Workshop presentation at Tufts University, December 1, 2012

1. Eportfolios:
The Joys of Disruption
Darren Cambridge
Tufts University
December 1, 2011

2. Overview
I. Examples
II. Definitions and disruptive innovation
III. Embracing disruption through inquiry and
low-threshold practices

3. EXAMPLES

4. Queensland University of Technology
• Twelve university-wide
“faculties” mapped to
– Languages of disciplines,
professionals, and
programs
– Languages of employers
• Short narratives with
evidence

5. • Linking curricular
and lifewide learning
• Making tacit
knowledge explicit
– Generative
interviewing
– Philosophy
statements
• Understanding self
as change agent

6. Kapi’olani Hawaiian Values Portfolio
• Organized around six
native Hawaiian
values and four stages
of the journey of a
canoe
• Bridging home and
academic cultures
• Gains in student
engagement and
study skills

7. Learning Record Online
• Five dimensions of learning and course goals
• Observations and samples of work throughout semester
• Interpretation and grade recommendations
• Moderations

8. Human Biology at Indiana
• Interdisciplinary integration through reflective writing over four
years
• Assessing teamwork in physiology through reflection and
tracking strategies

9. Accounting at Waterloo
A skill that I have developed, but still
need to continue to improve is the
ability to say “no” to being
overworked. As per AMF 131,
leaders are not there to control, but
to help adapt. In order for me to
become a better leader, I have tried
to understand when I have too much
work, and even been able to delegate
others to it when they have little or
no work. … Moreover, in terms of
saying “no”, I am now better able to
determine when I have too much on
my schedule and to kindly decline
additional engagements when it is
appropriate. As per the feedback on
my mid-term evaluation, managers
do in fact respect work-life balance as
it could interfere with the quality of
the work you produce.

10. Liberal Education for
America’s Promise
• Knowledge of Human Cultures • Personal and Social
and the Physical and Natural Responsibility
World – Civic knowledge and
– Through study in the sciences engagement—local and global
and mathematics, social – Intercultural knowledge and
sciences, humanities, histories, competence
languages, and the arts – Ethical reasoning and action
• Intellectual and Practical Skills – Foundations and skills for
– Inquiry and analysis lifelong learning
– Critical and creative thinking • Integrative Learning
– Written and oral – Synthesis and advanced
communication accomplishment across
– Quantitative literacy general and specialized studies
– Information literacy
– Teamwork and problem
solving

11. VALUE Intercultural Rubric

12. Virginia Tech English Education

17. Discussion
• Which of these models is most appealing to
you given the goals of your program and/or
courses?
• What existing values or objectives could it
support?

18. DEFINITIONS AND DISRUPTIONS

19. History
• 1980s: From assessment to learning
• 1990s: Digital
• 2000s: Interactive

20. European Language Portfolio
• Funded by the European Union
• A variety of frameworks for different national contexts
and languages
• Three components
– Passport – Europass
– Dossier
– Biography

21. Passport
Self-assessment of multiple dimensions of language ability according to
common standards

23. ELP Biography

24. Key elements of an eportfolio
Evidence of learning
• Authentic
• Diverse
• In multiple media
Reflection on evidence and identity
• Interprets change over time
• Examines performance across contexts
• Articulates commitments and future aspirations
Interpretation using a common conceptual framework
• Connects evidence and reflections to shared standards
• Facilitates conversation

25. • Authentic and diverse artifacts in multiple media and modalities
Archive • Reflections, feedback, assessment
• Interaction
Toolset • Scaffolding and analysis
• Selections from archive
• Interpreted and integrated in relationship to identity and
Message competencies

26. Research on Impact
• Learning
– Reflective and metacognitive abilities (Rickards, 2008, 2009; Peet, 2005;
Syverson, 2000; Cambridge, et.al., 2008)
– Student engagement (Eynon, 2009; Kirkpatrick, 2009)
– Retention (Eynon, 2009; Easterling, 2009)
– Learning skills, self-efficacy, and self-regulation (Kirpatrick, 2009; Atwell, 2007;
Hartnell-Young, 2007;
– Professional, role, and disciplinary identity (Cambridge, 2008; Hughes, 2006,
2009; Stevens, 2009; Young, 2009; Peet, 2005)
• Assessment
– General skills, such as writing (Hamp-Lyons, 2000; Fournier, 2007; Loernzo,
2005; Acker, 2008, Yancey, 1998, 2004; Hallam, 2000)
– Learning competencies, such as self-regulation and self-assessment (Rickards,
2008; Meeus, 2006; Ross, 2006)
– Ineffable outcomes, such as ethical reasoning and social change agency
(Chickering, 2005; Peet, 2005)

27. Implementation Threshold Concepts
• Purposes must be aligned to context
• Learning activities must be consciously designed and
supported
• Processes for creation and use must be understood and
supported
• Students must have ownership of eportfolio processes
and outcomes
• When brought to scale, eportfolios are disruptive,
pedagogically, technologically, and institutionally
--Jones, Gray, and Hartnell-Young (2010)

