Using ePortfolios to Make Connections

ePortfolios are a powerful reflective tool, allowing students to see their learning, growth, and development over time. In the book High-Impact ePortfolio Practice, author’s Bret Enyon and Laura Gambino write:

“Reflection helps learners step back to see a larger picture, connect one experience to others, and consider their collective meaning. In doing so, reflection not only helps students sustain their focus on key concepts and issues (a defining feature of High-Impact Practices) but also creates a sense of continuity between seemingly disjointed experiences. The meaning making process can also include connections to prior learning and earlier reflections and can point forward to a projected future” (43).

Enyona and Gambino note three types of connections that reflective ePortfolios can help students make:

  1. Reflection that connects experiences in a course
  2. Reflection that connects experiences across courses, semesters, and disciplines
  3. Reflection that builds connection among academic, co-curricular, and lived experiences (43)

Click each accordion to learn more about each type of connection, and how you can foster these connections by using Digication to practice reflection in your own courses:

What this means:

Students use reflection to think about their experiences in the course, understand the purpose of course activities, and see how these activities and the different assignments they have completed help them reach the course goals.

Ideas to achieve this:
  • Ask students to reflect upon their course learning outcomes and share artifacts of their learning that represent their achievement of these outcomes
  • Have students identify and reflect upon the skills they used as a part of the class (for example: revision, study skills, research, etc.) and consider how these skills supported their growth and success as learners
  • Have students explain the artifacts they are showcasing in their ePortfolio. How did they create the artifact? What was their process? What does it represent about them as a learner? What does it show about their growth in the course?
What this means:

Students are making integrative connections across their education, including the courses they take, the diverse disciplines they are exploring, and the skills they are developing during these educational experiences.

 

Ideas to achieve this:

 

  • Consider connecting with other faculty in your department. How can you develop ePortfolio assignments to build connections across courses?
  • Use ePortfolios to connect other high-impact practices that students participate in, like: first year seminars, capstone projects, collaborative assignments or projects, and writing intensive courses, to name a few!
  • Have students write and include reflective letters to their future selves in their ePortfolios. Then, have them reflect upon these letters after each term or academic year
  • Create assignments that encourage student to revisit past educational experiences and apply their learning towards the future careers or professional goals.
  • Have students include artifacts that represent their learning in a variety of different contexts. For example: you might ask students to write a learning philosophy, showcasing artifacts from different courses that represent this philosophy
What this means:

Students are examining and recording experiences that they have outside of the classroom to look closely at their learning in other settings, reflecting on how all their experiences contribute to their learning and growth as an individual.

 

Ideas to achieve this:

  • Use ePortfolios to help students collect and archive examples of the work and experiences they have done during study abroad programs, internships, and/or other co-curricular activities.
  • Have students connect the learning they are doing within a course to the experiences they are having outside of the classroom (for example: through a service- or experiential-learning component)
  • Have students reflect on the different perspectives, cultures, and/or situations they encountered while participating in these experiences. Ask them to consider how these encounters have changed or shaped their own perspectives.

References:

  • Enyon, B., & Gambino, L.M. (2017). High-impact ePortfolio practice: A catalyst for student, faculty, and institutional learning. Stylus Publishing, LLC.