Electronic Portfolios At SF State

Metro Academies Chosen for Compass II Project

2011-12-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

Great News to Wrap Up the Year!

The Metro Academies project was chosen as one of the new Compass II projects in the CSU. We included a section about our work with ePortfolios in Metro in the proposal, and plan to continue to leverage our existing work with this CSU support. Metro Academies now has an ePortfolio reference site for students in the program. Here is a link to a sample student site in Metro.

Along with our Connect to Learning grant, Metro has become an important model project. Thanks to all of you for your on-going great work with ePortfolios this semester!

Happy Holidays and New Year to all of our colleagues around the country.

Ruth Cox and the SF State Team

AAEEBL ePortfolio World Summit 2011 Presentation

2011-07-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

On July 26th, we will be presenting "Growing an ePorticulture: (Trans)planting, Sustaining, and Harvesting Evidence of Deep Learning within the Metro Academies Program."
Ruth Cox, Kevin Kelly, San Francisco State University

This interactive workshop will share strategies for planting an ePortfolio program, sustaining it, and harvesting evidence of student learning, with focus on the Metro Academies of Health a community college and university partnership program and its model of utilizing ePortfolios and high-impact practices.

Workshop themes with supporting case stories from the Metro program will include: a) successful "planting / transplanting" tips with strategies for getting started; b) maintaining ePortfolio initiatives, training and support models, and "mapping" and "tagging" artifacts to learning outcomes at different levels; and c) harvesting student work and strategies for the use of portfolios in program reviews.

2010-12-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

Great news!
SF State has learned that we will be a part of a new cohort with the
"Connect to Learning: ePortfolio, Engagement, and Student Success," project. Funded by FIPSE, the US Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, Connect to Learning will bring together ePortfolio leadership teams from campuses nationwide to explore and strengthen best practices in ePortfolio pedagogy.

Here is our Connect to Learning ePortfolio tracking our work on this project:

https://c2l.digication.com/sfsu_project_portfolio/profile//

We are excited to be joining with 21 other campuses:

Boston University
U. of Delaware
Hunter College, CUNY
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Johnson & Wales University
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Lehman College, CUNY
Long Island University
Manhattanville College
Northwest Connecticut Community College
Norwalk Community College
Pace University
Queensborough Community College, CUNY
Rutgers University
Salt Lake Community College
San Francisco State University
School of Professional Studies, CUNY
St. John’s University
SUNY Empire State
Three Rivers Community College
Tunxis Community College
Virginia Tech

Building a nationwide network that links community colleges, private
colleges and research universities, the Connect to Learning project will
kick off at a January national ePortfolio Forum, held in San Francisco
and sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Over the next three years, participating campuses will use a structured
matrix model of ePortfolio development to plan and implement
campus-based innovations and evaluate the impact of ePortfolio
implementation on student learning. Over the course of the three year
project, Connect to Learning will advance the practice of hundreds of
faculty, benefit 20-25,000 students, and generate evidence-based
national models of ePortfolio implementation.

2010-12-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

SF State is gearing up for the AACU conference to be held in our home city in January. We are offering two presentations that relate to our ePortfolio adventure.

Friday, January 28, 10:30-11:45 am
E-Portfolios for Global Learning: Connecting High Impact Practices, General Education and Authentic Assessment within the Metro Academies Program
Enabling students to be successful citizens and create sustainable change in an increasingly global society rests on relevant curriculum, integrated instruction and a meaningful interaction with technology. This session is designed for administrators and faculty to develop a deeper understanding of how ePortfolios can be used in their institutions as well as the Metro Academies (partnerships of 2-year and 4-year institutions) model of utilizing high-impact practices to engage and challenge their students.

Kevin Kelly, Director of Online Teaching and Learning, Ruth Cox, ePortfolio Faculty Liaison, Academic Technology, Savita Malik, Curriculum Director, Metro Academies, and Mary Beth Love, Department Chair, Professor, Department of Health Education – all of San Francisco State University
==============================================

Saturday, Jan 29 2:00–3:30 pm Concurrent Sessions

Best Practices
Growing an ePorticulture: Steps to Planting and Sustaining Deeper Learning and Assessment with ePortfolios
This interactive workshop will share practical strategies for starting, sustaining, and harvesting evidence of student learning through an ePortfolio program. Drawing on six years of experience working “from the ground up” at San Francisco State University, we will share examples and resources from our ePortfolio projects. Themes with supporting case stories will include: Successful "planting" tips with getting-started steps and examples of discipline specific portfolios; maintaining and growing, with examples of "mapping" and "tagging" student work to learning outcomes at course, program, and institutional levels; harvesting student work through Capstone courses and strategies for the use of portfolios in program reviews.

