"The iterative process of developing ePortfolios, including reselecting artifacts and redesigning elements, helped to promote… learning of course material and self-discovery.”

(Jarrott & Gambrel, 2011)

IMPLEMENTING the FORMATIVE EVALUATION PLAN: Digital Portfolios

As an Expeditionary Learning (EL) School with an environmental focus, moving from our current, more traditional portfolio methods to a digital portfolio process allowed us to honor our pursuit of 21st Century learning through the use of technology, while avoiding the environmental waste of printed materials with a more traditional portfolio. Originally proposed as part of my Emerging Technologies work and further developed in my Formative Evaluation Plan, the Greene School offered the perfect learning and digital environments (BYOD) for the digitization of the process. Because our school highly values direct experiences that develop and integrate student strengths, the personalized portfolio serves as a record of situated learning and understanding and is considered a rite of passage in the EL experience. Because the culture of portfolio-based learning already existed within the community, the intent of integrating ePortfolios was to address the challenges the Greene School currently faces with traditional, student-created portfolios by building digital opportunities for students to craft high quality, media-rich, original work to share with a wider community (not just parents and teachers) and maintaining positive attitudes throughout the year-long portfolio process. As the change facilitator for digitizing this process, I coached my fellow Grade 10 teachers on how to leverage GoogleDocs as a collection point for student artifacts and how to create opportunities for teacher and peer feedback through GoogleDocs. Additionally, I created and led grade-level workshops for students engaged in the portfolio process to provide leveled support based on self-identified need.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: In implementing an ePortfolio program at my current school, my approach blended cognitive constructivism, situated cognition and social learning as the most recognizable theoretical elements. Certainly, the constructivist model of ill-structured challenges in which students define and drive their own learning is well complemented through portfolio learning. Learner-centered theory is characterized by the belief that learning is best addressed as an ill-structured, complex activity that benefits from being presented as a shared challenge in which all participants, including the instructor, have responsibility to learn. In respecting the value of the student construct and the importance of developing an awareness of one’s own construct, the portfolio provides students with unique insight into how they learn and the opportunity to evaluate different experiences within their learning. By inviting students into the practice of metacognitive reflection, we promote the primacy of responsibility for one’s own learning. Using the ePortfolio as a kind of digital record of learning that happens anywhere, any time further reiterates the point that learning is a lifelong venture beyond the classroom. Today’s technologies free students to use a much greater variety of learning interactions than before. With these technologies, student work is still “visible” to the teacher no matter where the student is physically. Lastly, social construct theory also lends itself nicely to portfolio-style learning opportunities. By requiring evidence of student collaboration within learning and providing opportunities to assess (and be assessed by) peers, integrating social learning into the portfolio development is seamless.

FOSTERING DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS: In accordance with ISTE’s NETS-S, I coached fellow teachers and students in demonstrating creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology, while creating their original portfolio as a means of personal expression and demonstration of their commitment to lifelong learning. Students then interacted with peers and instructors via online digital avenues for meaningful feedback, prior to the publication of their final product. I was particularly excited to see previously introduced digital tools for my course content implemented in a new way. For example, we utilized Wordle to summarize the Civil War and Infogr.am to examine processes and institutions in the US Federal System. The student samples below demonstrate the ability to use applications effectively and even transfer previously mastered skills to new and creative tasks.

Formative Evaluation Plan: Developed to capitalize on my school's unique student learning objectives and permissive policies for digital tools within the school environment, my formative evaluation plan laid the groundwork for the Passage Portfolio process, a rite of passage for rising juniors at the Greene School. Students must exhibit their academic and personal growth during the first two years of their high school career through the thoughtful collection of evidence of learning, by reflecting on their growth and future goals and publishing and presenting their original works of personal expression to an authentic audience. Below, please find several student exemplars of the newly digital Passage Portfolio process.

Student Samples of Digital Portfolios: Student 1, Student 2, and Student 3

Emerging Technologies: The formative plan builds from this examination of three emerging technologies: personal learning environments, digital collaboration, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs. In determining the merit of implementing these tools within the classroom, I also developed a Clark/Kozma framework to apply when making instructional decisions for the thoughtful of technology.