Program & Keynotes

Historical Reflections on Pedagogy and Practice, Research, and Technology 

Once upon a time, AAEEBL was an association focusing on portfolio practice in North America. However, already pretty much from its inception, scholars and practitioners from other parts of the world joined its Annual Meeting first in Boston and then annually around the North American continent, conversing, discussing, and learning from each other. On the other side of the world, ePortfolios Australia was in the making (2012) and has become the foremost professional community around all things portfolios in Oceania, predominantly Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. It has been a fruitful partnership, with joint initiatives like webinars, research projects, and conference presentations regularly. 

In this session, portfolio practitioners and researchers from Down Under will share stories of the evolution of portfolio practice in Oceania with the participants of the AAEEBL Annual Meeting in Providence. After the scene is set, 6-8 conversationalists will take up historical reflections on ePortfolio pedagogy and practice, research, and technology, such as where did we start, where are we right now, and where do we want to go? We will provide insight into portfolio practice from that part of the world, contributing to the conversation that our colleagues in the Northern Hemisphere are having.  

The storytellers from the lands far away and on the other side of the earth will weave stories from their experiences and research to share and to inspire others. Will there be a happy end? Come along to find out.

Just in case, check the event time in your own time zone.

Moderator

Allison Miller (ePortfolios Australia Organising Committee; Digital Capability)

Partners

This event is jointly organised by ePortfolios Australia and AAEEBL.

How can we evaluate the depth of student reflection in ePortfolios and track students’ reflective development over time? This interactive session explores effective tools and methods for assessing reflective practice across disciplines, aiming to create a comprehensive tool for inclusion in the Field Guide to Reflection in ePortfolios. 

We will begin by reviewing AAC&U’s Integrative Learning VALUE Rubric, an established framework for gauging how well students connect and transfer their learning experiences across the curriculum and co-curriculum. While powerful, this rubric is designed to address one type of reflection, which inevitably overlooks other aspects of reflective thinking. Recognizing the subjective nature of reflection, which varies widely between disciplines, Bucknell University’s Electrical & Computer Engineering department has used an inductive approach to develop a tailored codebook for evaluating reflective thinking in engineering courses.

With inspiration from both assessment tools, together, we will begin drafting a unique, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary rubric during this session. We will explore and compare alignment between the VALUE rubric and Bucknell’s engineering codebook to integrate their strengths into a more comprehensive framework, while also considering how Hatton and Smith’s widely-cited four categories of reflective thinking can enhance this codebook. Finally, with assessment of reflective thinking in mind, we will turn to authentic ePortfolios and consider how to write reflection prompts that align with our assessment objectives. 

Overall, this session aims to deepen understanding of reflection assessment, contribute to developing a tool for evaluating student reflection in ePortfolios, and offer practice writing  reflection prompts aligned with assessments.

Details to come

In a time of rapid change when constant activity and the push for efficiency so strongly influences our lives, reflection is an essential practice for deep learning and growth. Drawing from College Unbound’s distinct educational model and community culture, this keynote will explore intentional reflection as a critical mechanism for making meaning of lived experience and enhancing learning. Together, we will examine the concept of reflection not just as a fleeting thought or a process leading to a product but as a deliberate and structured practice that enhances our capacity for growth and fosters deeper connections with others. Through discussion of real life examples and actionable strategies, attendees will have access to a variety of reflective tools that can be integrated into their own daily routine, be used in support of student learning, and be employed to manifest a culture of reflection in their own communities and organizations. 

About: Dr. Sylvia Spears (She/Her/Hers) is currently serving as Provost & Vice President for Lifelong Learning at College Unbound in Providence, Rhode Island. She joined College Unbound in 2021 as Vice President for Administration & Innovation and Distinguished Professor of Educational Equity & Social Justice. Sylvia has been in higher education as both a faculty member and as a senior administrator for more than twenty-five years. Prior to her appointment at College Unbound, she served as Vice President for Equity & Social Justice at Emerson College for almost a decade,where she provided institutional leadership on issues of equity and social justice.

Prior to becoming a member of the Emerson community, Sylvia was Associate Professor of Education and the Inaugural Program Director of the New England College Doctoral Program in Education. She continues to teach in the doctoral program and serves on a number of dissertation committees. Earlier at Dartmouth College, Sylvia took on a variety of increasingly responsible roles, last serving as Interim Dean of the College.