Ruth Cox, ePortfolio Departmental / Faculty Liaison, Lecturer in Health Education, Kevin Kelly, Manager, Online Teaching & Learning / Media Distribution & Support, Tanya Augsburg, Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies, Angie Portacio, Academic Technology Consultant, Maggie Beers, Director, Academic Technology – all of San Francisco State University

AAC & U Annual Meeting Features ePortfolio Innovation

2010-01-25T14:26:00.000-08:00

Just back from Washington, DC where the AAC & U annual conference offered a day-long symposium: The Search for VALUE: Innovation, Economic Uncertainty and ePortfolio Assessment.

We were heartened to participate and see how much new interest there is in the use of ePortfolios across the country.

In our work on the VALUE (Valid Assessment in Undergraduate Education) project, we've worked to create a set of rubrics that will be useful in evaluating portfolios and the work within them. Led by Terrel Phodes and Wende Morgaine, the VALUE project (and 15 rubric/scoring guides) I believe will prove to be a powerful driver in the continued development of using ePortfolios for curricular, co-curricular, and institution-wide outcomes.

Two VALUE publications worth checking out are:

Assessing Outcomes & Improving Achievement: Tips and Tools for Using Rubrics
Electronic Portfolios and Student Success: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Learning

Mapping

2009-10-22T13:19:00.001-07:00

This diagram (created by Kevin Kelly at SF State, click to enlarge) shows how ePortfolios can be used to map individual student work to the overarching campus goals. Campuses can build on the process from the top down during program review cycles by helping departments align their program objectives with university strategic plan goals and/or graduation requirements. These graduation requirements often include General Education (GE) content objectives, campus student learning outcomes (SLOs), or both. At the same time, campuses can promote the use of ePortfolios to assess students' achievement of program objectives. Academic technology units and faculty development centers can work with departments and instructors from the bottom up to map course objectives to program objectives. Next, staff and faculty-in-residence can work with individual instructors to identify student projects that would generate appropriate artifacts to demonstrate student competencies. When these two approaches meet in the middle, it is then possible to show the connections between student work and institutional goals.

We will be sharing more ideas about how to use ePortfolios at the course, dept.,and campus levels...

The DEBATE

2009-10-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

At SF State, we are approaching assessment with a multiple strategies.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion re: an article: The Limitations of Portfolios (10/16/09)
October 16, 2009
Inside Higher Ed

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/16/shavelson

Richard Shavelson, Stephen Klein and Roger Benjamin write that "Electronic collections help show the range of students' work, but are not standardized or scalable enough to be used for broad assessment purposes."

The reactions to the article are really worth reading as are AAC&U President's Carol Schneider's response here: http://blog.aacu.org/index.php/2009/10/19/the-proof-is-in-the-portfolio/

Our response? Assessment need not be an "either/or" between testing or portfolios. We are addressing the "scalability" issue through the use of "tagging", wherein students can tag artifacts that map to course, dept., institutional and national learning outcome/goals. We no longer feel that there need be a dicotomy between ePortfolio and Assessment systems, as tagging can address both needs.

ePortfolio Conference, August, 09, CSU/Merlot

2009-10-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

ePortfolio Day of Planning August 13, 2009 ~~ San Jose, California

A great post-conference website has been set up as a source of information and support:
Videos of presentations are available and cover these topics:
Day of Planning Home
Orientation
Mapping
Creating an ePortfolio Culture

ePortfolio Overview Video

2009-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a great overview PPT movie about ePortfolios made by a student at BCIT.
I especially like the emphasis on developing a positive online "reputation". With employers now checking social media before hiring candidates, having an ePortfolio will be an important distiction for students.

2009-08-31T14:18:00.001-07:00

We've continued to build out our ePortfolio clearinghouse website at SF State--
http://eportfolio.sfsu.edu
Our Gallery includes new examples of student sites, department archives and information on the 2 "build options" or approaches we are supporting on our campus.

