Transcript Mission Impossible? Encouraging Freshmen to Appropriate the Electronic Portfolio at The University of Washington.

Mission Impossible?
Encouraging Freshmen to
Appropriate the Electronic Portfolio
at The University of Washington
Overview
• Discuss goals for introducing
electronic portfolios to UW students
• Review the functionality of the
Catalyst Portfolio Tool
• Describe the integration of portfolios
into the Freshman Interest Group
Program
• Discussion of results
Why Portfolios?
• “My Action Plan” Group on campus
looks for an alternative to traditional
methods of gauging student progress
• Electronic portfolios offered as a
potential solution
– Obstacle: Student Web development
training
– Obstacle: “Portfolio” means many things
• UW Educational Partnerships and
Learning Technologies researches the
option of creating a tool as part of its
“Catalyst Initiative”
Catalyst Initiative
• 24x7 web support
• Focus on teaching
not technology
• Support as many UW
instructors and staff
as possible
• Catalyst website:
• Profiles, Teaching,
Action Plans,
How-to, Learning,
and Web Tools
Catalyst
Web Site
Catalyst Tools: Assumptions
• Tool cannot be built without input from
campus stakeholders (students,
instructors, academic and career
advisers)
• Tool should be flexible—doesn’t
mandate a particular pedagogical
strategy
• Tool should be useful for all students
and instructors in all colleges and
schools
Portfolio: Assumptions
• There is a distinction between collecting
artifacts, reflecting upon them, and
thoughtfully presenting them in a
portfolio
• Students will be collecting artifacts
throughout their academic careers and
should have exclusive access to their
collections
• Using portfolios for reflection is a
process that is important in all phases of
an academic career, not just at the end of
senior year
Assumptions
(cont.)
• Instructors, advisers, and peers should
collaborate with students to help them
present artifacts in a reflective way
• Students should be able to present a
variety of portfolios for different
objectives: completing coursework or
demonstrating academic, personal, or
career development
Tool Features
• Collect
– Large flexible storage space
– Searchable
• Reflect
– Project builder
– Messaging system
• Present
– HTML-free Web publishing
– Online control of style and layout
– Security and access controls
Ideal use of Portfolio:
Students
• create a collection
• select items for a purpose
• reflect on selected items
• present their portfolio
• receive feedback on success of
choices/reflection
Goals for introducing the tool
to students
• Get 35,000 students to use the
tool
• Provide training to UW students
• Encourage a “culture of reflection”
• Get buy-in from as many
departments and programs as
possible
Obstacles
• Diverse curriculum—Hundreds of
academic departments and
programs
• Large student population
• Diverse advising community
• No overarching program that
includes all students
Freshman Interest Group program
• Groups of 15-25 students register for
the same “package” of classes,
including General Studies 199, “The
University Community”--weekly 1-hr
seminar
• Touches 75-80% of freshman class
• 2001 pilot project with FIG program was
encouraging
Our Goals for Autumn 2002:
• Introduce the concept of portfolios
to 3,200 freshman students
• Within the goals of the existing
University Community class,
encourage reflective learning
• Learn lessons that can guide future
portfolio projects and inform future
revisions of the tool
Our Process
• Examine the current University
Community syllabus
• Construct “prompts” that
encourage students to reflect on
the course topics
• Set up a Portfolio project from
these prompts
• Let FIG leaders provide feedback
on student work
FIG Program--Challenges
• Pass/Fail 2 credit course
• Course based on reflection on
themes rather than traditional
academic content
• “FIG leaders” are advanced
undergraduates (unpaid)
• Portfolio used to standardize
assignments and for program
assessment
Sample prompts for the SOCIAL ISSUE
addressed in the FIG seminar:
1. Consider the article/discussion on a
social issue that you had in class.
What about this issue makes people
disagree? (use examples from your
classroom discussion) Where do you
stand on this issue?
Continued on next slide . . .
Sample Prompts . . . cont.
2. What has influenced or shaped your
current point-of-view on this issue?
What, if anything, could change your
perspective?
