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ePortfolio Assessments as Academic Activism in Archaeology: Design Justice through Disruption, Diversity, and Student Self-Determination
ePortfolio Assessments as Academic Activism in Archaeology: Design Justice through Disruption, Diversity, and Student Self-Determination
Equitera. UN Women.
About
About
AePR Special Edition 6.1: Design Justice.
The AAEEBL ePortfolio Review (AePR) is the magazine of the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning serving the needs of the global eportfolio community and promoting portfolio learning as a way to transform higher education.
This special edition of the AAEEBL ePortfolio Review (AePR) addresses the AAEEBL 2022 Annual Meeting theme of ‘Design Justice’:
the ways that ePortfolio designs can and should be justice-oriented and how those designs can improve and enhance higher education;
how applying an effective implementation framework using a stakeholders approach for ePortfolios and other high-impact practices can sustain, heal, and empower all members of our community; and
the ways that authentic assessment strategies can centre marginalised voices for a variety of purposes (i.e. institutional assessment and accreditation efforts, effective course and program design).
In addition, AePR will entertain other topics related to eportfolio practices.
Abstract
Abstract
Who is disadvantaged and who is privileged when we only use structured problems and prescribed, traditional written text-based methods of assessing learning?
This central question prompted the introduction of learner-generated digital media ePortfolio artefacts in archaeology.
ePortfolio design justice unbinds teachers and learners from perpetuating privilege (settler/invader, socioeconomic, neurotypical, metropolitan, native speaking, etc.) by centering and celebrating multimodality, multiple literacies, and multiple ways of doing.
Providing students with agency to determine the media they choose to communicate their learning promotes engagement, creativity, and equity in assessment by inverting the traditional academic value of content reproduction rather rewarding imagination, experimentation, and audience engagement.
This paper from a teacher-learner team using Retrospective Collaborative Autoethnography (RCA) shares the assessment strategy, design, delivery, reception, and iteration of digital multimodal text ePortfolio artefacts in two archaeology units in an Australian higher education context over three years in response to this design justice call to action.
We briefly present the design justice case for alternative non-traditional multimodal assessment and share the practice of decoding design decisions as teachers and learners by using students as partners, contributing student pedagogy, and a pedagogy of care as academic activism.
Finally, we explore (1) how open-ended authentic tasks empower learner self-expression and personal epistemology development; (2) how this approach cultivates deep, rich learning, and critical reflection on self and world; and (3) how creative, integrative, personally meaningful learning with a focus beyond the final product unleashes and amplifies voices often silenced by the written wor(l)d.
Authors
Authors
(Top, L-R) Beverley B. Miles, Jacinta Carruthers, Crystal Miller
(Bottom, L-R) Jessica Binet, Hannah Vogel, & Ronika K. Power
(Bottom, L-R) Jessica Binet, Hannah Vogel, & Ronika K. Power
Keywords
ePortfolios
digital assessments
design justice
digital multimodal text
alternative assessments
students as partners
academic activism
pedagogy of care
contributing student pedagogy
pedagogy of discomfort
digital humanities
Abbreviations
ADB: The Archaeology of Death and Burial
CSP: Contributing Student Pedagogy
DDD: Decoding Design Decisions
DMT: Digital Multimodal Texts
LET: Learner Experience of Teaching
LEU: Learner Experience of Unit
LGDM: Learner Generated Digital Media
LMoA: Laboratory Methods of Archaeology
RCA: Retrospective Collaborative Autoethnography
RLOs: Reusable Learning Objects
SaP: Students as Partners
Introduction
Introduction
As primary centers of knowledge creation and reproduction, settler/invader universities (Simon, 2022a & 2022b) propagate the imperial project (Bhambra et al. 2018) of colonial knowledge, thought, and white-body supremacy (Menakem, 2017).
The academic disciplines of history and archaeology have been considered bastions of coloniality, gatekeeping by privileging the value of written text above all other sources (Poser, 2021; Derbew, 2022).
The decolonising movement calls for unlearning, undoing, and remaking learning spaces through radical transformation of Anglocentric/ Eurocentric/Western ways of seeing, knowing, and acting in the world (Abdulla et al., 2019) -– starting with decolonising the mind (Thiong’o, 1994, Lacan, 1977; Omarjee, 2018).
Systems of oppression, inequality, and violence are created by colonial design.