This year we are focusing on assisting faculty and students with reflective writing as a core element in the creation of a meaningful portfolio. A recent essay in Wired by Clive Thompson on the "New Literacy" underscores our understanding of the relevance of student writing tied directly to projects/artifacts/evidence.

ePortfolios are a direct way to educate students on the larger discipline specific competencies that they are required to demonstrate.
Reflective writing with links from coursework to goals for a student's major empower students to publicly demonstrate their growing expertise.
Here is an undergraduate example from a Child and Adolescent Development student: http://elinagonzalez.sfsucad.efolioworld.com/
and an example of a Master in Public Health student among many others in the Gallery: http://ingridochoa.sfsu.efolioworld.com/

Thompson writes: "We think of writing as either good or bad. What today's young people know is that knowing who you're writing for and why you're writing might be the most crucial factor of all."
We couldn't agree more!

AAC & U: VALUE Leadership Campus Activity

2009-06-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

SF State has enjoyed participating in AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative through our work on the VALUE project--which "seeks to contribute to the national dialogue on assessment of college student learning," through the development of "meta-rubrics" for national use.

Maggie Beers, our Director of Academic Technology will represent the project in DC in June and address questions related to ePortfolio use at SF State. We've learned a lot since our first needs assessment in 2005 and look forward to sharing and learning from other leadership campuses.

California State University ePortfolio Project

2009-04-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

The CSU ePortfolio Project is a community of members – CSU faculty, staff, administrators – that share a common interest in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning through the use of ePortfolios. Lots of good links and information on this site and also on MERLOT:
http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/eportfolio/

Feb. 25, 2009 ePortfolio Day of Dialogue in San Francisco

2009-02-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

We are gearing up to host a day long conference this month on Feb.25th in San Francisco. Co-sponsored by the CSU Chancellor's office (CDL), SF and San Jose State Universities: http://conference.csuprojects.org/eportfolios

This all-day event is designed to bring together K- 20 and workforce organizations who use or who are interested in using ePortfolios. Attendees will have opportunities to hear students, faculty, and experts address issues of teaching, learning, assessment, and tools. We will share successes, lessons learned, tips, and strategies using the latest electronic portfolio technology.
This event is open to the public and anyone interested in the use of ePortfolios in K-20 educational settings. The conference will be held at SF State's new, beautiful downtown campus, 835 Market Street.
http:eportfolio.sfsu.edu
We are also hosting the NCEPR (National Coalition of Electronic Portfolio Research) Our campus along with San Jose State have been members of a research cohort for 2 years, h ttp://ncepr.org/cohort3.html
This week we will be joining with a new cohort (V) to share our results--the successes, failures, and challenges ahead in developing ePortfolio practices in higher education.
Update: Many of the presentations from this event are now archived at:
http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/eportfolio/resources/eportdodgrid.html

eFolio Summit, 2008

2008-08-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful balmy week in Minneapolis--perfect time to gather to talk about projects using eFolio. My talk, "Learning Locally, Thinking Globally--eFolio Passport to the World" focused on the human potential that can be captured and expressed in a portfolio. Here's a link to the 2008 proceedings.

ePortfolio Visits in the UK: Wolverhampton Univ. & The Open University

2008-04-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

We had a great visit to Wolverhampton University. Hosted by Lindsay Duncan-Pitt, we
toured the new building in Walsall. Note the cafeteria in the Social Tech area--what a concept. Loved the clocks with times from areas where many students are from...

Wolverhampton Library Social Tech Area
Lots of nice group interaction in this new library space and wireless access as well as desktop computers.

Upstairs in the Faculty Tech support area, again there are social tables & meeting spaces:

Emma Purnell shared her portfolio work using the Pebble Pad system

Can One-Size-Fit-All? ePortfolio Growth at San Francisco State

2007-10-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

“If the shoe fits, wear it.” --Old Proverb

“If software fits, wear it!” --New Proverb, Academic Technology, SF State

Finding the right “fit” is always challenging when considering implementation of any new technology across a range of disciplines--each with unique learning and teaching needs. In 2005, we conducted a needs assessment of our campus relating to the use of student portfolios (both paper and digital). Many departments had begun using their own solutions to create student ePortfolios, raising fiscal and technical-support sustainability issues. Another worry was that students could be required to create different portfolios for different classes/majors, with no technical or pedagogical coherence. With 28,000 students across 90 programs/departments, a growing sense was that things could get “unwieldy” and that Academic Resources should prepare to recommend a unified campus-wide ePortfolio system.

