Portfolios, Reflection, and The Unique Features of Electronic Portfolios

Please save the date for the following program this October

The CTL is excited to bring you:

Portfolios, Reflection, and The Unique Features of Electronic Portfolios

With Dr. Kathleen Yancey

Thursday October 2, 2014 from 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. West Lecture Hall

For those of you who cannot make this date, there will be another opportunity to talk with Kathleen Yancey on Friday October 3rd at 1:30 in the FPH Lounge.

Portfolio building and reflection can support deep learning. At the same time, more than one faculty member has expressed disappointment in the ways that students have engaged with them. Currently, across the country, electronic portfolios are being touted as the next best thing in education. Certainly, they have promise as a sustainable option for supporting learning. Given this context, we’ll consider four unique features of e-Portfolios and ways that those features can engage students and support student learning. First, we’ll consider the artifacts that students collect, the reasons they collect them, and the activities we can build around them so that they are meaningful. Second, we’ll consider the e-Portfolio arrangement: what is the role of portfolio structure in supporting learning, especially learning located in connections across contexts (e.g., courses, experiences)? Third we’ll turn to reflection, defining it and outlining the various functions it can serve, in the process also considering the distinctive contribution that reflection on artifacts and experiences makes to learning. Fourth and not least, we’ll consider the larger context for the portfolio: who are the people who might participate in a portfolio—as peer reviewers, for example, and as external audiences–and how can that participation contribute to both deep learning and sustainability?

KATHLEEN BLAKE YANCEY is Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University. She has served in several national leadership roles, including as President of the National Council of Teachers of English; as Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication; as President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators; and as President of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. She also co-founded and co-directs the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research, which has brought together over 60 institutions from around the world to document the learning represented in electronic portfolios. Yancey has authored or co-authored over 90 articles and book chapters and authored, edited, or co-edited twelve scholarly books—including Portfolios in the Writing Classroom; Reflection in the Writing Classroom; ePortfolios 2.0; and Contexts of Writing: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing—and is the winner of several awards, including the Florida State Graduate Mentor Award and the Donald Murray Writing Prize.

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