Why use an Integrative Learning E-folio?

The electronic portfolio paradigm captures how professional networking (including job searching) looks in the 21st century. No longer can a graduate depend on career center resources provided by his/her university for securing him a job. He must learn how to use technology to learn where the jobs are AND to make himself and his credentials easily accessible to employers. Therefore, more than ever before, our graduates must be creative, resourceful, and persistent, i.e., "tech savvy," in order to compete in the job market. The e-folio, which is easily modified, accessible, and versatile becomes a tool to empower the graduate to network at levels previously inaccessible to him or her.

The e-folio also prepares the student for understanding the importance of creating and maintaining a professional virtual presence. With increased uses of technology for social networking, education, business, etc. comes the need for discernment regarding the kind and amount of information students should put online. Learning outcomes and assessments (such as reflection and an ILEF) encourage students to understand the benefits and risks of online publication in addition to the various levels of privacy accessible through their educated uses of technology. Students who are educated about the issues and the versatility of various technologies are more likely to exercise discernment regarding their own virtual presence.

In addition, emphasizing the use of high-impact learning practices to meet program-level learning outcomes increases the need to provide easily accessible evidence of student learning. While determining mastery of knowledge for a degree is often measured by exams, lab reports, and other traditional means of assessment, determining mastery of professional outcomes (i.e., critical thinking, problem solving, communication, lifelong learning, ethics, and collaboration) requires a different approach. More than a showcase of work, an integrative learning e-folio prompts the student to identify the value of combined experiences (apply critical thinking) and communicate what he/she has learned in writing (apply synthesis). It has the potential to facilitate learning outcomes beyond traditional pedagogical means, thus qualifying it for broader applications than those often used by career centers. It also has potential to bridge the paradigms of high-impact learning practices and program-level assessment, an approach that is worth exploring, especially given the current TAMU institutional priorities on program assessment. Also, the experiential learning activities that integrate key postsecondary learning outcomes are validated by the current efforts of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). These efforts include identifying how learning outcomes can be measured beyond standardized tests, thus relying on learning activities that will elicit these outcomes. The AACU VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics resulting from this effort identify the learning outcomes and criteria that college campuses across the nation deem most important (See AACU, 2011). The AACU concludes that the integrative student learning outcomes facilitated by developing an online portfolio provide incentive to overcome technical stumbling blocks that the process presents.

The integrative learning e-folio is an ideal format for collecting evidence of student learning, especially for those outcomes not amenable nor appropriate for standardized measurement. Additionally, e-portfolios can facilitate student reflection upon and engagement with their own learning across multi-year degree programs, across different institutions, and across diverse learning styles while helping students to set and achieve personal learning goals. E-portfolios provide both a transparent and portable medium for showcasing the broad range of complex ways students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities for purposes such as graduate school and job applications as well as to benchmark achievement among peer institutions (AAC&U, 2011).

ILPs Empower Students to Reflect, Create, & Network

An online portfolio that incorporates reflection integrates learning and technology so that students become more aware of what they know and how they learned it, thus preparing them to negotiate the new contexts they will encounter in future academic contexts and workplaces: "[W]hen students leave the university to enter their workplace, they not only need to learn new genres of discourse but they also need to learn new ways to learn such genres" (Freedman and Adam, p.334).

An ILEP through the use of guided reflection scaffolds learning in a pedagogically meaningful way: Students need to consider the purpose and intentionality of what they know, but many do not intuitively engage in reflection and and thus do not think critically about their knowledge or experiences. Guided reflection questions prompt the student to evaluate what he/she has learned, how or where she learned it, why it matters and to whom, and what she still needs to learn. Therefore, the best prompts don't simply elicit what a student already knows but helps her learn something new through synthesis and evaluation.

In addition, current research completed in other engineering programs (for example, at the University of Washington) supports that integrative learning portfolios help students develop a positive professional identity. The portfolio developmental process “helps to bridge external expectations and events to internal evaluations . . . helping students see connections between courses and helping them to learn about the professional context” (Eliot and Turns, p. 635-­36). Moreover, integrative learning e-folios promote active learning, where students are engaged in higher-level thinking (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation), activities that may not result from more traditional instructional methods.

Surprisingly, educators' use of the term "active learning" has relied more on intuitive understanding than a common definition. Consequently, many faculty assert that all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore actively involved while listening to formal presentations in the classroom. Analysis of the research literature (Chickering and Gamson 1987), however, suggests that students must do more than just listen: They must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in solving problems. Most important, to be actively involved, students must engage in such higher-order thinking tasks as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within this context, it is proposed that strategies promoting active learning be defined as instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing (Bonwell and Eison, 1991, par 2).

Central to the ILEP is reflection, thinking about what you are doing and why. Instructional activities, then, must help students through the reflective process, evaluating their knowledge and experiences and clearly communicating their findings.