Feedback gathered from more than 40 undergraduate, graduate, and credential programs has guided SF State’s ePortfolio Project in some unexpected directions over the past three years. Sixty-two percent of respondents (25 departments) already required some form of student portfolios (paper-based or digital) or expressed interest in using electronic portfolios at the course or department levels. Nearly two-thirds of those requiring student portfolios (17 departments) were already working with a range of digital portfolio solutions (hosted software such as eFolio Minnesota, Carnegie’s KEEP Toolkit, Taskstream) as well as CD/DVD, and SF State built software and websites.

Was it essential to rein in department level ePortfolio developments and push everyone towards one system? Was there a "magic bullet" system that we could afford and roll out campus-wide? If so, what was it, and how could we project a budget scenario for it? Moreover, what would this "top-down" decision do to the existing portfolio-using programs that represented our core expertise relating to the teaching and learning benefits of ePortfolios?

Focusing on the top primary purpose(s) cited for student ePorfolios gave us some directional clues. “Career development and supporting student professional preparation” were by far the most important reason for portfolio use. Most indicated that portfolios were used for senior seminar requirements, capstone “signature” assignments, Internship reflection, graduate research, culminating project presentation, and creative/design/performing arts professional portfolios. Portfolios needed to be “student-centered and controlled” yet archivable.

“Student assessment” portfolios, tying coursework and student artifact/evidence to stated program goals, state standards, or professional licensure requirements were second. Finally, program assessment—tracking groups of students to support accreditation needs and aggregate student achievement data was seen as a value. The I-CAP (Candidate Assessment Portfolio) system was created by the College of Education to help students meet their California Teaching Performance Expectations in Secondary Education, a “homegrown” example of a portfolio file repository system.

For some departments, a mix of these three core functions was seen as ideal. However, consistent faculty concerns included the need for freedom and flexibility of any portfolio tool--the importance of a student’s ability to uniquely reflect upon their academic work, life experiences, and professional goals. Faculty members expressed that a “one size fits all” system would not support these important aspects of portfolio development, and could impede student incentive to invest energy in creating a portfolio.

Inspired by Penn State’s use of open web-space, we established an ePortfolio clearinghouse site”, http://eportfolio.sfsu.edu and began creating web-templates and an online tutorial for students to publish ePortfolios to SFSU web-space (200 Mbytes). This has accommodated the request for attractive capstone ePortfolio templates in disciplines such as Public Administration, Professional Technical Writing, Information Systems and Interior/Apparel Design among others.

In English Education, we use the KEEP Toolkit to create student portfolios—also introducing the students to the rich archives of the Carnegie Foundation, where their portfolios are hosted. In Public Health Education as well as Recreation Studies, easy-to-use web-based eFolio has been successfully implemented, with graduates sites archived each year on the Health Education Department website.

In the long term, our campus may launch a repository ePortfolio system that would play well with our CMS, ILearn (Moodle). However, the core functionality of an ePortfolio management system would still need to accommodate the valuable “face to the world” capstone portfolio sites that benefit students as they enter careers. As one public health student told us, “When I went to Kaiser for the job interview, they had my ePortfolio site pulled up on the screen, and had printed out examples of my work. I’m convinced that the ePortfolio was important to my being hired.”

At this point, we have found that addressing the unique situational and contextual factors within a course or program appears to be working well to deliver the outcomes our institution desires. Regarding concerns that students may be asked to create several different portfolios, we have seen students become increasingly more comfortable with representing themselves on the web (with Facebook, MySpace, Google Pages, personal websites and multiple Picasa or Flickr albums). Creating a new portfolio is more like putting on a new shoe: the same basic concept, with different styles or software for different occasions. You can check out our gallery space to see examples created using a variety of tools.

We welcome your thoughts!

1

Growing a Solution

2007-07-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

The VP of Academic Resources, Enrique Riveros-Schafer began to receive requests for funding related to ePortfolios. In response, in the fall of 2005, Kevin Kelly (Academic Technology Director) and I were asked to conduct a needs assessment of our campus related to the use of portfolios.

Portfolios were not a new idea, and many departments have used portfolio review as a primary assessment strategy for years.
We wanted to find: 1) identify depts. currently requiring student portfolios (paper or digital); 2) clarify emerging dept. needs (formative/summative/capstone use of portfolios); 3) analyze investigative data from other comparable universities.

