What Do We Want Them to Know and How Do We Know They Know It? Electronic Portfolios in the Neag School of Education

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What Do We Want Them to Know and How Do We Know
They Know It?Electronic Portfolios in the Neag
School of Education

• Bob Hannafin, TNE Fellow
• Neag School of Education
• University of Connecticut

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Change Perspectives

• Students
• Change just happens. Get on the train or get
  run over.
• Translation DUDE, I get to use my I-Pod in
  class.

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Change Perspectives

• Deans
• Change is a healthy and inevitable part of human
  growth and development.
• Translation Hey man, if its cheaper, were
  doing it!

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Change Perspectives

• Faculty
• Change sucks.
• Translation Change sucks.

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Presentation Overview

• What we want them to know
• How we know it - E-Folios
• Challenges
• Benefits
• Summary

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What

• Conceptual framework, NCATE and state standards
• Teacher Candidate Assessment Committee identified
  assessments aligned with benchmarks
• Signature artifacts per course

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How E-Folios

• Laptop initiative
• Vendor solution www.taskstream.com
• Standards manager
• Portfolio and assessment tool
• Gradual implementation - full program by Fall 2006

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Tense Conversations

• Forces conversations that reveal disagreements
  that would go undetected
• Content coverage
• Inter- and intra-departmental coordination
• Willingness to change
• Priorities in R1 institution
• Faculty freedom
• Who pays?
• Induction years - state coordination
• Technology-induced conversations - laptop
  initiative - day of reckoning for tech
  integration more broadly

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Benefits

• Makes things visible
• Opportunities for vertical integration
• Assessment more open process
• Storage/archive
• Documented Growth
• Scaffolding feedback, rubric
• Tracks revisions of submissions
• Students generally like it

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Summary

• It is messy but worth it
• Has to be a process rather than an event
• Horizon should go beyond teacher prep, into
  induction years
• Affords broader developmental view of teacher
  candidates.
• E-portfolios are a piece of a puzzle for coherent
  program integration and change.
• Its a work in progress

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Contact

• Bob Hannafin
• 860-486-1456
• robert.hannafin_at_uconn.edu