THE WIT, THE WILL ... AND THE WALLET
Supporting Educational Innovation, Shaping our Global Futures
AAC&U Annual Meeting
January 20-23, 2010
Washington, DC
Pre-Meeting Symposium
The Search for VALUE:
Innovation, Economic Uncertainty, and E-Portfolio Assessment
PLEASE NOTE:
For those who cannot attend the full Annual Meeting, the Symposium is available as a stand-alone event. Please see Fee Information for registration details.
Wednesday, January 20, 8:30 a.m. – 4:45 p.m.
- What is the cost—in money, time, and energy—of implementing comprehensive e-portfolio assessment of student learning?
- What is the cost of not doing so?
In the pre-meeting symposium, participants will contribute to the national dialogue about the need for high quality measurement of student learning through multiple expert assessments of the quality of student work rather than standardized testing. They will explore in depth the potential of e-portfolios as well as the barriers to their widespread adoption.
This symposium grows out of the work of AAC&U’s VALUE Project (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). VALUE provides national leadership for new ways of thinking about assessment.
The Project work is founded on the following assumptions:
- to achieve a high-quality education for all students, valid assessment data are needed to guide planning, teaching, and improvement;
- colleges and universities seek to foster and assess numerous essential
learning outcomes beyond those addressed by currently available
standardized tests;
- learning develops over time and should become more complex and
sophisticated as students move through their curricular and cocurricular
educational pathways toward a degree;
- good practice in assessment requires multiple assessments, over time;
well-planned electronic portfolios provide opportunities to collect data
from multiple assessments across a broad range of learning outcomes
while guiding student learning and building self-assessment capabilities;
- The e-portfolio is an ideal format for collecting evidence of student learning, especially for those outcomes neither amenable nor appropriate for standardized measurement. Additionally, e-portfolios can facilitate student reflection upon and engagement with their own learning across multi-year degree programs, across different institutions, and across diverse learning styles while helping students to set and achieve personal learning goals.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Trudy W. Banta, Professor of Higher Education and Senior Advisor to the Chancellor for Academic Planning and Evaluation, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Randall Bass, Associate Professor of English; Executive Director and Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning Initiatives for the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship; and Director of the Visible Knowledge Project at Georgetown University
J. Elizabeth Clark, Associate Professor of English, La Guardia Community College-City University of New York
ePortfolio at LaGuardia Community College
Bret Eynon, Assistant Dean for Teaching and Learning, La Guardia Community College-City University of New York
ePortfolio at LaGuardia Community College
Wende Morgaine, VALUE Initiative Manager, AAC&U
Melissa Peet, Academic Director, Integrative Learning and Mportfolio Initiative, Office of the Provost
for Academic Information
and School of Dentistry, University of Michigan
Terrel Rhodes, Vice President of the Office of Quality, Curriculum and Assessment, and Director of the Value Initiative, AAC&U
This Symposium is made possible by support from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the
State Farm Companies Foundation.
PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE
8:30-9:30 a.m.
— OPENING PLENARY
Welcome and Framing Remarks
Terrel Rhodes, Vice President for Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment, Association of American Colleges & Universities
Make It Real:
Learning, Assessment & ePortfolio at an Urban Community College
Linking innovative pedagogy with digital technology and new thinking about assessment, NYC's La Guardia Community College has built an extensive and successful ePortfolio project. Each year, led by academic faculty, more than 9,000 high risk students enhance their learning with e-portfolios. Lessons learned and next steps for advancing broad integration with ePortfolio.
Bret Eynon and J. Elizabeth Clark, La Guardia Community College
9:40-10:40 a.m. — Concurrent Sessions
VALUE-ing What We Do: A Tale of Tailoring & Embedding Meaningful Assessment of the Essential Learning Outcomes at a Research 1 Institution
This panel presentation will provide a “360 degree” view of the use of e-portfolios and the VALUE metarubrics as organizing frameworks for assessing the Essential Learning Outcomes. The panel will share lessons learned from its process of measuring student learning. Throughout the presentation, real-time examples of e-Portfolios will be available for exploration. The panel will privilege interactive discussion with participants over detailed research presentations, with the hope of creating post-panel presentation conversations with other institutions.
Kathryne Drezek McConnell, University Academic Assessment Coordinator, Marc Zaldivar, Director, Electronic Portfolio Initiatives, Susan Clark, Assoc Professor/Director, Didactic Program in Dietetics, Nancy Metz, Associate Professor of English, and Barbara Bekken, Assistant Professor/Director, Earth Sustainability Program – all of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
ePortfolios at Virginia Tech
E-Portfolios: Good for the Student, Good for the Institution
As part of the new interdisciplinary gen-ed curricula at Champlain College, students must submit common assignments from each course to their ePortfolios for assessment. The rubrics used reflect an integration of the learning outcomes of the course, the institution, as well as information literacy outcomes. Currently in our third year of using ePortfolio assessment, the information literacy librarian and one of the authors of the new curricula will discuss the journey from idea to practice.