Sylvia was also a member of the faculty in the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Department of Human Development & Family Studies for 10 years, teaching undergraduate and graduate students who were preparing for roles in education and other human service fields. In addition, she has held leadership positions at Bryant University in Multicultural Student Affairs and with the Narragansett Indian Tribe as Tribal Administrator. Sylvia holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications and Master of Science in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus in student affairs from the University of Rhode Island. She earned a Ph.D. in Education from the Rhode Island College/University of Rhode Island Joint Doctoral Program in Education. 

Sylvia has made a lifelong commitment to working for systemic change and educational transformation that leads to material change for the individuals and communities who are denied access, equitable conditions, and meaningful participation in higher education.

This “Design cafe” session will include presentations of multiple examples where “reflection boards” have been used in inquiry focused classrooms as a mechanism for connected and engaged learning. By engaging in building a “reflection board,” sharing feedback, and debriefing  about the process, participants will learn about an additional tool for scaffolded folio thinking in order to develop this “habit of the mind” and engage in experiential learning related to the reimagining of discussion boards in order to gain deeper understanding of more ways to embed folio thinking across course content/activities.

In the last few years, the Instructional Technology Team at Connecticut College has moved away from ePortfolio training that focuses solely on technology and has ventured towards an onboarding that explicitly teaches the steps in the folio-thinking process (collect, select, reflect, integrate).  In active learning settings, students are given the opportunity to practice these steps while also developing requisite technology skills to be successful in their ePortfolio practice.  In just a few years, Conn ePortfolio champions have seen a marked increase in student engagement with portfolio practice and a corresponding increase in the quality of reflection and final portfolio products.

This session will expand on this folio-thinking experiment in order to generate more potential onboarding sessions for other ePortfolio instructors.  After briefly analyzing the Connecticut College case study, participants will work collaboratively to brainstorm and develop hands-on activities for each of the steps of the folio-thinking process that can then be pieced together to design effective and engaging ePortfolio training and onboarding sessions.  Participants are encouraged to bring their best examples of activities that encourage collection, selection, reflection, and integration and to come prepared to collaborate with other ePortfolio champions to increase the practice of teaching folio-thinking alongside technology skills.

The emergence of AI technologies has transformed various aspects of education, including writing assignments and reflections. With the rise of AI-powered tools capable of generating coherent narratives, there's a pressing need to reevaluate traditional writing assessment methods to ensure academic integrity and promote student learning. This proposal advocates for the integration of innovative reflection techniques as a proactive measure to mitigate the risk of AI dependency among students. 

Traditional reflection prompts often elicit predictable responses, leading students to seek shortcuts, such as AI-generated content, to fulfill assignment requirements. This trend not only undermines the authenticity of student work but also hampers their intellectual growth and development. However, innovative reflections centered around student choice offer a promising avenue for educators to address the growing concern of AI dependency among students. Student choice, as expressed through innovative reflections, develops agency and self-reliant thinking which reduces the necessity to depend on AI-generated responses to complete an assignment.  

By embracing innovative reflection strategies, educators can encourage students to delve deeper into their thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Ultimately, this will strengthen their reflective processes which will lead to more genuine self-expression that more accurately represents their learning. 

This session will draw upon a combination of theoretical frameworks, empirical research, and practical insights to elucidate the concept of innovative reflections. Case studies and examples will be presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of innovative reflection methods. Audience engagement will be encouraged through interactive discussions and collaborative activities aimed at brainstorming creative approaches to reflection assessment.

Student use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to complete assignments is a growing reality in education. Rather than dismissing AI outright, this presentation evaluates a pedagogical approach designed to foster open discussion and personal reflection on the merits and drawbacks of AI integration in history courses. More specifically, it details the implementation of a research project in a modern world history course that required students to compare the accuracy of AI source work with human generated historical sources. The AI research project asked students to evaluate the usefulness of AI in establishing not only historical facts, but the historical interpretational context that is much more relevant to understanding the influence those events have had on our understanding of society today. The presentation will detail the assignment's success in prompting students to critically analyze AI as a historical reference, assessing its utility and potential risks. It will also identify insights and lessons learned from implementing the assignments evaluating AI use in history courses. Lastly, it will discuss student reflections on completing the assignment and its impact on their notions of using AI as an educational tool. This presentation underscores the importance of engaging students in conversations about the merits and limitations of AI in historical study, as it empowers them to navigate the intricacies of AI use in their education thoughtfully.