If everyone is a designer, then we practice design justice by pushback (Ore, 2017), unravelling (Rudolph, 2019; Gannaway, 2020), pedagogic dissonance (Vandeyar, 2022), and design decisions that seek difference, plurality, and superdiversity (Crul, 2015).
While these challenges and acts of resistance must take place in every facet of the university (e.g., recruitment, promotion, publishing, etc.) (Begum & Saini, 2019), as scholar-activists, we seek to proactively use our power to unsettle the status quo through epistemic disobedience in the curriculum and explicitly in decolonising assessment practices.
Tony Ruth (2019). Addressing Imbalance. 2019 Design in Tech Report.
We present here a collective teacher-learner team Retrospective Collaborative Autoethnography (RCA) reflection on our journey as activists, allies, and advocates.
We reimagine knowledges by using:
pedagogy of critical maternal care (Swets, 2022) and discomfort (Boler, 1999)
Students as Partners (SaP) (Miles & Power, 2017)
and
Contributing Student Pedagogy (CSP) (Collis & Moonen, 2006)
to introduce multimodal ePortfolio assessment in the Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) and Laboratory Methods of Archaeology (LMoA) units in the Department of History & Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, over the past three years (2020-2023).
Background
Background
Dr Clare Rowan's 2016-2017 workshops on Digital Storytelling at Macquarie University, attended by the ADB and LMoA teaching team members.
Team tanglegram.
Digital Multimodal Text guides.
The ADB teaching team began a redesign process to replace traditional research essay assessment by introducing digital storytelling through video assessment in 2017.
We surveyed students in 2018 to explore attitudes towards video creation and digital storytelling as a form of assessment (Macquarie University Ethics Permission: 5201829803353).
Responses from some students indicated perceptions of more work and stress in comparison to traditional forms of essay assessment; a fear of the unknown; and disruption to the traditional style leading to resistance:
I would not enrol in a unit that has this as a 100% assessment (survey response).
There was, however, overwhelming support for change, where the majority of students recognised the potential for greater engagement, empathy, fun, and contemporaneity:
[Digital storytelling would] allow Ancient History students to engage more with core content” (survey response).
Here, we focus on the radical transformation that took place in ADB and LMoA in 2020 amidst the global pandemic.
We seized this opportunity to integrate more flexibility, choice, agency, autonomy, and care into our assessment strategy via the introduction of ePortfolio tasks using Digital Multimodal Texts (DMTs) –- video, podcast, infographic, hypermedia, and other student-generated options.
These digital artefacts are known as Learner-Generated Digital Media (LGDM) (Reyna et al., 2017).
Design Decisions
Design Decisions
Four tenets inform our argument for the utility of alternative non-traditional multimodal assessment.
The first is pedagogical. In an age of misinformation, we seek to embrace social learning and prepare students as prosumers, i.e. both a consumer and a producer of media (Reyna et al., 2018).
Digital media creation offers learners opportunities to deeply engage with sense making (Laursen, 2017) and meaning making to develop their personal epistemologies (Baxter Magolda, 2004), i.e. understanding the nature of knowledge in a discipline, for themselves, their learning, and the world.
Theories of Sense Making Span Social Scales from Laursen (2017). Copyright - Peter Jones, OCAD University, Toronto, Canada; modified and reproduced with permission by Laursen.
The second is engagement through desirability.
With the goal to develop employability through creative problem solving, we need to use methods and strategies that maximise obliquity (Kay, 2012; Robinson, 2007 & 2022), i.e., the road less travelled, or an indirect route.
Using LGDM presents an opportunity for students to engage in deeper learning through transfer backwards (like MacGyver) and forwards (like James Bond/007) (Chun, 2013).
Chun (2013)'s Diving into Deeper Learning – transfer backwards like MacGyver or forwards like 007/James Bond.
The third is design justice:
Whom do we disadvantage when our design decisions perpetuate written text supremacy in learning activities and assessments?
Wheels of power and privilege, like that produced by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) (Figure 1a; CIHR, 2021; although we note that neurominorities are absent from this schema) call us to consider our own positionality/ies).
The fourth and most convincing is the cognitive argument. Neuroscience using human brain scans shows that:
our most complex thought processes are multimodal and not solely verbal in nature
(van Leeuwen, 2020a & 2020b, p. 6)
Why then do we cling to the superiority of words and written texts in so many university assessments?