3. How did your class handle multiple
perspectives? In future conversations
in and outside of class, what will you do
to ensure a respectful exchange, which
helps everyone learn and move
forward?
Study design:
• 162 Freshman Interest Groups
• 162 FIG leaders, each with a class
of 10-25 students
• Special group: 20 FIG leaders,
paid to give regular, individualized
feedback to students
Data Collection
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Surveys
Focus groups
Classroom observations
Student interviews
Examination of student
portfolios
Study questions:
1. What method(s) of instruction help
students feel most competent using
Portfolio?
2. How can Portfolio be best integrated
into the GENST 199 curriculum?
3. What instructional supports (in-class
discussion, feedback, prompts within
tool) might best support reflective
thinking?
Three themes:
• Students found Portfolio easy and
convenient to use. However, they
largely perceived answering the
questions as busywork.
• FIG leaders' attitude toward the tool
and the work affected students'
response to the tool and to class.
• Feedback was important--Students
wanted to know that SOMEONE was
reading what they wrote.
Theme 1
Students found Portfolio easy and
convenient to use. However, they
largely perceived answering the
questions as busywork.
“… this is more like just like your
opinion and so like you can do this
any time…. So like everyone has a
computer in their dorms so it's just
like go on whenever, take two
seconds, you could be eating your
sandwich or whatever. So it's kind of
convenient, I guess. You don't have
to like take real time to do it, you
know, it's kind of like check your
email time or whatever.”
Student Surveys
1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree
• “Based on the
instruction I
received, I felt
competent using the
technology to
complete the
required
assignments.”
• “I found the
questions presented
in the portfolio to be
genuinely interesting
and enjoyable to
reflect upon.”
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Question 1
Question 6
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Theme 2
FIG leaders’ attitudes towards the
tool and the work affected
students’ responses to the tool and
the class.
“I feel it’s really fun to me, I mean maybe
it’s weird but I think it’s almost like a
penpal letter to our FIG leader and we
can answer the questions and
sometimes they’re really in-depth and
we actually have to think about what
we think about life and on these certain
subjects, we have to think about what
our beliefs are, and I think that’s helped
me a lot to really figure out what I
believe and why I believe it, and apply
that to the discussion that we’ve had in
class and stuff.”
More comments:
• “See, for my FIG, my FIG leader doesn't take
it really that seriously so it's kind of hard for
us to take it seriously so for me it's kind of like
a last priority kind of deal”
• “I think my experience with it wasn't so
good…because my FIG leader hasn't been
enthusiastic, he's kind of oh, this is kind of
stupid, but you have to do it to get the
credit...so that really turned me off to it...”
Theme 3
Feedback was important--Students
wanted to know that SOMEONE
was reading what they wrote.
Students would have liked to
receive feedback in any form.
“I mean, I don’t need any like long
paragraphs or anything, just
something so I know that I did it
right and don’t have to worry about
it” (student)
“It’s nice when they return it and they
add comments so you know that they’re
actually looking at it” (student)
“If the FIG leaders did give feedback… it
does kind of make it more interesting
and you do feel like your FIG leader is
paying a little bit of attention to you. It
might even create discussions that you
could have in your FIG class” (student)
When feedback was present, it
allowed for two-way
communication between FIG
leader and student.
“He [FIG leader] seems to be really
good with the comments and we
go back and forth over and over
again, just questions and talking,
learning about each other…”
(student)
“[Portfolio and the feedback
function] helps you know more
about your students, share and get
ideas” (FIG leader)
“Because I comment so much, they
[students] see me as a friend and
come talk to me. I learned a lot
from them.” (FIG leader)
Conclusions
• FIG program works as a setting to
introduce Portfolio; it is less ideal
as a setting to introduce the
concept of portfolios.
Continued on next slide…
• If used, reflective prompts around
the core curriculum topics might
best be created by the FIG leaders
themselves, tailored to their
specific group of students.
• Feedback counts for establishing
relationships, promoting learning
Unresolved questions:
• What’s the best way to persuade
students to use a new tool?
• Can you have a “student-centered”
tool and mandate its use?
• Can you have a student-centered
structured portfolio?