Within Digication, the ePortfolio project can be broken down into scaffolded assignments that contain prompts to guide students on gathering artifacts, reflecting on their process, and demonstrating what they have learned. The ideal use of ePortfolios extends beyond individual courses, encompassing work across disciplines, courses, and into co-curricular experiences and future professional activities beyond DU. This expanded scope positions the ePortfolio as a valuable tool for assessing departmental and programmatic learning outcomes over the student’s full DU experience, including, and extending beyond, an individual course. However, Digication is also a useful tool for helping faculty assess learning effectively by looking at the achievement of their individual course learning outcomes within this broader framework.
Canvas Integration
Digication’s integration into Canvas makes it a valuable tool for both formative and summative assessments. Using the assignments feature in Digication allows the instructor to create and provide feedback on scaffolded assignments that help students work towards the completion of their final ePortfolio assignment. These assignments fit within a larger course template that outlines the full ePortfolio project for students. Instructors can grade these smaller assignments with Digication, and scores automatically sync with the Canvas gradebook to integrate into the course.
Formative Assessments
Formative assessments are lower stakes assignments that are “often done at the beginning or during a program, thus providing the opportunity for immediate evidence for student learning in a particular course or at a particular point in a program… The purpose of this technique is to improve quality of student learning, leading to feedback in the developmental progression of learning” (Office of Teaching and Learning, “Formative Assessments”). Some ways the ePortfolio project might be used for formative assessment includes:
- Utilizing Assignments in Digication Kora.
- Incorporating mini-ePortfolio assignments into your course content.
- Having students create and submit regular reflective journal entries that look back on their progress throughout the course.
- Including a section in the ePortfolio where students write summaries of content learned that week or within that particular module.
- Having students create a concept map demonstrating relationships between course concepts or ideas.
- Collecting and submitting documents that show their planning stages as they work through them (for example: outlines, drafts, etc).
Summative Assessments
Summative assessments are higher stakes assignments that “are measures that occur near the end of a unit, course, or program and seek to assess student mastery of an outcome. Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature, provides accountability and is used to check the level of learning at the end of the program” (Office of Teaching and Learning, “Summative Assessments”). Some ways the ePortfolio project might be used for summative assessment includes:
- Looking for evidence of student improvement over time.
- Having students set goals for themselves at the beginning of the course and demonstrate through a collection of artifacts developed over the term that they have achieved these goals.
- Having students reflect on their progress and growth over the entire term and connect the dots on how the learning they are doing in your course to other work builds upon their previous learning.
- Using the ePortfolio assignment as a cumulative assignment, in which students use their ePortfolios incorporate in feedback from formative assessments to showcase a final project or collection of work they have been developing over the term and reflect on their progress overall.
References:
Office of Teaching and Learning. (n.d.) Glossary of Key Assessment Terminology. https://otl.du.edu/advance-my-practice/assessmentdu/glossary-of-key-assessment-terminology/