Are we designing with students as partners and contributing student pedagogy in mind? Or are we designing for students as drones or clones?
Figure 1b. The multimodality of cognition:
van Leewen (2020)’s Social Brain Atlas (Miles, 2021 after van Leeuwen, 2020a).
van Leewen (2020)’s Social Brain Atlas (Miles, 2021 after van Leeuwen, 2020a).
The three pillars of enacting design justice by decolonising assessment through multimodality, multiple literacies, and multiple ways of doing are the pedagogy of care and discomfort, students as partners (SaP), and contributing student pedagogy (CSP).
These three approaches are closely intertwined and entangled in practice.
To act with care requires knowledge of the other, a reciprocal negotiated relationality, and concern for holistic wellbeing and development, both in the present and in the future (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – Learning with Care and Discomfort (Tanglegrams)
These are inherently anti-hierarchical, anti-competitive, anti-colonial, and anti-neoliberal values that instead center unruly complex humanness (Woolley, 2022).
They offer pushback to question the normalcy of the hidden whiteness curriculum (Ore, 2017) and a choice to nurture growth (hooks, 1999).
This approach, known as critical maternal care or socially just care, moves beyond a transactional duty of care or contractual equity and an oversimplification of just feelings and emotions or partial care (Dowie-Chin & Schroeder, 2020; Bali & Zamora, 2022) and aligns our learning design decisions.
We make deliberate choices to prioritise students’ epistemological possibilities by acknowledging the many ways of making and sharing knowledge outside of academia (respect); by fostering safe communities to explore opportunities for productive discomfort (responsibility); and enabling transgressions (resistance) (hooks 1994 & 2003; Swets, 2022).
Students as Partners (SaP or simply partnership; Mercer-Mapstone & Mercer, 2018) builds on the Pedagogy of Care/Discomfort by continuing to challenge traditional assumptions about students and their relationships with teachers (Figure 3) by offering a counter-narrative of shared responsibility and joint ownership through collaborative co-creative partnerships (Matthews, 2017).
In this space of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility (Healey et al., 2014; Cook-Sather et al., 2014) and authenticity, empathy, vulnerability, equity, and horizontality (Miles & Power, 2017), we shift from teacher-directed to learner-directed learning orientations.
We see the manifestation of this in our learning with students in ADB and LMoA, as well as within this student-teacher team.
Learning is not a unidirectional process moving from expert to student; instead the potential to learn with and from students is recognised by the entire teaching team as an inevitability beyond the confines of the explicit curriculum — the received, reflected and co-created curriculum.
Collien (2021)'s The 5 Pillars of Social Learning: Co-creation, Crowdsourcing, Collaboration, Self-expression, and Social presencing.
Contributing Student Pedagogy (CSP) extends the partnership capacity of students to positively and powerfully influence the learning of their peers (including teachers).
It cultivates a community of prosumers by asking students to produce artefacts that contribute to other student learning (Collis & Moonen, 2006; Hamer et al., 2008).
It imbues a collective responsibility to move together from passive absorption, regurgitation, and instruction towards sense making (Laursen, 2017) and meaning making to co-create rich and unique tapestries of new knowledge and experience, connecting the old and new (Baxter Magolda, 2004).
Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) are traditionally co-created by learning or instructional designers and teachers/subject matter experts (Wiley, 2002; Bath-Hextall et al., 2011).
We flip the teacher-dictated curriculum by making space (e.g., MakerSpace; Mersand, 2021) for these LGDM RLOs (Miles et al., 2017).
These multimodal multimedia artefacts are created and used by students beyond the time boundaries of the course as publicly accessible flexible learning and employment resources.
RLOs, as a crowdsourced form of social learning (Collien, 2021), can be used repeatedly in subsequent offerings of the units as content sources, specialist interpretations, stimulus for discussion, exemplars to be decoded, and more. Ultimately for us, the (sense and meaning) making is in the doing.
Methodology: Reflexive Praxis
Methodology: Reflexive Praxis
As we take action to achieve design justice through unravelling assessment, we endeavour to create the same disruption in our research.
To engage in our own pedagogy of care and discomfort, we employed a methodology that brings equitable practice to research (Reano, 2020); recognises that research is a political, socially-just, and socially-conscious act (Ellis et al., 2011); and embraces dialogicality, assemblage, reflexivity, and pluralism (Tripathi et al., 2022).
