HELO: E-Portfolio 101

Year 2 / Fall 2021 / Wednesday, October 20, 2021

DESCRIPTION

The Higher Education Leadership Organization (HELO) is the student professional association of the M.S. in Higher Education (MSHE) program at Cal State Fullerton. HELO provides activities to support student learning and development including social and cultural events. Through HELO, students spend time with each other socially, learn with each other outside of the classroom, and participate in professional development and networking activities.

HELO hosts an annual "E-Portfolio 101" workshop to help the 1st-year MSHE cohort get familiar with E-Portfolios. The Professional Development (PD) Coordinators of HELO traditionally take lead in coordinating this workshop. This year, I am the C13 PD Coordinator. Alongside Tim Mercado, the C14 PD Coordinator, we hosted the "E-Portfolio" workshop on October 20, 2021.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Student will be able to create a workshop to inform 1st-year MSHE students about the components of and steps to creating their E-Portfolios,

2. Student will be able to utilize leadership and organizational theory to collaborate with a C14 team member.

3. Student will be able to assess the effectiveness of the workshop and make recommendations for future iterations of the workshop.

LEARNING DOMAINS

• Leadership

• Assessment & Evaluation

• Personal & Professional Development

REFLECTION

Last year, when I was a first-year student in the MSHE program, I attended the E-Portfolio workshop hosted by Gavin Kane and Jimmy Nguyen, the HELO Professional Development Coordinators for the 2020-2021 academic year. The workshop was immensely helpful to me at the time. I had no idea what an E-Portfolio was, why it was important, and how to get started on my E-Portfolio. The workshop hosted by Gavin and Jimmy gave me an introduction and helped me get going on my own E-Portfolio. I am now many semesters deep into the program and have been enjoying my time creating my E-Portfolio entries each semester. It serves as an opportunity for me to reflect back on my learnings and experiences from the entire semester and document them in a place that I can easily access and share with others in my network.

This year, as the C13 Professional Development Coordinator, I was tasked with leading the E-Portfolio 101 workshop. I was excited to give back to the C14 cohort with this workshop, as I remembered how helpful this same workshop was for me just a year ago. My C14 Professional Develop Coordinator, Tim Mercado, officially joined my team in early October. Together, we were excited to kick off the first Professional Development for HELO this academic year.

To plan this workshop, I rooted myself in the leadership and organizational theories that I had learned from class. While Tim was my partner in the work, this was my first time ever meeting him. I also knew that he had not yet started his E-Portfolio and wanted to learn about E-Portfolios as well. As I collaborated with Tim, I decided to utilize Bolman & Deal's (2013) 4 Frames for understanding leaders and organizations. Specifically, I decided to use the Human Resources (HR) Frame, which emphasizes prioritizing the needs of people in the organization. During our first meeting, I made sure to take time to get to know Tim as a fellow cohort mate first, before diving into the work. I also asked Tim since he was a C14 member himself, what would he find most useful in this workshop? What were his questions and needs right now about E-Portfolios? What type of guidance did he need as a team member in this project? Tim was very honest in his feedback about his questions and needs both as a C14 student and team member, which helped guide our workshop curriculum and strengthen our teamwork.

Overall, we created a workshop packed with essential information and resources about E-Portfolios. Our greatest challenge was making sure that we covered all the topics that we wanted to cover within the short time frame of 45 minutes. Because we wanted to make it as easy as possible for all of C14 to attend, we decided to present during their break time on Wednesday, their regular class day. This way, C14 members did not have to carve out time on a separate day, where they have other class, work, or personal obligations. This made it very easy for C14 to attend, but it also meant that we were on a tight timeline due to the limited break timeframe of 45 minutes. Tim and I discussed each part of the workshop to decide what was the most essential information for C14 members to get started on their E-Portfolio in an easy and clear manner. We decided to highlight what exactly an E-Portfolio was, its components, its importance, and the voices of C13 panelists to share their tips and tricks on tackling E-Portfolios. This meant that we did not get to go over all of the topics that we initially envisioned to cover. We wished we had more time to more comprehensively cover the steps to creating an E-Portfolio, but this was more glossed over in the workshop.

Tim and I also wanted to highlight the voices of C13 panelists in this workshop. We invited three panelists from C13 - Hedrick Flores, Jasmine Nguyen, and Karina Callejas - to share their E-Portfolios and their insight on how they approach the E-Portfolio creation process. Their voices were extremely important as it gave a more realistic insight into how each individual approached their E-Portfolios in very unique ways. I appreciate the C13 panelists and the all C13 members who were willing to share their E-Portfolios to C14 and give back to the people who come after us.

Lastly, I spoke with Tim during our planning about the importance of assessment. Tim mentioned that he had not yet learned much about assessment in class, so I took lead on this section by creating the post-assessment survey and incorporating Tim's feedback. Overall, the assessment data shows that we were highly successful in educating C14 on what an E-Portfolio is and understanding the components of a successful E-Portfolio. 91.3% of attendees who filled out the survey agreed or strongly agreed that they understood what an E-Portfolio was after the workshop. 86.9% agreed or strongly agreed that they understood the components of a successful E-Portfolio. Where we could have been more successful is informing C14 of the specific steps to create an E-Portfolio - only 52.2% of attendees agreed/strongly agreed that they knew how to start their E-Portfolio. Based on this data, we reported our results back to the entire HELO E-Board and made a few recommendations on how to better guide C14 members on starting their E-Portfolio. Overall, I am really proud of the work that Tim and I did for our first-ever HELO event, and I know that the data we collected will serve as a foundation for an even better event next year.

REFERENCES

Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2013). Reframing organizations: Leadership, artistry, and choice (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.