical principles, practices, approaches, development, and impact” (McDonald et al, 2016, p.12) that reflects an individual narrative. Ongoing reflection and identity adaptation is arguably required for the designer/developer role due to its typical project-based and strategic nature (Gornall, 1999). Narrative can be used as a sensemaking device, including to link common threads (Coleman, 2017) and work through ambiguity and anxiety (Bird, 2007). Career application and promotion - strengthening a case for promotion or to inform career trajectory, particularly in a tenuous HE environment and given the shifting nature of these roles (McDonald et al, 2016). Modern roles and career shifts/progresion will likely rely on a ‘portfolio of experience’ rather than fixed knowledge (Whitchurch, 2008). Modeling practice - modeling the behaviour we would like to see in others (McDonald et al, 2016) - LDs are expected to be able to support and advise teaching staff on the best strategies and educational technologies to achieve specific pedagogical outcomes, including ePortfolio approaches.
- Sharing your professional self shares the value and values of your profession. A portfolio is a powerful credential professional practice in its own right. Reflecting and Sharing allows for Building personal narrative, professional identity Linking with community Being vulnerable and holding yourself accountable (accountable to yourself, accountable to others)\ Identifying your own career trajectory - current strengths, weaknesses, gaps - opportunities,skills or projects yet to incorporate or master, a roadmap for building your professional identity
- Thanks Kate. Kate looked at how Portfolio can help shape collectively identity of Learning Designers as a response to dilemmas faced by the professional. My section looks at a more personal side: how I have evolved Portfolio to establish an identity as a professional Learning Designer. Here, I’m embracing Coleman’s (2017) definition of portfolio as “purposefully curated, contextually driven, reflective digital sites” (p. 60). Hence it’s not just a blog but a suite of sites that reflect and are useful for different aspects of professional life Reflective practitioner. · In 2012, while in Corporate education, a colleague stopped me when I started talking about learning styles. I wondered what other Learning Myths I had fallen for and wanted to ‘update’ my knowledge. · So I created a simple WordPress blog to synthesise my research into learning literature. This soon became the core of my Portfolio, and a way of working, reflecting on issues in my Learning Design work. Sharing and learning with/through others · In 2015, I left corporate education and joined La Trobe as a ‘Learning Designer’. · I did not know what that role was – I just knew I could do the Key Selection Criteria. However it was the collegiality of my peer Learning Designers that brought me up to speed quickly. It was a role I enjoyed greatly. · Later, I gained a really deep understanding of the role, skills and requirements of being a Learning Designer by engaging with the TEL edvisors community. Dilemma: Job insecurity · In 3 years at La Trobe I went through one major restructure and 5 contract rollovers. During this time I restructured my portfolio – engaging in the community via twitter, online TEL community, wrote numerous my blog posts. · The utility of portfolio was beautifully put by the thesis Whisperer: “At work everyone knows your great at your job. Outside of work, no one does. You need to look after your career, not just your job. The problem is simple: more people need to get to know you and a blog is a great way of doing that. Jobs will come to you. “ Establishing credibility / expertise · At La Trobe, I often was recommending portfolio. It was great to be able to quickly show that “I ate my own dog food”. · In 2019 the value of a developed portfolio was really brought home. The job for Learning Design often had KSC starting ‘demonstrated’ skills and abilities and by restructuring my blog to knowledge, experience and opinions made it really easy to respond. · To hear “Oh you’re ReLearnings!” in the middle of an interview was really exciting. It was like having a shortcut in establishing credibility and expertise. Yes I go the job – thankyou @drsuneetea! It showed how I could extend the interview beyond the 45 minute chat.
- Twitter: Is forward looking, frequent, typically relevant to task on hand, and about making connections. ResearchGate: is useful for deep dive, finding people to connect with on a deep professional level. Tip: say thanks if you use someone’s research. Blog: is about modelling good reflective practitioner behaviours in the space I’m advocating for. It’s about eating my own dog food for credibility with academics. That is I’m showing how it can be done. Forcing myself to say things to see if I believe them. The basic structure I use is: Opinions (engaging in professional debate: w. Learning Experience: TELedvisors: TELedvisors is about sharing. I have extensive discussions about role and practices and this is where significant formative development and has been influential in how I perceive myself in my role, in my industry.
- The cadence of formal portfolio updates is infrequent but just as important. But there’s a dilemma: formal qualifications can create barriers to entry. Being a Learning Designer, I am working in an institution that’s all about credentials. Yet, given the many paths to Learning Design, many people I work with have one or two degrees already and a swag of hands-on experience so a CMALT peer-recognition portfolio approach to credential a very appealing and meaningful.
- Conclusion Portfolio is about knowing where I have been and mapping out where i am going. The challenge for me in knowing learning design is to always be able to demonstrate that I can provide value now and into the future to my employer, my teachers and their students. My portfolio is a reflection of my authentic professional self. It is a response to the dilemmas of career, of Higher Education, of professional identity, knowing: The what The how The where The when The why of learning design. In short if you look at my portfolio platform, you will be able to recognise me a Learning Designer: Thank you.
- Research: Requiring LD degree qualifications for professional credibility could create unscalable barriers to entry (Fraser, 1999). Instead, portfolio-based accreditation like Certified Membership Association for Learning Technology (CMALT), to certify a LD’s experience, capabilities, and commitment to professional development through a peer-evaluated portfolio (CITE ALT 2019) is a pragmatic alternative. Certification of a quality portfolio
- Thank you!