Retrospective Collaborative Autobiography (RCA) involves small groups of 3-5 researchers sharing, discussing, filtering a rich collection of voices and perspectives from individual self-reflective materials (Tripathi et al., 2022) — in our case, multimodal ePortfolio-like creations.
In doing so, we seek to challenge traditional research practices, explore the spaces “where we can’t always measure what matters” (Burke et al., 2022), and bring much needed attention to the overlooked and underutilised thick and rich data, i.e. context and insights from the depth of stories (Wang, 2016), that complement the obsession with quantitative and big data.
The team behind this paper represent students-now-researchers, students-now-teachers, students-now-markers, an academic unit convenor and a learning designer, combined to show 360-degree perspectives on the disruptive ePortfolio practice.
Tripathi et al. (2022)'s Retrospective Collaborative Autobiography (RCA).
One approach to this non-linear multimodal creation is through tanglegrams (see Fig. 2), which offer a way to express the integration of disparate pieces through a detailed contextual knowledge of the complex, messy, and often contradictory entanglements of learning experiences, thoughts, and ideas. It is promoted as an ideal portfolio pedagogy and practice (Coleman, 2021).
Our team has used this multimodal approach as we, individually and collectively, retrospectively reflected on our experiences (Figure 4) as students taking on the challenge of creating DMTs for the ePortfolio task; as teachers decoding our DMT guides and exemplars in tutorials; as markers offering feedback for feedforward on these DMT artefacts; and as the academic unit convenor and learning designer gathering insights from all parties to iterate the design and delivery of the learning experience.
Figure 4 – Individual Tanglegrams combined to form Retrospective Collaborative Autoethnography.
Unravelling Design
Unravelling Design
Five intentions motivated our introduction of ePortfolio assessments using DMTs in 2020:
(i) autonomy, by offering flexible learning through choice and self-determination (Jones-Devitt, 2020);
(ii) power sharing, by enlisting students as partners, researchers, and producers (Miles & Bosanquet, 2018);
(iii) productive discomfort, by providing opportunities for integrative thinking (Coleman et al., 2020) at a specific focal point during a critical moment in students’ academic journey;
(iv) agency, by nurturing the development of student choices and voices by telling their story (Grush, 2014) in ways that resonate with them;
and
(v) disruption, through digital humanities where:
graphics, animation, design, video, and sound acquire argumentative force and become part of the research’s quest for meaning
(Hayles, 2012, p. 4).
To achieve these aims we knew we had to introduce and scaffold the practice and skills required for reflection, design, and production of DMTs.
We did so by creating: (i) an ePortfolio Reflection guide, which emphasised connecting learning with past experience, present activities (e.g. extra-curricular), and future goals
and
(ii) four bootcamp-style DMT (video, audio, infographic, hypermedia) guides moving through the phases of research, design, production, and sharing (Figure 5).
Figure 5 – Digital Multimodal Text (DMT) Guides (Miles, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d).
We designed tutorial activities to support learner engagement with the guides and scaffold them through processes of decoding design decisions (DDD) across the multimodal media they consume, our curated examples, and the production of their own LGDM pieces.
The design of these DDD activities were inspired by disorientation and uncreative writing (Goldsmith, 2011), a grammar of multimodality (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009), micro-writing in the form of six-word stories (Puran, 2020; Stumbar et al., 2022), and the Six Thinking Hats (De Bono, 1985) (Figure 6).
Figure 6 – Inspiration from multimodal grammar, Six Thinking Hats, uncreative writing.
In the 2020 delivery of ADB, there were five micro-ePortfolio submissions over the 13-week course, structured around reflective responses to five provocations. In 2021, this was reduced to one major ePortfolio submission in response to a choice of one of three provocations (formerly Provocations 1, 2, and 5).
In the 2020 delivery of LMoA, and in the years since, learners were challenged to explain one mode of laboratory analysis of their choosing for the general public using an example based on a real case study.
Implementation
Implementation
Delivery & Reception
Delivery & Reception
In the first delivery of ePortfolio DMTs in ADB in 2020, tutors reported a range of initial receptions from students, including simultaneous fear of the unknown and excitement to learn new skills and ways of communicating their learning, and genuine emotion and relief for the opportunity to apply diverse abilities in such open-ended formats and topics — something they might finally shine in as opposed to traditional text-based assessment structures (tutorial conversations).