How can high-impact learning be assessed?

Can high-impact learning practices effectively contribute to meeting program-level outcomes, and, if so, how can this contribution be assessed? These questions may be answered by exploring how a reflective integrative learning e-folio may be used to facilitate meeting both course and program-level learning outcomes. Portfolios as a means for showcasing student work are frequently used by university career centers, which help students compile materials that facilitate their job searches or meet graduate school entrance requirements. Many universities (NYU, University of Washington, Virginia Tech, Penn State, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and Clemson) also use portfolios as a means of assessing their program-level (curricula) outcomes by requiring students to identify work completed in courses, internships, and co-ops and then organize their accomplishments according to curricula requirements. However, using portfolios to assess high-impact learning practices, especially those that focus on reflection (over simply showcasing artifacts or tracking student coursework) can facilitate (A) student understanding of concepts across the curriculum and (B) assessment of professional program-level outcomes, particularly those met through high-impact learning opportunities, such as capstone courses, internships, service learning, etc. where traditional assessment methods may not adequately represent or reinforce what a student has learned. Today’s college graduates must be able to reflect on and learn from their experiences, keep pace with the rapidly changing demands of new information, and adapt to emerging work roles and changing environments (Peet, p. 1-2).

How can the integrative learning e-folio be used to facilitate and assess student writing?

Because of the amount of writing required to create an integrative learning portfolio (in addition to applying effective organization, design, graphics, and other communication skills), the ILEF becomes a versatile means of teaching and assessing the most fundamental writing competencies: clear summary, paragraph coherence and cohesion, document unity, effective typography, high-impact style, appropriate tone, correct usage and punctuation, etc. In addition, current research on how software can be used to facilitate collaboration, critical thinking, and writing shows that students understand the ability of technology to structure communication (Kalin, p. 14). Therefore, when our writing classes appropriate what students understand they can do through technology, "doing what comes naturally" (Kalin, p. 18), we advance their ability to apply what they know to new situations--demonstrating the lifelong learning outcomes we want them to achieve.

In Fall 2011, an integrative learning e‐folio, also known as the “ChemE-­‐folio,” was piloted in 3 CHEN sections of technical writing. The students completed a ChemE-­‐folio as one of the writing requirements for their core technical communication course. See ChemE-­‐folio Assignment and Sample ChemE-­‐folios, which demonstrate how students’ work meets the course outcomes as well as broader curriculum competencies. The instructor, C. Raisor, received IRB approval (IRB protocol number: 2011-­‐0804) to share her research results using e-­folios to meet the technical communication competencies in the course. (The course is currently required for all ChemE students). Research results include the students' responses to questions regarding their own perceptions of the e-folio's value to learning and career preparation. C. Raisor will present at the 12th Annual Texas A&M Assessment Conference on February 21 with Debra Fowler, Associate Director of CTE, on “Using Student Reflective Portfolios to Assess Course and Program-­‐Level Outcomes.”

Conclusion

The ILEF not only tracks program and curriculum outcomes, but it also provides students with multiple opportunities for reflection, thus facilitating critical thinking and synthesis. Because the ILEF is developed online, it is easily updated by the student and easily accessed by instructors, administrators, and employers. Utilizing a new and adaptable genre of discourse such as an ILEF for classroom instruction, program assessment, and career preparation reinforces lifelong as innovative pedagogy drives technology.

Engaging Students through Reflection to Facilitate Lifelong Learning

References

Association of American Colleges and Universities (2011). Liberal education and American’s promise (LEAP). Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/leap/.

Bonwell, C. and Eison, J. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. (ERIC Digest: ED340272). Retrieved from http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/91-9dig.htm.

Eliot, M. and Turns, J. (2011). Constructing professional portfolios: Sense-making and professional identity development for engineering undergraduates. Journal of Engineering Education. 100(4), pp. 630-654.

Freedman, A., & Adam, C. (2004). Learning to write professionally: 'Situated learning' and the transition from university to professional discourse. In J. M. Dubinsky (Ed.), Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom (pp. 310-336). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Kalin, J. (2012). Doing what comes naturally? Student perceptions and use of collaborative technologies. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 6(1). Retrieved from http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v6n1/articles/Kalin/index.html.

Peet, M. (2011). Integrative knowledge portfolio process. Boston University. Retrieved from https://bu.digication.com/JamesWolff/The_Integrative_Knowledge_Portfolio_Process.

Raisor, C. and McWhorter, R. (Expected publication 2012). Teaching technical writing with virtual world technology. Virtual Worlds in Online and Distance Learning. Canada: Athabasca University Press.

Reave, L. (2004). Technical communication instruction in engineering schools. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 18(4), 452-490. doi:10.1177/1050651904267068