Electronic Portfolios: From learning and assessment to supporting reporting

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Advisory BoardMeetingSpring 2007
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Retrospect

• PT3 grant award criteria - context
• Historical background
• Teachers Workplace
• The Vision
• The Reality
• The Implementation
• The Results
• What have we learned?

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The Context

• Last round of PT3 grants
• Scientifically based evidence
• Vermont Portfolios
• UVM First PT3 grant and work with ePortfolios
• Teachers Workplace

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Background

• 1994 Portfolio in VT High Stakes Assessment for
  licensure
• 2000 US Department of Education PT3 grant
  initiative
• 2003 US Department of Education PT3 grant
  initiative

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Teachers Workplace

• Partnership with Vermont and 8 other sites
• Development of web-based tool
• Communication
• Video
• Portfolio

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The Study

• How does the process of using a comprehensive
  ePortfolio tool during teacher preparation impact
  teacher candidate's practices and use of
  technology in P-12 classrooms?

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Pre-service Undergraduates
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Research Base

• National Research Council, How People Learn
  (2000) concluded (Bransford, Donovan,
  Pellegrino)
• students bring previous knowledge including some
  misconceptions that frame how they will learn new
  things
• students must have a deep foundation in factual
  knowledge and are able to organize their
  knowledge in ways that facilitate its retrieval
  and application and
• students need to be taught how to define their
  goals and evaluate their own progress so they can
  take responsibility for their own learning.

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Key Findings
ePortfolios
Implications
Portfolios
Eportfolios allows for multiple representations
of artifacts for a richer depiction of not only
what a student knows, but what they are like in
their affective domain.
Portfolios reveal what a student knows with
specific artifacts and reflective statements to
reveal what a student believes, thinks and
understands.
Teachers must draw out pre-existing knowledge and
beliefs that their students bring with them.
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Key Findings
ePortfolios
Implications
Portfolios
ePortfolios organize data in a third dimensional
way through the hyperlinking of media, documents,
and reflections. Networks facilitate social
construction of information.
Portfolios provide a concrete resource of content
materials and strategies that the learner has
generated and organized via a categorization and
table of contents.
Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth,
and help students identify ways to organize that
information for later retrieval.
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Key Findings
ePortfolios
Implications
Portfolios
ePortfolios - more easily shared to offer a wider
audience and more formative feedback. Digital
video enables teacher candidates to see
themselves teaching over time. ePortfolios can
create models for others to use.
Portfolios include reflective statements that
encourage the students to think about their own
learning.
The teaching of metacognitive skill should be
integrated into the curriculum in a variety of
subject matters
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Technology Adds Value

• Multimedia adds variety and depth of meaning
• Individualization
• Example
• Application
• Creativity
• Hypermedia adds connections
• How we think
• Logical connections and documentation
• Information to knowledge
• Telecommunications
• Social construction of knowledge
• Collaboration
• Reflection

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Focusing Questions

• Are teacher candidates more reflective in their
  courses, field experiences and P-12 classrooms?
• Are they more collaborative in their professional
  and classroom practices?
• Do they use a variety of assessment resources to
  understand prior knowledge?
• Are they more apt to use technology resources and
  tools in their professional and classroom
  practices?

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Only 3 models in Vermont?
Adoption issues
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A variety of ePortolios models
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Methodology

• Faculty surveys related to artifact introduction,
  development and support
• Collection and analysis of faculty course syllabi
  Longitudinal surveys pre-service teachers
• Focus groups of pre-service teachers
• Faculty interviews regarding portfolio
  development and use
• Collection and review of a representative sample
  of portfolios and portfolio artifacts created
  using each major portfolio development strategy
  employed on the partner campuses.

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Faculty Interviews

• Support Strategies for Portfolios
• Peer collaboration
• Faculty conferences
• Revisions
• Assignments
• Some use of Technology
• Digital video of teaching episodes
• Class discussions
• E-mail
• PowerPoint
• Greater number of state requirements dominate the
  process and purpose of students portfolios
• NCATE and ROPA requirements generating the need
  to make these electronic

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Analysis of Syllabi

• 34 Syllabi reviewed at UVM
• No evidence of mandated technology use for
  portfolio construction
• Use of Webct for course discussion and digital
  video
• No roadmap of development of technology skills

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Syllabi

• First year mandated computer course in some
  programs
• Junior block courses-webquests, ediscussion
  groups, Powerpoint
• Senior-video

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Student Focus Groups

• positive views of the use of video analysis of
  their student teaching
• using technology in their courses and as part of
  the portfolios challenging and even frustrating.
• generally recognized that it was to their
  advantage to become skilled with technology
• portfolios have become too much like a test
• too rushed at the end, want more developmental
  approach

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Student Surveys

• the extent to which their instruction in the
  program addresses those elements
• students technology proficiency,
• aspects of portfolio preparation
• artifact development
• Reflection
• n386

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Student Surveys

• From across the board increases in all areas of
  portfolio building and related reflective
  practices throughout the project period.
• Greatest increases
• As part of the process of collecting artifacts, I
  spend some time reflecting on what each artifact
  demonstrates about my own learning.
• As part of the process of collecting artifacts, I
  spend some time reflecting on what each artifact
  says about what a P-12 student could learn or has
  learned.
• Every artifact I choose to save says something
  important about my learning.

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Formal Reviews of Portfolios

• Fall 2005, Spring 2005, Fall 2005, and Spring
  2006, Fall 2007
• we note template driven electronic portfolios
  performing more strongly than either open-ended
  html electronic portfolios or paper portfolios in
  these substantive areas, with strong statistical
  significance using ANOVA.

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Discussion

• Transition from paper to electronic is not as
  easy as it seems
• Technology literacy support critical
• Faculty often think students have better
  technology skills than they actually do

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Discussion

• Electronic Portfolio development is driven by the
  need to fulfill increasing complex state and
  national requirements
• Focus shifted from student created electronic
  portfolios to assessment systems that are easier
  to implement on a larger scale
• one student noted in a focus group, they
  portfolios are more like tests where you fill
  in the answers.

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Template Driven Assessment Systems
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Task Stream Web Look
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Task Stream
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Video Snippets
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Conclusion

• All three portfolio types were pursued in the
  context of the licensure requirement, making them
  assessment driven, rather than developmentally
  focused
• Portfolios and ePortfolios were NCATE and State
  driven

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Conclusion

• Template driven portfolios relieve stress related
  to technology issues for faculty students
• Good starting point for electronic portfolio
  implementation
• Full adoption at UVM and other sites exploring
  different models to implement

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Conclusion

• Templates provide structure at the cost of
  individuality.
• Administrative support is critical as is faculty
  support
• Students see value in Portfolio development-helps
  them see the whole picture
• Scaffolding strategies at many levels of
  portfolio building are critical

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Concerns

• Are we graduating new teachers that are competent
  in using technology to enhance their students
  learning?
• Have we subjugated portfolio development from a
  process and demonstration of learning to a
  structured model that collects and documents
  quantifiable evidence to respond to state and
  national mandates.

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Concerns

• Lack of confidence and competence by many faculty
  and administrators in teacher preparation
  programs in using new technology tools.
• Lack of administrative and programmatic
  commitment and support for technology
  professional development and leadership
  surrounding technology and learning.

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Sustainability

• Task Stream - full adoption by all teacher
  preparation programs at UVM
• Lap top recommendation
• Assessment Coordinator Position to Implement and
  support faculty
• Technology Coordinator and TFT Lab Support for
  students
• Lab tops for training
• Students pay for license
• Some interest by other colleges

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