The teaching team was curious to know how much interaction students were having with the ePortfolio Reflection Guide and the four DMT guides, so we closely monitored views (Table 1), particularly around the first four weeks of the course when the DDD tutorial activities were taking place.
As of September 15, 2022, these views were: ePortfolio Reflection: 1.5K; Hypermedia: 537; Video: 294; Infographic: 743; and Audio: 434.
Table 1 – Archaeology of Death and Burial 2020 Learner Engagement with ePortfolio Reflection and Digital Multimodal Text Guides.
In LMoA in 2020, students were introduced to the ePortfolio Reflection Guide and each of the DMT guides in the first week of term.
This was followed by refreshed engagements throughout the course during the session and a dedicated week to DDD activities in advance of the assessment due date.
In the second and third delivery of the ePortfolio assessment in ADB during mandated COVID-19 lockdowns, tutorials were offered face-to-face and online, with DDD tutorial activities modified slightly to decode examples of multimodal texts students currently consume, i.e. near transfer through a podcast recommendations round table; then using this collection, identify the question, audience, theme, format, textures, structure or sequence, sense modalities (visual, audio, other), and tone; and finish with decoding new examples curated in the DMT guides in pairs and small groups/breakout rooms (i.e. far transfer).
Tutors observed that:
(i) the pre- and post-class self-directed learning consolidated the peer learning and sharing that took place in tutorials:
This is what I used when I had to make an infographic with data in science (tutorial anecdote)
(ii) some students expected their learning through creating DMTs to be more prescriptive;
(iii) other students appreciated that multimodal assessment “felt more relevant,” “resonated with them,” allowed them to express their personality through “colours, images, memes, pop culture references,” and connected study with real life (tutorial anecdotes).
Other observations included:
dis/comfort and un/safety with traditional academic assessment
questioning the purpose of academic work and a degree – DMT exposure fits with the get a job narrative but counters the uphold the tradition of university as academic narrative
choice overload bias, particularly from mature-age students versus excitement for choose-your-own-adventure options, particularly from recent school leavers
decoding hypermedia like a blog while highlighting the multimodality of its constituent parts and inspiring peer exchange on creative choices and prior experiences.
The past three years in ADB have seen significant interest, choice, and production of podcasts and infographics above all options and much experimentation with alternative formats we have classified as “other” – poems, comics, creative art, etc. (Table 2a).
Table 2a – ePortfolio Digital Multimodal Text Breakdown: Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) 2020-2022.
Most notable in the 2020 ADB cohort is that of a total of 414 individual ePortfolio DMT creations across the five reflections, 30% (n= 126/414) of these were traditional text types, with the highest percentage being observed in Reflection 1, where 39% (n = 35/89) of students selected this medium.
This is indicative of the fear of the unknown flagged in both the 2019 survey data and the 2020 tutorial discussion anecdotes.
In later submissions in the 2020 ADB cohort, a growth in experimentation with non-traditional formats (video, podcast, and infographic) and alternative formats (poetry, letters, diary entries, comics, creative artworks, social media posts) was observed.
Over the past three years, in LMoA there has been an increase in the number of video and podcast submissions over time; a surge of infographics and hypermedia in 2021, perhaps due in part to the Find the Exemplar activity (discussed below) which re-purposed examples from 2020 as RLOs for the 2021 cohort; and a significant reduction in traditional assessment options (text and presentation) (Table 2b).
Table 2b – ePortfolio Digital Multimodal Text Breakdown: Laboratory Methods of Archaeology (LMoA) 2020-2022.
Performance & Iteration
Performance & Iteration
In ADB the majority of students performed well overall in the three years of delivery from 2020 to 2022 (Table 3a).
Table 3a – ePortfolio Digital Multimodal Text grades: Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) 2020-2022.
In LMoA the majority of students performed well overall over the three years of delivery from 2020 to 2022 (Table 3b).
Table 3b – Breakdown of Laboratory Methods of Archaeology (LMoA) ePortfolio Digital Multimodal Text grades 2020-2022.
Markers’ observations for both ADB and LMoA include challenges balancing evidence of and excellence in:
(i) being reflective and sharing reflections while simultaneously combining knowledge and skills, critical thinking and problem solving, research, and referencing;
(ii) fusing content creativity and the academic rigour of scholarly sources with complementary multimodal formats;
(iii) connecting course content, themes, and concepts with personal experience (past) and with learning (in the course, in life, in the present and future).
