E-Portfolios as an Integrating Tool: An Introduction to KEEP Toolkit

Fostering Students' Abilities to Integrate Learning-

over time, across courses, and between academic, personal, and community life--is one of the most important goals and challenges of higher education.

The undergraduate experience is often a fragmented landscape of general education, concentrations, electives, co-curricular activities, and for many students "the real world" beyond campus.

Public Report of the Integrative Learning Project sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

An E-Portfolio is a Tool That Helps Students Integrate Their Learning

A collection of artifacts

Representing learning that takes place in the community, workplace, and academic environment

Upon which s/he has reflected

designed for presentation to one or more audiences for a particular purpose

A Residence Don

E-Portfolios as an Integrating Tool

“The most important thing I learned…was how to look at the “big picture”. In school so far, we’ve studied many accounting concepts ……

However, this is the first time that I have actually slowed down and taken all these small concepts and tried to understand how they are related in the grand scheme of things. “

E-Portfolios as a Culminating Project

Changes dynamics of the classroom by sharing – created a community- (CD)

Craig Garbe MPH

Link back to course objectives Opportunity to show how the academic learning

ties to the “real world”

About Reflection

•Reflection is what makes us learners; we need to practice, assess and perfect it.•Four criteria characterize the concept of reflection:

Reflection is a meaning making processReflection is systematic, rigorous and disciplined; with roots in scientific inquiryReflection needs to happen in communityReflection requires attitudes that value personal and intellectual growth

Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking, Carol Rodgers, Teachers College Record, Volume 104, Nol. 4, June 2002, pp. 842-866

Our Work With ePortfolios

•Starting in the Fall of 2004:

AFM 131, 3 progressive reflections on teamworkFall, 2005,AFM 291, concept map on course based outcomeWinter 2006, during a work term in lieu of the traditional work term reportFall 2006/Winter 2007, during a work term in lieu of the traditional work term report

•Starting in the Fall of 2005:

AFM 131, 3 progressive reflections on teamworkWinter 2007, during a work term in lieu of the traditional work term report

•Starting in the Fall of 2006:

AFM 131, 3 progressive reflections on teamworkReflection on Living Learning CommunityWinter 2007, AFM 102, assignment on course based outcomeFall 2007, resume from PD1 and reflectionFall 2007, reflection on Professional Futures Conference

What Have We Learned

•ePortfolio snapshot from a student related to a Work Term illustrating linkages:

•Making connections by reflecting on one’s experience is a learned skill, one that students need to develop.

•The opportunity to make connections will foster development:

“I would just like to say that I never knew just how important the team reflections from AFM 131 would be, until I began preparing for interviews for summer internships at accounting firms. I figured they would ask about teaming [sic] experience (which they did) and I was fully prepared to answer their questions because I referred to what I had wrote [sic] in my team reflections. On a side note, I have received an offer… and I owe a lot of that to the reflections! Virtually all of their questions were about experiences in teams.”

Student email, February 25, 2007

What Have We Learned

•Expected outcomes that reflections address need to be clearly articulated.

•ePortfolios need to be program based.

•ePortfolios provide context to one’s learning:

“I had a new perspective on learning, a new appreciation on how my life was connected, and a new tool to organize my thoughts with. I realize now that my personal interests have value in my education, and my education in the way I live my life outside the classroom.”

From a student, July 2007.

Going Forward

•Professional accounting organizations have developed competencies for their profession.

•Government funding for post secondary institutions is increasingly focused on demonstrated learning outcomes.

•Our program and curriculum mapping:

Artifacts and reflections will be program based and tied in with professional accounting organizations’ competencies.

Periodic assessment of each student’s ePortfolio will become a program element supporting individual learning.

Current E-Portfolio Users at UW

BAFM 700+ students SPCOM ~30 / offering Kin 105 ~200 MBET ~ 70 MPH ~ 90 and growing

On the Horizon

Pharmacy 100– target 420 Bachelor of Knowledge Integration

60-80 target 100/year

SJU transition course -- 25 Modified Service Learning Program pilot– 40

A locally hosted and supported KEEP environment

KEEP is the e-portfolio tool currently being used at UW Over 3,000 UW users on KEEP Toolkit on the server hosted

at the Carnegie Foundation Significant adoption of e-portfolios already in place at UW

FIPPA concerns we are currently using a server located in the US

A locally hosted and supported KEEP environment

Local environment under full control of UW Would encourage use of one e-portfolio platform Discourage adoption of multiple (incompatible) e-

portfolio tools

Plans for Pilot W08

UCIST supported recommendation for local installation of KEEP (Sept. 2007)

Installation Fall 2007 (IST) Pilot W08-approximately 140 students Arrangements to transfer UW e-portfolios from the

KEEP server in the States

The Keep Toolkit

Plans for Support

IST technical support for KEEP including sessions for users- similar to UW-ACE training sessions

On line resources – work in progress access to images, KEEP Tool tips, visual literacy tips

Workshops/sessions helping users develop visual literacy skills – planning for once a month-sign up basis

Support KEEP for minimum 2 years with plans for continued review of other e-portfolio tools

Suggestion: supporting e-portfolios after students graduate as a way to support life-long learning and retain contact with alumni(ae).