28. A Disruptive Innovation
E-Portfolio “projects … at their most effective … are (in
very good ways) highly disruptive. They throw up
needs for organizational change; change in
governance; changes in the roles of many [faculty], and
the consequent need for [faculty] development,
changes in pedagogy, and hence to the nature and
shape and form of [majors], and the consequent needs
for educational development support; changes to the
student’s ‘contract’ with [her institution] … If they are
to deliver maximum effect … projects must accept and
embrace all of these areas of implication, and no doubt
others.”
−David Baume

29. Don’t use Eportfolios if
• You aren’t willing to substantially reexamine—
and perhaps transform—conventional
understandings of student learning and the
practice of supporting it
• All you want to do is demonstrate learning,
not develop learners

30. Discussion
• How are approaches to supporting student
learning at Tufts—at the institutional,
programmatic, and classroom levels—
different than the conventional model in US
higher education? How should they be?
• What existing efforts to redefine and measure
what you value about teaching and learning
could be enhanced e-portfolios?

31. Embracing disruption through inquiry and low-threshold practices
THE GOOD NEWS

32. Leapfrogging
Institutionally, Tufts may well positioned to
embrace disruptive innovation because it is
• already invested in innovative uses of IT to
support learning
• dedicated to moving into new areas of
excellence
• adept at collaboration across disciplines and
roles

33. Happy Problems and Baby Steps
At the individual level, Tufts faculty can gain
from eportfolio disruption through
• Embracing teaching as a process of inquiry
into supporting student learning
• Beginning with low-threshold practices that
contribute to an eportfolio culture

34. In scholarship and research, having a "problem" is
at the heart of the investigative process; it is the
compound of the generative questions around
which all creative and productive activity
revolves. But in one’s teaching, a "problem" is
something you don’t want to have, and if you
have one, you probably want to fix it. … How
might we make the problematization of teaching
a matter of regular communal discourse? How
might we think of teaching practice, and the
evidence of student learning, as problems to be
investigated, analyzed, represented, and
debated?
—Randy Bass

35. Three curricula
Experienced
Lived
Delivered
Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom

36. Practical Reasoning
It's important for students to learn to
think, to reason, to interrogate text and
understand it; but that is not enough.
It's also important that students learn
to act, to do, to perform—but this still is
not enough. Today's undergraduates
must learn to think and act responsibly,
with integrity, civility and caring.
Practical reasoning integrates these
three habits—of mind, hand and
heart—that are essential for the
formation of today's students.
– Lee Shulman

37. Evaluating More of What You Value
• Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are
important but don’t think we can measure
– E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility
• Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956)
– More optimal development because of
contestation

38. Eportfolios for Contested Outcomes
• Measurable learning outcome: Ability to
articulate a reasoned stance based on
evidence
• Makes multiple understandings of outcomes
visible
• Requires reasoning to be articulated
• Grounds understanding in evidence and
experience
• Puts multiple positions into conversation

39. Connecting the classroom to the world

40. Low-Threshold Practices
• Assignments that support the development of
reflective practice
• Assignments that use multiple media and
social software to document experience and
identity

41. What is Reflection?
• The act of stepping outside of acting and believing to
examine out what it means
• A cycle of planning, acting, and interpreting
• A part of any discipline or profession, but frequently
called something else
• Eportfolio reflection is reflection on evidence
included in an eportfolio

42. Reflection as an End of Its Own
• Dewey: Rigorous analytical thinking
• Schön et. al.: Key to professional practice and
human thought
• Friere et. al.: Understanding and challenging
domination
• Boud: United cognitive and affective

43. Integrative learning
• Students need to be prepared for real world
challenges that require multidisciplinary solutions
• Students need to make connections between
disciplines
• Students need to connect their learning in the
classroom to their learning throughout life
• Students need to find patterns in their learning
over time
• Students need to connect their learning to their
identity

44. Reflection in Design Engineering
• Reflective “Idealogs”
composed throughout
the semester
• “Big take-aways”
• Using wikis and blogs
• Including photos,
drawings, and samples
of writing documenting
designs and process
• Peer and TA responses

46. Multimedia Documentation
• Compared to just five years ago
– Many cheap or free and easy to use tools
– Many cheap or free services for sharing
• Application to research dissemination as well
as teaching

48. Photostory

49. Joys of Disruption
• Eportfolio as a means toward simultaneously
demonstrating and developing proficiencies
• Teaching an inquiry and eportfolio as window
into student learning
• Low-Threshold Practices +
Integrative Eportfolio Experiences =
Eportfolio culture that produces self-directed,
self-aware change agents

50. Stylus, 2009
@dcambrid
ncepr.org/darren (slides here)
dcambridge@air.org
Bibliography:
Jossey-Bass, 2010
http://bit.ly/tuftsepbib