In ADB after the first delivery in 2020, feedback from students from Learner Experience of Teaching (LET) and Learner Experience of Unit (LEU) data, and the teaching team indicated that five ePortfolio creations in addition to the major video assessment was an unmanageable student (and marker) workload. As a result, the 2021 ADB delivery was modified to be a single ePortfolio creation in response to a choice of three provocations.
In LMoA after the first delivery in 2020, the teaching team were able to create a Find the Exemplar activity (Figure 7) using 2020 student ePortfolio artefacts as RLOs.
This provided an opportunity for students to align their understanding, expectations, and appraisal of the work of other student creations with the rubric and markers’ interpretations as an activity in class time.
Discussion
Discussion
The teaching team note many interesting observations across ADB and LMoA over the past three years.
Video
Video creations that performed well included elements of visible narrator, filmed reality, acted scenes, integrated static and motion graphics and footage, and handmade animation (Arruabarrena et al., 2021).
While ePortfolio videos that did not perform well were the result of poor design decisions that failed to capitalise on the use of sound and motion graphics (animation, talking head, footage, etc.).
Many neurodiverse students have indicated (e.g., through surveys, tutorial discussions, or their ePortfolio artifacts) their preference for video production as the combination of motion graphics and subtitles can allow them to fully focus and absorb content and, thus, produce more digestible LGDM pieces.
Podcasts
Podcasts have the capacity to create a magical, intimate, and emotionally moving experience –- just your ears listening to their voice -– for the teaching team.
Learners seem to perceive podcasts as a safe space for experimentation as evidenced by the surge of podcasts in ADB in 2021.
Perhaps this is due to their familiarity and everyday engagement with the medium, supported by the DDD tutorial activities bridging their everyday lives into the classroom.
One marker remarked:
I’m happy to see that learners are also into puns and seeking the thrill of provoking an audible LOL.
Infographics
For infographics, when learners expertly managed the viewer’s cognitive load by selecting and implementing visual cues (e.g., colour, shape, space, icons, heading hierarchy, font, etc.) to guide the viewer through the artefact and deconstruct archaeological methods or archaeological evidence with minimal, yet meaningful, text the end result reveals the acquisition of much complex information, thoughtfully synthesised and integrated to communicate key messages to a non-expert.
Poorly performing ePortfolio infographics may be attributed to a false assumption by learners: that appearing to require less space than a traditional 3,000 words essay required the acquisition and synthesis of less information.
Hypermedia
For hypermedia, tutors found the Thinking Hats DDD activity to be the most useful for learners, particularly for those who initially thought the whole creation process was too complex.
ePortfolio hypermedia artefacts were created using a range of tools (e.g., Adobe Spark Page, Knight Lab’s storytelling tools, Wix, MS Sway, etc.), melding numerous multimodal sources.
When curated or created cohesively, markers reflected:
It feels like seeing the tapestry of the learner’s mind.…It shows more analytical and integrative thinking than simply describing…as if it is recognised as ‘something new’ that requires the learner to show the connections they’ve made (and what they mean to them), rather than simply retell (or regurgitate).
Other
Other ePortfolio creations included creative art, poems, comics, zines, Twitter / Tumblr / Instagram posts / threads, letters, diary entries, funeral programs, and brochures.
Markers reflected on comics:
It feels like you’ve been given this behind-the-scenes pass to the connections being made in their brains, like the actual neurons firing –- it’s amazing! It’s such an enmeshment of discipline-life into personal professional life. New knowledge interacting with memories and experiences to create something new –- the wonders of dual coding!
Markers reflected on poems:
In all the possible permutations, I don’t think I ever imagined a poem. There’s something very moving about this window into a time-travelling learner, immersing themselves in this story from the past, in their present, to share it for a future audience they may never meet.
The teaching team asked many questions when learners chose to produce traditional text or presentation of ePortfolio artefacts:
Did they not want to take the opportunity to do something different, creative, or challenging? Were they fearful of the unknown? Did they want to retain the privilege and power that text provides them? Did they feel uncomfortable thinking about and sharing what they are really thinking and experiencing? Are they not enjoying the unit? Are they going through something personal?
Markers reflected:
Comparatively, there’s less joy in the creation or reception of these traditional texts; it feels like a tokenistic exchange, telling us what they think they want us to hear
Tutors reflected on in-class discussions about the comfort and expectation of academic style and debated the purpose of a university degree.