Jennifer Vincent, Assistant Professor of Economics, Champlain College
Essential Elements for E-Portfolios and Why They Work
This session (a) integrates several learning theories to explain why, when, and how e-portfolios work for students and (b) involves participants in identifying reasons why faculty members commit to improving portfolios. The speaker argues that these essential elements can be transferable across campuses. But this means strengthening a culture of liberal arts and professional studies over time—and also building a culture that develops and sustains faculty expertise and student artifacts/performances as sources of evidence for learning outcomes.
Marcia Mentkowski, Professor of Psychology, Senior Scholar for Educational Research, and Chair of the Research and Evaluation Council, Alverno College
Fostering Integrative Learning in a Senior Capstone Seminar: Making Reflection Work
Reflection in e-portfolios can be a powerful tool for student learning and development and a rich source of evidence for assessment. But too often, reflections are not especially meaningful for either learner or teacher. This session focuses on what faculty can do to elicit focused and thoughtful reflection from students and how we might approach assessment of reflection for evidence of student intellectual growth.
Susan Kahn, Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Deliberative Assessment with E-Portfolios
Many of the outcomes of higher education we value most are also the most complex and contested. While an e-portfolio approach to assessment using rubrics can yield more powerful results, it, too, has limitations for outcomes for which a consensus definition is neither possible nor even desirable. However, the use of e-portfolios offers alternative means for assessing these outcomes. The goal of e-portfolio assessment efforts should be to create an inclusive deliberative systems across programs and institutions.
Darren Cambridge, Assistant Professor of Internet Studies and Information Literacy, George Mason University and Associate Director of the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research
Using E-Portfolios for Formative and Summative Assessment in UK Higher Education
This session will present the findings of a study undertaken in 2008 into the use of e-portfolio technologies for formative and summative assessment in UK higher education. The study gathered over thirty case studies of current practice, obtained by interviews, visits and examination of reports and evaluations. These cases ranged across disciplines and levels of higher education, using a range of different e-portfolio tools and encompassing a wide variety of assessment activities and of artefacts produced in a variety of original media. This session will also raise for discussion a series of issues relating to the potential offered by e-portfolio technology for the enhancement of learning and assessment practices and the barriers to its realization and making recommendation on future work.
Janet Strivens, Senior Associate Director, Centre for Recording Achievement
E-Portfolio and Assessment Vendors Exhibit
A number of education vendors are available during the concurrent session hour to answer questions and provide information. Stop by their tables!
10:50-11:50 a.m. — Panel Presentation
The Role of e-Portfolios in Guiding Improvement and Demonstrating Accountability
The pressure to demonstrate institutional accountability has never been greater. But it seems wasteful to devote the time of faculty, students, and staff to assessment for purposes of accountability only. Can e-portfolios provide evidence of learning that both yields direction for improving instruction, curricula, and student support services and demonstrates accountability?
Trudy W. Banta, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; Terrel Rhodes, AAC&U; Wende Morgaine, AAC&U
12:00-1:15 p.m. — Keynote Luncheon
Integrative Knowledge
The Integrative Knowledge 'Mportfolio' Project, which emerged through several years of action research in a variety of professional and undergraduate programs, supports students in developing the capacities needed for leadership and lifelong learning. Students learn to recognize and use the knowledge they’ve gained from all areas of life, and apply it to working adaptively, collaboratively, and strategically toward social change goals. Melissa Peet, University of Michigan
1:30-2:45 p.m. — Carousels
Five quick hits on topics vital to eportfolio implementation including technology choices, free options, professional organizations, and the importance of reflection.
Portfolio Tools: Pathways & Potholes
An overview of different portfolio technologies in use today and guidance on the pros and cons of different approaches. Think through how to match your portfolio goals with available technologies.
Nate Angell, Client Evangelist, rSmart
The Freeway to E-Portfolios
The presenter will share her experiences using Google Apps in the implementation of a university-wide undergraduate ePortfolio Program.Participants will see examples of student ePortfolios and learn how Clemson uses these free tools to support student learning.
Gail Ring, Director of the ePortfolio Program, Clemson University
AAEEBL (The e-Portfolio Professional Association) & How You Can Get Involved
The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) is a membership association formed to strengthen the world portfolio community. It is focused on furthering the learning and assessment practices appropriate for this century. AAEEBL has institutional members around the world and will hold its first annual conference July 19-22, 2010, in Boston.
Trent Batson , Executive Director, AAEEBL
Making Reflection Meaningful for Learning and Assessment
Reflection in e-portfolios can be a powerful tool for student learning and development and a rich source of evidence for assessment. This overview focuses on what faculty can do to elicit focused and thoughtful reflection from students.
Susan Kahn, Director of Institutional Effectiveness, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
2:55-3:35 p.m. — Moderated Roundtable Discussions
Opportunity for participants to select a specific moderator and have a more in-depth discussion or float between several tables asking questions relevant to their own local issues and programs.
3:45-4:45 p.m. — CLOSING PLENARY
E-Portfolios and the Problem of Learning in the Post-Course Era
A consequence of the “turn to learning” of the past twenty years is that we have come to understand the bounded nature of the course experience from the student’s perspective. E-portfolios can play a critical role in dealing with the salient challenge of the next decade by shifting our attention from the course to the curriculum and to a more embodied way of looking at learning.
Randall Bass, Georgetown University
Bass PowerPoint (PDF)
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