Jessica Chittum

Jessica Chittum, PhD, is the Director of Assessment and Pedagogical Innovation in the Office of Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation at AAC&U. In this role, Jessica engages in research, project management, professional development design and innovation, and editorial work primarily supporting AAC&U’s VALUE initiative, such as deep involvement in the VALUE Academy of Professional Development, as well as supporting OCPI’s work on ePortfolios, OER initiatives, and digital pedagogies. Jessica serves as Director of the Institute on ePortfolios, Project Lead for the PEARL project and research (Publications on ePortfolio: Archives of the Research Landscape), and Co-Executive Editor of the International Journal of ePortfolio.

Prior to joining AAC&U, Jessica served as an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education at East Carolina University where she taught a range of courses from action research methods to classroom assessment to educational psychology while maintaining an active research agenda and collaborating with ECU's Rural Education Institute. Prior to earning her PhD, Jessica was a public school classroom teacher in Florida teaching 5th-8th grade students, both those with special needs and those without in an inclusion classroom where differentiated instruction was key. She 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.

Areas of Expertise

• ePortfolios (research landscape, course-embedded, programmatic, portfolio assessment, integrative learning)
• aligning instruction and assessment
• course-embedded assessment
• rubric assessment
• VALUE rubrics
• educational psychology (learning theories, motivation theories)
• scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and action research
• using research and data to inform decisions and improve practice
• integrative learning
• teaching and learning
• open educational resources (OER)