The most illuminating insight is the evidence showing that there are multiple ways of achieving the same learning outcomes.
Figure 8 shows a collection of infographics, videos, podcasts, comics, and hypermedia ePortfolio artefacts that all achieved a High Distinction (85%+) grade.
Figure 8 – Multiple Ways of Doing: Different ePortfolio modalities achieving a High Distinction grade (85%+; Laboratory Methods of Archaeology examples).
Self-expression, or personal epistemology,
encourages learners to construct their own knowledge, understanding, ideas, meaning, values, attitudes, and identity, shaped by their own experiences and interests
(Collien, 2021, p. 16).
For ePortfolio DMTs on Provocation 1 (Spark a conversation about death, dying, and burial), we received learner creations that we could never have predicted. This uniqueness and originality signalled deep, personal, meaningful connections to their learning and experiences in life beyond the classroom.
One example (Figure 9a) that encapsulates this self-expression is a learner who connected Power’s (2019) TED talk, which discusses “Doing Death Differently,” to something peculiar in their experience playing the game Animal Crossing.
In this child-oriented media, the player encounters a snowman who melts away as the game progresses.
In their video, the learner presented a talking head and game play mashup, and reflected on how this game, perhaps unintentionally, presented an opportunity to address conversations about death with children, particularly given the death-aversity of the modern Western world.
Another example (Figure 9b) presented a question-driven video mashup exploration of the provocation “Does Death = Life?,” using humour and drawing on biological sciences to contrast human and non-human definitions of life.
A third example (Figure 9c) was an incredibly personal podcast connecting the learner’s own experience of endometriosis with the archaeology of child, infant, and foetal burials to also explore the provocation “Does Death = Life?”
The learner’s podcast brought a lived experience to the study of human remains in their discussion of expressions of pain, grief, and loss as "death came for me again" that learners might experience with every archaeological case study they encounter.
The learner’s creation stirs the audience through the combination of specific archaeological examples and their own lived experience to break the unhealthy and debilitating stigma surrounding grief and loss in the present.
Figure 9a-c – Examples of Self-Expression in Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) ePortfolios
Deeper rich learning involves transfer (backwards using past experience, forward to new experiences) (Chun, 2013) by making connections and integrations between concepts, theories, frameworks, practices, and real-world problems and authentic immersive experiences.
In the practice of critical reflection on self and the world, we hope to nurture growth mindsets through iterative and evolving practice and triple loop learning –- changing individual behaviour, reframing group thinking, and transforming collective perceptions (Tosey et al., 2012).
In one ePortfolio podcast from ADB in 2021 (Figure 10a) in response to the provocation, Ultimately, all death is prehistoric, we see a learner engaging with an elaborate infant burial juxtaposed with modern mortuary behavior.
This manifests through a Facebook memorial post for the death of a friend’s parent from COVID-19 as the learner processes feelings, expressions, and experiences of grief.
The learner goes on to disrupt the world view that written memorials have more standing and value than those not expressed in writing (e.g., Myers & Donley, 202).
In another ePortfolio podcast from LMoA in 2022 (Figure 10b), a learner provocatively questions the epistemology, ontology, and methodology of archaeology:
Should science destroy in order to understand?
explores ethical quandaries that should be considered as part of an archaeologist’s daily practice:
Biomedical labs dispose of mice in genocidal numbers. Not just mice, sometimes primates –- our evolutionary cousins. The ethics are fraught
and establishes themselves as an advocate for non-destructive methods:
Where you can avoid destruction –- you should
In doing so, they also reveal the need for decolonisation in archaeology:
Archaeology is destruction, a field archaeologist once told me. Excavation, in particular, involves taking things out of their context –- and not putting them back
This illustrates a deep, rich learning and critical reflection on the personal/professional self and the world in which archaeology operates.
This example demonstrates the reflection of the learner’s perspective against disciplinary practices and the emergence of the learner’s own philosophical, moral professional code of conduct.
In an ePortfolio hypermedia submission, also from LMoA in 2022 (Figure 10c), a learner decodes and makes accessible the often stifling utility of statistical methods by creating a Knight Lab’s StoryMap using archaeological data.
They mobilised this opportunity to reflect on a learning placement experience where their skills in statistical analysis were not as well-developed (“I had no idea what I was doing”), and their subsequent intention to revisit the initial archaeological data set with new capabilities gained from the LMoA course.
