Faculty

Pablo Avila is the Associate Director of ePortfolio and Digital Learning at the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College in The City University of New York. His work involves supporting college-wide ePortfolio implementations and the use of instructional technology tools that help faculty advance their teaching across disciplines. He co-designs and co-facilitates professional development seminars where faculty strengthen their teaching practices. Pablo is also a doctoral student in the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

• Areas of expertise: ePortfolio integration in first-year and capstone programming; ePortfolio practice for career, transfer, and advisement readiness; ePortfolio programming, management, and sustainability; faculty professional development

Helen L. Chen is a Research Scientist in the Designing Education Lab in Stanford’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and a co-founder of the Integrative Learning Portfolio Lab housed in Stanford Career Education. Her research interests include engineering and entrepreneurship education, reflective portfolio practices in higher education, and redesigning how learning is authentically captured and communicated through traditional records, resumes, LinkedIn, ePortfolios, and other platforms. Helen serves on the executive board for the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) and is a co-author of Documenting Learning with ePortfolios.

• Areas of expertise: collaborating with students, career services, employers, alumni, faculty, and other ePortfolio stakeholders; design thinking approaches and methods; ePortfolios and reflective practices (“folio thinking”); professional digital presence

Jessica Chittum is the Director of Assessment and Pedagogical Innovation at AAC&U. She previously served as Assistant Professor of Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education at East Carolina University and, before earning her PhD, she was a classroom teacher in Florida. Jessica earned a PhD in Educational Psychology from Virginia Tech and a BS in Elementary Education and an MA in Exceptional Student Education from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include ePortfolios, higher education pedagogy, assessment, and academic motivation (particularly in the contexts of STEM education and rural contexts).

• Areas of expertise: aligning instruction and assessment; course-embedded assessment; ePortfolios (research landscape, course-embedded, programmatic, portfolio assessment); educational psychology (learning theories, motivation theories); rubrics (e.g., VALUE rubrics); scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and action research; using research and data to inform decisions and improve practice

David Hubert is the Associate Provost for Learning Advancement at Salt Lake Community College, where he is responsible for ePortfolio, study abroad, community-engaged learning, the honors program, general education, program assessment, and open educational resources. He previously served as the Director of SLCC’s Faculty Teaching and Learning Center. He uses ePortfolio pedagogy in his own courses and works to effectively use ePortfolio in larger institutional contexts such as the faculty tenure process and learning outcomes assessment. A tenured faculty in Political Science, David is the author of the OER textbook Attenuated Democracy: A Critical Introduction to U.S. Government and Politics.

• Areas of expertise: assessing general education outcomes; ePortfolio at institutional scale; faculty development; signature assignments and reflection; support systems for ePortfolio initiatives

Amelia Parnell is vice president for research and policy at NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, where she and leads many of the Association’s scholarly and advocacy-focused activities. Amelia writes and speaks frequently about topics related to student affairs, college affordability, student learning outcomes, leadership in higher education, and institutions’ use of data and analytics.

• Areas of expertise: documenting and assessing co-curricular learning; strategic communication; student development theory

Gail Matthews-Denatale is a Senior Associate Director at Northeastern University’s Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research (CATLR). Prior to CATLR, Gail was a full-time faculty member with Northeastern’s Graduate School of Education, where she lead the program-wide integration of ePortfolios across all Master’s concentrations and chaired the College of Professional Studies curriculum committee. She is the recipient of the 2014 Northeastern CPS Teaching Excellence Award and the 2013 Online Learning Consortium Teaching Effectiveness Award. Gail is a founding board member for the Association of Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL).

• Areas of expertise: capstone portfolios; faculty development; learning experience design and experiential learning; online learning; program-level ePortfolio curricular integration; case study portfolios; scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)

Tracy Penny Light is Professor and Director of the Leadership and Excellence in Academic Development (LEAD) Division in the Department of Educational Services at St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies. She has led ePortfolio implementations at several different institutions and has integrated ePortfolio pedagogies in her own interdisciplinary teaching for nearly two decades. She also serves as President of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), the international ePortfolio community of practice. Her educational research explores the value ePortfolios and storytelling for fostering deep learning and educational transformation. Her publications include Becoming: Transformative Storytelling for Education’s Future (with Laura Colket and M. Adam Carswell), Electronic Portfolios and Student Success (with Helen L. Chen) and Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for College Instructors (with Helen L. Chen and John Ittelson).

• Areas of expertise: critical thinking; critical pedagogy; ePortfolio implementation, pedagogies, and research; faculty development; instructional design; higher education leadership; storytelling

Karen Singer-Freeman is the Director of Research at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Wake Forest University. Previously, Dr. Singer-Freeman served as Director of Academic Planning and Assessment at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and as Chair of the Psychology Department at Purchase College, State University of New York. Her research examines educational interventions that support the academic success of underserved students and the use of culturally relevant forms of assessments. She has also investigated the use of ePortfolios in classes and summer research programs to document learning, support equity and support identify development.

• Areas of expertise: assessment of learning; culturally relevant assessment; curriculum development; educational research; program review; strategic planning

Rachel Swinford is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Kinesiology Department at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). She is also a Faculty Fellow in the IUPUI Institute for Engaged Learning for both First Year Experience and ePortfolios. Rachel teaches a variety of exercise science courses, leadership and teamwork development, and innovation in leadership. She is the team-lead for a program-level implementation of ePortfolios for all students in kinesiology and leads the IUPUI Faculty Community of Practice on ePortfolios. Rachel is also founder and president of Inspire Team Building and Leadership, which is an organization that helps teams implement strategies to enhance team performance and success.

• Areas of expertise:program-level ePortfolio implementation; student voice and choice in ePortfolio platform selection; innovative reflections in ePortfolios; ePortfolios in academic advising; faculty professional development

C. Edward Watson is AAC&U’s Associate Vice President for Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation. He leads the Association’s national and state-level advocacy and policy efforts to advance quality in undergraduate student learning and guides AAC&U’s agenda to advance educational quality initiatives within institutions, state systems, and state-based consortia. He is also the Director of this Institute. Prior to joining AAC&U, Eddie was the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia where he led university efforts associated with faculty development, TA development, student learning outcomes assessment, learning technologies, media production services, classroom support and learning spaces, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Eddie is the founding Executive Editor of the International Journal of ePortfolio. His most recent books are Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes and Playing to Learn with Reacting to the Past: Research on High Impact, Active Learning Practices.

• Areas of expertise: course redesign; diffusion of innovations; educational research; faculty development; general education; institutional change

Kathleen Blake Yancey, Kellogg Hunt Professor of English and Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Florida State University, specializes in writing studies and in portfolio theory and practice. Past president/chair of several major US literacy organizations, she is active in US assessment efforts, serving as a steering committee member of the AAC&U VALUE project and as a member of the board for the Association of Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-based Learning. She has published numerous articles and books on ePortfolios, including the edited collections Electronic Portfolios 2.0 (2009) and ePortfolio-as-Curriculum: Models and Practices for Developing Students’ ePortfolio Literacy (2019).

• Areas of expertise: assessment; curriculum; design; integrative learning; reflection