Description of my Effective Practice (E-Portfolios for Learning & Development):

The E-Portfolio assignment is a semester-long iterative process and product of learning and development in fully online, asynchronous courses (undergraduate and graduate). Learners engage in cycles of exploring a topic, identifying relevant content, making sense of it, and integrating it into their long-term memory through connection-making and eventually creating digital artifacts. The digital artifacts represent the learners’ “take” on the topic and can include infographics, blog posts, annotated bibliographies, vlogs, screencast videos, audio podcasts, and others. Over time and iteratively, learners revise their work (digital artifacts), incorporating new understandings from ongoing learning experiences in the course, expanding the connections they’ve identified, and ultimately publishing their artifacts to a public platform of their choosing in a coherent, curated collection – their e-portfolio (website or e-book).

The learning experiences in the course incorporate this iterative process through weekly discussion forum activities for each course topic. Learners respond to course materials (e.g., OER text book chapters, podcasts, videos, etc.) by identifying relevant content and describing connections to their prior knowledge, earlier course topics, and authentic contexts (e.g., their lived experiences, workplace applications, etc.). Over time, the learners make deeper sense of the topics by identifying patterns, similarities, differences, and again, authentic application.

As part of the discussion forum activities, learners communicate using drafts of digital artifacts of their choosing. Over time, the digital artifacts are revised, expanded, and re-shared until they’re placed in an online space – students’ own websites or e-books – which becomes an e-portfolio. Importantly, the skills of paraphrasing and attribution are woven into all stages of the learning activities and assignments.

The iterative process begins with discussions about the “why” of the assignment, along with exploration of examples from our own students and others. The first assignment is a plan for their e-portfolio that includes a communication strategy (Hobbs, 2017) that learners create by answering six questions: (1) Who am I? (2) Who is the target audience? (3) How will they encounter the message? (4) What do I want them to know? (5) What do I want them to feel? (6) What do I want them to do?

Other assignments include a prototype, peer critique, and final submission with an email to their audience, providing a link to their e-portfolio.

In the prototype and final versions of their e-portfolios, learners orient their target audience to their content and how to navigate the resource. In addition, learners include examples of projects and other assignments, according to their communication strategy. Orienting an authentic audience to their projects and other work requires learners to showcase their critical thinking, communication, team and collaboration skills.

And the e-portfolio itself, which is interactive and entirely digital, showcases a wide range of digital literacies.
Problem/Need on campus:
The E-Portfolio assignment addresses three needs on campus: (1) students’ have limited opportunities to apply and make sense of course content as part of their traditional learning & assessment activities; (2) instructors experience limitations in connecting their course learning outcomes to authentic contexts, and (3) employers of our graduates face obstacles recruiting employees with communication skills, digital literacy, and complex problem-solving abilities.

(1) Traditional classroom learning & assessment activities tend to focus on recall of factual information and academic activities with a limited audience, often just the instructor. E-portfolio learning & assessment activities require elaboration and making the abstract concrete through the creative process, which includes using plain English, minimal jargon, and combining images with words.
(2) Instructors have few examples and experience (as students or instructors) of connecting their course learning outcomes to authentic applications, including in contexts beyond academics. E-portfolios require learners to synthesize course learning outcomes and therefore, the content itself, and identify connections within and among course concepts as well as beyond the class, in real life settings and applications.
(3) Employers are looking for college graduates with strong communication and critical thinking skills, as well as digital literacy (Inside HigherEd, 2021). The learning that students experience across the semester-long e-portfolio design, development, evaluation and iterative cycle requires effective communication, critical thinking, and digital literacy. Learners share their e-portfolio as evidence of these competencies, and are able to communicate their process and product throughout the recruitment process.

Why others should consider it:

The e-portfolio learning activities and assignments lead to learning. Learning is made up of memory and transfer. Through a generative learning (Fiorella & Mayer, 2015) cycle, learners experience deep, meaningful, personalized (individualized) learning that is transferrable in multiple contexts. Others should consider it for its natural bridge to authentic contexts, as it requires the instructor and learners to identify, explain, and strengthen the connections between course content and real life application thereof.

A practical consideration is the ownership learners take on two levels. Personally, learners select and extend course content according to their learning and professional goals. Communicating the course content to an external audience adds a layer of ownership that is deeply meaningful and personal for each student. In addition, learners literally own the e-portfolio they create. Their hard work “making sense” of course content does not remain in the LMS discussion forum (to which they lose access within weeks of the end of the semester). Instead, it remains a “live” learning space to continue their exploration and application of course content.