The learner also identifies changes they would make on past decisions (“wish I had done more ‘sciencey’ units earlier in my degree”) and where they see their continued use of statistical methods in their future:
I’ll hopefully start a masters of intelligence next semester, and maybe that’s why I chose to look at statistical analysis for this last assignment, because I can see myself using similar models in the future
This example shows the learner looking back to look forward, connecting the dots, identifying transferability, and a futures-orientation –- everything desired by the teaching team from ePortfolio practice.
Figure 10a-c – Examples of Critical Reflection on Self and World in Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) and Laboratory Methods of Archaeology (LMoA) ePortfolios.
In this last collection of vignettes, we illustrate how ePortfolio artefacts can exist outside classroom time and spaces.
The following three examples come from one individual over three years.
Starting in ADB in 2020 (Figure 11a), in response to Provocation 1 (Spark a conversation around death, dying, and burial), the learner created a persuasive rousing video using a statistics-driven story of sudden losses of life to motivate the public to engage in death discussions or Death Cafe practices. It was clear that the learner had achieved the execution of digital storytelling in the task.
This ePortfolio artefact was shared publicly on social media as part of the #DoingDeathDifferently movement (Power, 2019).
In LMoA in 2021 (Figure 11b), this same learner chose to switch modality and created a podcast that integrated archaeological evidence explicitly, decoding the examples with engaging audio storytelling skills for a public audience.
The teaching team could not have predicted that the joy the learner experienced by producing the ePortfolio artefact would lead them, with a team of peers, to bring the podcast to life in a series outside the classroom, accessible publicly (Figure 11c).
The learner reflected:
I was pleasantly surprised when the ePortfolio podcast I produced for LMoA sparked to life as a real life podcast.
This learner is now a member of the teaching team moving from learner to peer mentor to tutor and marker.
This tutor has observed:
Current students are surprised to discover that their ePortfolios can go beyond a university assessment submission and have the potential to make a real impact in the world.
Figure 11a-c – Evolutions Beyond the Final Product for Archaeology of Death and Burial (ADB) and Laboratory Methods of Archaeology ePortfolios (LMoA).
Recommendations
Recommendations
Based on our collective experience over the past three years, with insights from the learner, peer mentor, tutor, marker, learning designer, and unit convenor perspectives, we have three recommendations for ePortfolio practice that serve design justice intentions:
Example Course Design Skeleton.
1. The success of our enterprise is due to the diverse expertise and relationship strengths of our teaching team, particularly across two critical workflow streams:
(a) A critical relationship is required between the unit convenor and learning designer to design, develop and implement ePortfolio assessment infrastructure suitable for learning management systems; and to design and develop DMT production capacity for learners through scaffolded skills and DDD activities and ePortfolio reflection framing.
(b) A critical working relationship is required between the unit convenor, tutors and markers to ensure that the delivery, marking and feedback are aligned for learners.
ePortfolio Rubric.
2. ePortfolio practice requires ongoing professional development and support for the entire teaching team.
Most of the teaching team produced only written text assessments throughout their entire higher education learning journeys (from undergraduate to PhD).
Our team finds peer-to-peer learning to be the most effective as well as team sample marking and post-feedback discussions.
The challenge faced by learners to balance substantive archaeological evidence with storytelling also exists for the teaching team when critiquing the ePortfolio submissions.
Our professional development also includes the ongoing refinement of assessment rubrics that focus on the process of production (i.e., critical thinking, problem solving, research skills, communication skills, and design decisions) rather than on the aesthetic quality of the ePortfolio DMT artefact: we prioritise substance over style.
3. Academic activism via disruption of traditional assessment strategies in higher education can be hard work.
It requires us to get comfortable being uncomfortable at almost every phase of action, including review of unit academic content and resources.
For this reason, we encourage teams of academics, teachers, educators, etc. to consider that the inclusion of learner-generated digital media ePortfolio artefacts as a form of assessment often starts with new lessons in self-teaching (Mitra, 2010).
Coleman (2021) says:
If you want them to create audio reflections, you have to include them in your course. How I teach, what I teach, how they learn it, and then, how they evidence it, needs to be connected to each other.
In the contagious spirit of undoing, we encourage those interested in getting learners to create ePortfolio DMTs to start by making some yourself with our Coursera course:
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This article is published in the 2022 special edition of the
Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) ePortfolio Review (AePR) on design justice.
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