How to Use E-portfolios
Impact on Learning
Assessment Strategies
ePortfolios in Canvas
Relevant Technologies
Things to Consider
Bibliography
“An electronic portfolio (e-portfolio) is a purposeful collection of sample student work, demonstrations, and artifacts that showcase student’s learning progression, achievement, and evidence of what students can do” (UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning, n.d.).
E-portfolios can be used with students as both learning and assessment tools. They can be created and used by either individual students to show personal growth or groups of students for team projects and peer learning.
As a form of active learning, e-portfolios encourage both the application of prior learning and reflection on the application of new knowledge. Often these thoughts are shared with others, creating an idea exchange process which includes feedback and revision.
As an assessment tool, e-portfolios contain a collection of student-created artifacts that provide evidence of accomplishments and demonstrate a level of mastery gained for the content being covered in the course. This collection can include original written text, graphics, videos, presentations, audio, or other multimedia elements. Depending on the tools, e-portfolios can be intentionally set up to be open to the public or closed to specific viewers and/or editors, controlling both who can see the work as well as who can contribute to the works included in the collection.
How to Use E-portfolios
The following are some of the ways this teaching approach is used to engage students:
- Providing feedback: In private e-portfolios available for viewing by a select few, feedback can be provided by the student, peers, mentors, internship supervisors, coaches, and instructional staff. In public e-portfolios, further feedback can be sought and provided by credentialing authorities as well as members of professional organizations.
- Creating reflections on the process of learning: By writing reflections, students generate a chronological record sharing their thoughts about their own learning journey.
- enabling review and evaluation of student work by instructors
- providing a mechanism to track and synthesize a student’s progress throughout an academic program
- creating a repository for work students want to showcase for external audiences
- cataloging best work for use in recognition or evaluation of prior knowledge and/or prior learning
Impact on Learning
Using e-portfolios in instruction can impact learning through:
- improving course success rates
- enabling project-based learning
- providing an alternative form of assessment
- creating a catalog of evidence showing mastery of course content
Assessment Strategies
Rubrics: Rubrics are useful for providing evaluation expectations and should be provided for use as a guide in creating the e-portfolio as well as assisting in generating meaningful feedback.
Exemplars: Provide students with examples of e-portfolios successfully created for the course requirements by previous students.
Meaningful feedback: Essential to the process of creating a successful e-portfolio, meaningful feedback provides students with the information necessary to improve the elements included in their showcase of evidence showing growth or mastery in the course.
ePortfolios in Canvas
E-portfolios created using external tools can be submitted to Canvas for evaluation and feedback. For example, students may submit the link to their e-portfolios in the assignment and instructors can leave evaluations and feedback in Speedgrader.
In Canvas, students and instructors can use the ePortfolio tool to electronically collect different types of learning artifacts. The Canvas ePortfolio tool makes it easy to upload files and can be set to allow private or public access. ePortfolios are tied to the user’s profile and not to a specific course. Students and instructors can build an unlimited number of ePortfolios. Canvas also allows users to export ePortfolios to a zip file.
Relevant Technologies
Penn State provides faculty, students, and staff with full access, support, and training for the following e-portfolio tools:
- Adobe Portfolio is a Penn State supported tool that helps you build an e-portfolio easily and quickly.
- Sites at Penn State allows you to create websites that can be formatted as an e-portfolio.
Other popular free services that are typically easy to use to create e-portfolios and easy to find online tutorials for support include:
- Google Sites can help you create innovative e-portfolios.
- WordPress is often considered a blogging platform, but it can also be used for creating an e-portfolio.
Things to Consider
For successful implementation of e-portfolios, you should consider the following strategies:
- Give careful consideration to the specific purpose that using e-portfolios will serve and clearly communicate that purpose to your students to improve their success in using an e-portfolio for your course. For example, is the purpose of the e-portfolio for learning or for evaluation?
- Accept the idea that creating an e-portfolio can be time-consuming and plan for students to spend time during the course to complete the e-portfolio requirements.
- Identify the audience for whom the e-portfolio will be intended, and clearly communicate this audience to your students.
- From the beginning, provide clear instruction on how the e-portfolio will be evaluated, such as the requirements for the number of elements to be included, deadlines to be met, and criteria that will be used for evaluation through use of a rubric or other documentation.
- “A portfolio is not a placeholder for all or random student work. In order to ensure that the portfolio process is educational and that it serves as a way to assess student learning outcomes…” (UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning, n.d.).
Bibliography
American Association of Colleges and Universities. (n.d.). ePortfolios. https://www.aacu.org/trending-topics/eportfolios
Donston-Miller, D. (2013, July 9). 7 creative ways to create impactful e-portfolios. InformationWeek. https://www.informationweek.com/software-services/7-ways-to-create-e-portfolios
Lorenzo, G., & Ittelson, J. (2005, January 1). An overview of e-portfolios. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2005/1/an-overview-of-eportfolios
UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning. (n.d.). E-Portfolio. https://teaching.berkeley.edu/teaching-guides/teaching-guides-2/design-assessment/e-portfolio
University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence. (n.d.). ePortfolios explained: Theory and practice. https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/eportfolios-explained-theory-and-practice