Deliberative Assessment with E-Portfolios

Darren Cambridge

Association of American Colleges and Universities Annual Meeting January 20, 2010, Washington, DC

Tensions in Portfolio Use

Purpose Accountability

Improvement

Epistemology Objectivist Intuitionist

Locus of Control

Institutional Individual

Metaphor Test Story

Framework Outcomes Abilities

Rubrics

Liberal Education for America’s Promise (LEAP)• Knowledge of Human Cultures

and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences

and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral

communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving

• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and

engagement—local and global

– Intercultural knowledge and competence

– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for

lifelong learning

• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced

accomplishment across general and specialized studies

VALUE Intercultural Rubric

Reflection as an End of Its Own

• Dewey: Rigorous analytical thinking• Schön et. al.: Key to professional practice• Keegan: Essential to challenges of adult life• Boud: United cognitive and affective • Mezirow et. al.: Understanding and

challenging domination

• Clear learning outcomes • Opportunities for

students to achieve them

• Assessment of that achievement

• Use of the results for improvement

• Useful • Cost-effective• Reasonably accurate and truthful

– Multiple– Direct

• Planned, organized, systematized and sustained• Kinds of direct evidence

– Portfolios of student work – Student reflections on their values, attitudes, and beliefs, if

developing those are intended outcomes of the course or program

Virginia Tech

Sometimes they align …

Deliberative Assessment

• Assessment as a means for participation in collective decision making

• Deliberative democracy – Decision making – Legitimation

Principles of Deliberation

• Publicity– Deliberative system which informs and holds accountable

• Inclusiveness– All impacted by decisions can participate

• Reasonableness– Economy of moral objections– Respect for reasonable disagreement

• Provisionality – Openess to changing positions and decisions

Scholarship as Deliberative System

• Publicity– Deliberative system which informs and holds accountable

• Inclusiveness– All impacted by decisions can participate

• Reasonableness– Economy of moral objections– Respect for reasonable disagreement

• Provisionality – Openess to changing positions and decisions

A New Role for Competencies

• Standardized: Matching performance to a pre-defined set of outcomes

• Deliberative: Capture standards all stakeholders value as enacted in practice and examining alignment of both student and programmatic performance

Competencies in Organizational Learning

• Standardized: Articulating expectations to students• Deliberative: Means for mutually accountable connection

between individual and organizational learning • Boundary objects: “Boundary objects are objects that are

both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Leigh Star 1989)

Deliberative Assessment

• Standardized: Objectivist/utilitarian• Expressive: Subjectivist/intuitionist

(Gray 2002)

• Deliberative assessment – Learning complex and situated – Judgment based in embodied expertise– Students as “authoritative informants about their own

learning” (Yancey 1998) – Institutional values and outcomes the result of

deliberation based these sources of expertise

Deliberative Assessment

• Student are privileged informants about their own learning

• Evidence of learning needs to come from multiple contexts, and the relationships between them need to be articulated

• Assessment should be a deliberative process that makes programs more responsive to all stakeholders

Liberal Education for America’s Promise (LEAP)• Knowledge of Human Cultures

and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences

and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral

communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving

• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and

engagement—local and global

– Intercultural knowledge and competence

– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for

lifelong learning

• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced

accomplishment across general and specialized studies

Ineffable Essentially Contested

• Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are important but don’t think we can measure– E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility

• Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956)

– No single shared definition– Common tradition or exemplar– More optimal development because of

contestation

Ineffable Essentially Contested

• Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are important but don’t think we can measure– E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility

• Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956)

– More optimal development because of contestation

Eportfolios for Contested Outcomes

• Makes multiple understands of outcomes visible

• Requires reasoning to be articulated• Grounds understanding in evidence and

experience• Puts multiple positions into conversation

Eportfolios for Contested Outcomes

• Measurable learning outcome: Ability to articulate a reasoned stance based on evidence

• Makes multiple understandings of outcomes visible

• Requires reasoning to be articulated• Grounds understanding in evidence and

experience• Puts multiple positions into conversation

NCC Competencies

• Communication• Critical Thinking• Strategic Problem Solving• Valuing• Group Interaction

• Global Understanding• Effective Citizenship• Aesthetic Awareness• Information Technology

NCC Graduation Portfolio• No predefined standard for what constitutes satisfactory

performance in each competency• Students exposed to (and assessed with) many models and

standards through coursework and experiential learning • Students redefine each competency, beginning with “official

definition”– Synthesizing multiple perspectives – Integrating evidence from own experience – Taking ownership and planning for the future

Three curricula

Kathleen Yancey, Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice

Academics as Test of Self

• We intended for curricular content to be an central source of evidence and ideas and strategies, but it didn’t show up this way

• Class work functioned as– A demonstration of character virtues– An experience – A goal putting aspiration towards those virtues in

action

Complicating Evidence

• Link between evidence and reflection distinguishes eportfolios and other digital means for– supporting reflective learning– Managing information about knowledge, skills, abilities and

experiences

• “Evidence” is the documents included in a portfolio on which the author reflects

• Use of evidence in practice is more complex than the eportfolio literature often acknowledges

Evidence in Reflection

• Research at Alverno College suggests that, as students become more skilled at reflection, they– Draw on analysis of their own experiences rather

than appealing to external authorities– Reference a wider range of activities and artifacts

• Research deals only with the content of the reflections, not the evidence itself

Types of Evidence

• Types of evidence in science portfolios (Collins, 1992): – Artifacts– Attestations– Reproductions

• Mixes analytically distinct dimensions, such as characteristics of evidence and purpose

Project Background

• Portfolio contexts: Integrative approach to learning with specific attention to classroom-based, experiential, and co-curricular learning

• NCC and portfolio-based assessment• Intentional collaboration with University Life • Small data sets over two cohorts (spring ’07; spring ’08);

additional cohort beginning in fall ’08• Member of cohort 3 of the Inter/National Coalition for

Electronic Portfolio Research (I/NCEPR)

I/NCEPR

• Institutional research teams examining the impact of electronic portfolio practice on learning

• 50 institutions in five cohorts • Third cohort focuses on student affairs -academic affairs

collaboration• US, Canada, England, Scotland, Netherlands • Book to be published by Stylus in November• More information on website: ncepr.org.

An Emergent Typology of Use of Evidence in ePortfolios

• Characteristics of item used as evidence– Agency– Media

• Purpose of incorporating evidence– Rhetorical Function– Object

• Characteristics of associated learning activities– Sponsorship– Participation

Matches and Mismatches

• Reflective description of evidence • Content of evidence • Local – site of specific evidence use • Global – the whole portfolio • Match and mismatches yield more

sophisticated understanding and resources for supporting portfolio authors

An Example: Richard Zepp’s ePortfolio

Electronic Portfolios 2.0: Emergent Findings and Shared Questions

Collection of 24 chapters detailing research from cohorts I, II, and III of the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research

Published by Stylus, March 2009