What is ePortfolio pedagogy?ePortfolio
use encourages a shift of focus from teaching to learning. Just because
something has been taught, it does not guarantee it has been learned.
Portfolios CAN provide teachers with opportunities to:
a) track student learning more easily
b) understand what individual students are thinking and how they are learning
c) intervene when weaker students need guidance
d) assess
the effectiveness of their teaching and make appropriate adjustments
when needed so as to ensure more learning takes place.
The ePortfolio does not magically enhance learning; it is what the teacher does with it that adds value to the learning. ePortfolios + An appropriate pedagogy = Effective learning
ePortfolios
help to facilitate, support and enhance learning only when the
instructor adopts a pedagogy that puts emphasis on some, or preferably
all, of the following:
a) formative assessment
b) reflection
c) evidence-based learning
d) collaboration
e) learning management
f) seeing connections in learning
How can I make effective use of ePortfolios in my teaching?- Encourage your students to engage
more systematically with the intended learning outcomes of the course
(CILOs) so that these become their own goals.
- Teach your students how to evidence their achievement of goals:
Your students should demonstrate their achievement of their goals by selecting appropriate artifacts.
An
artifact becomes evidence of learning when students connect the
artifact to the goal by justifying its relevance and evaluating its
quality. This connection is important and it is called the narrative. - Provide opportunities for students
to gain awareness of their strengths and weaknesses through
self-reflection, peer review and teacher feedback enabling students to
enhance the quality of their work.
- Create opportunities for your students to share their work and reflections with each other.
- Encourage collaboration and group reflection.
- Showcase students’ work in class.
- Allow students to work in groups for feedback and support.
- Ensure that students evaluate their work and each others’ against standards or criteria for further improvement.
- Ask specific questions whose solutions and/or work towards solutions will provide evidence of learning outcomes. Students can then make claims with reference to the questions.
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