This session delves into the symbiotic relationship between reflection, ePortfolios, and career development. By exploring how reflection serves as a catalyst for personal and professional growth within ePortfolios, attendees will brainstorm how students can navigate their career journeys by reflecting on and articulating what they have learned and achieved through experiential work opportunities and career development exercises. Through interactive discussions, participants will discover innovative strategies for integrating reflection into ePortfolio practices to enhance students' career readiness and long-term success, and to connect their reflections to real-life situations.

Colorado Mountain College (CMC) recently approved a General Education stackable credential with an embedded ePortfolio component enable that enables students to showcase their competencies in the “essential skills” identified as desirable by employers and that comprise CMC’s institutional learning outcomes. CMC’s ePortfolio is positioned as an integral component of this stackable credential as a mechanism for learning, assessment using the AAC&U VALUE rubrics, and career preparation.

In this 60-minute Design Café attendees will learn how both ePortfolio and general education can be leveraged as mechanisms for skill acquisition and workforce preparation. The session will begin with lessons learned from our journey as community college, both the pitfalls and the progressions, to provide insights for participants in order to enhance the success and expediency in their own potential ideation and adoption of ePortfolios and/or microcredentials. Following this, participants will be invited to explore the Canvas course designed to engage students’ in developing their ePortfolio and to encourage exploration of the Essential Skills certificate. As part of this course profile, attendees will view the Digication ePortfolio template students use to align course experiences and artifacts CMC’s Institutional Student Learning Outcomes, along with the reflection prompts used to engage students’ learning. The final portion of the design café will be devoted to inviting participants into a “resource ring” (Grant 2024) in which through a series of facilitated prompts we seek ways to pool our resources as partner and peer institutions for ways we can collectively innovate to deepen the embedding of ePortfolio within and beyond stackable credentials. 

The AAEEBL ePortfolio Review (AePR) has been an AAEEBL resource for eight years and provided ePortfolio practitioners a way to share and learn best practices in the field. This session will be an active session focused on identifying themes related to reflection in the publication to aid in the development of the Field Guide to Reflection in ePortfolios. This session will also be an opportunity to learn about the work shared in AePR and learn more about how you could participate in the future. 

We are delighted to be joined by Dereke Mays, Sonia Aldana Morales, and Carolina Mouawad, College Unbound students who will be sharing their perspectives on reflection and portfolios. This panel will be facilitated by Deborah Kronenberg, Assistant Dean for Curriculum Integration, College Unbound.

Dewey says that we learn from an experience when we can reflect on an experience.  As such, reflection is the penultimate transferable skill.  Without it, higher education outcomes such as critical thinking, communication, and civic engagement cannot be fully actualized.  This session will talk about the relationship between reflection, transferable skills, and the future of higher education.

About: Candyce Reynolds is Director of University Foundations (a general education program) at Boise State University and Professor, Psychological Sciences. She has an A.B. in Psychology and Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley, USA and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, USA in Counseling Psychology.

Dr. Reynolds has had a wide variety of experiences in higher education and beyond, working in student affairs, departments of psychology, business and management consultation, general education, a peer mentoring program and in faculty development.  Her scholarship has primarily focused on student centered pedagogy, authentic student learning assessment and the role of reflective practice in facilitating student learning.  In recent years, her work has focused on the use of the ePortfolio to promote student learning and program assessment.  She has published broadly in higher education books and journals and has made presentations at a variety of venues throughout the USA and internationally.  She is co-author of a book with Judy Patton entitled: Leveraging the ePortfolio for Integrative Learning: A Guidebook of Classroom Practices for Transforming Student Learning published by Stylus Publishing in 2014. 

Trent Batson is the founder and inaugural President of the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) until 2017. He served as either a professor of English or in a lead role for academic computing at eight different universities, the last of which was MIT. Trent has been a national leader in educational technology since 1986.

Over the past two years, Trent has been working on a book that interprets what we know about human evolution to better guide higher education as it re-shapes itself. If we want to know where we go from here, it is good to know how we got to where we are now.  What are the salient strengths of humans and how can we develop those strengths in students?  This is a surprisingly rich way to plan the transformation of higher education.

Trent's current work is aiming for a conference in Fall 2025 on Community:  Societal Resilience and Sustainability that hopes to involve people from all institutions in Rhode Island. Climate change has forced humanity to stop and **reflect**.  The human problem is how to make us sustainable.  It will take a century for us to re-do how our civilization functions to reach sustainability.  Portfolio thinking and practice fits perfectly as one way to facilitate this civilization-wide reflection.