Based on our findings, we were asked to recommend a preliminary course of action for Academic Resources.
The assessment was prompted by concern that each college/dept. were using their own approaches, which in the long term was not fiscally sustainable. It also posed issues for students who could be asked to create different portfolios for different classes/majors, with no technical or pedagogical parity.

An underlying assumption was that things could get unwieldy and we might want to recommend a universal/unified eportfolio system for the whole campus. The vendors certainly were keen on suggesting that this was the only way to proceed.

But from day one, it was clear that a "one size fits all" approach would not work on our campus. The use, definition and application of portfolios were varied, with existing portfolio use already established. What we had rather was a tree with deep roots in using portfolios some disciplines (Education, the Arts, Health and Human Services among others). Some departments have always used portfolios. And there were new branches emerging each semester. What we quickly discovered was that:

40 Dept. Chairs/Faculty)indicated that they already required some form of portfolios (paper/digital), or expressed interest in using eportfolios at the course or dept. in the 2006-07 year.

17 depts. were already using some form of digital portfolios [Hosted solutions: eFolio, Taskstream, homegrown solutions, ICAP, DIVA, as well as CD's, DVD's and websites

Was there a "magic bullet", or a tool that we could afford and roll out across our 28,000 student campus? If so, what WAS it, and could we afford it? And what would this "top-down" decision do to the existing portfolio using programs? These programs represented our core expertise and we didn't want to alienate them.

In looking at many tools (thanks Helen Barrett for pioneering the effort!), and given an extremely limited budget for new projects, we realized that we needed to take each departmental need on it's own terms. Which meant different definitions.
Oh, and...What WAS an ePortfolio anyway? (Definitions were slippery, even between colleges on our campus.)

In addition to writing the report, I made a concept map of our situation. It looked like a sea urchin with tendrils in all directions. Hard to get one's head around.
What would be an organic growth model that would allow for the rooted depts. to deepen their efforts, new projects to start, but the core trunk to be unifed in philosophy, approach, and ultimately in the technology?

The image of a tree arose. I sketched out the exisiting long-standing projects as roots, with strong branches, and the newer developments as new growth.
OK, so I AM a foresters daughter, but the tree metaphor really allowed me to drop the pressure that there would be one solution the University would need to impose.
And so...we now have solutions that are tailored to needs. We have student portfolios being created with many tools. Check out out gallery space to see some examples.
The best fit we could find at this point. And a way to support, deepen and nurture those programs with their roots already well established in the use of portfolios.

=======================================
To read more about the SFSU needs assessment approach: http://academic.sfsu.edu/ar/at/otl/eport.php

Guiding Questions for ePortfolio Development

2007-06-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

Guiding Questions for ePortfolio Development
These are the kind of questions that we ask faculty/programs interested in using ePortfolios:

• Describe your student ePortfolio Project [Will ePortfolios be used at the Course, Program, Dept., Campus levels? Will the ePortfolios need to be shared with other institutions? FALL, 2006 or SPRING, 2007 roll-out? Focus on one project.] How are you defining ePortfolios?]

• What are your core goals in using ePortfolios? [Formative/summative assessment, capstone/culminating, professional development, demonstrating examples of work linked to institutional goals. Will multiple faculty need to view a student site, or comment directly on ePortfolios?

• What knowledge, skills, values/reflections will you want students to share in their portfolios?

• What types of media/artifacts/evidence do you want students to use/archive to demonstrate competencies in these areas? [Signature assignments/Documents, ppt., multimedia (audio/ video), websites/links]

• What resources will you need to support student’s creating/uploading various media?

• What standards/processes for evaluation of ePortfolios will you use? (Peer review, rubrics, signature assignments, instructor comment boxes etc.)

Please share any other approaches you may have with us!

View from the Hill--Carnegie's KEEP Toolkit as ePortfolio

2007-06-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

The view from the top of the hill is magnificent as we drive up next to the 18th fairway on the Stanford Golf course to the Carnegie Foundation. Our consortium of community colleges and CSU's in N. California has been meeting once a month all year (Fall 2006-07) to scheme on ePortfolio solutions. We've been working all year on cracking open the puzzle of migratory students, who move between 2 year campuses as well as the 2 Yr. to 4 Yr. transfer issues using ePortfolios as as way to document and track students.
Yesterday and today, we are exploring the use of the KEEP toolkit for student portfolios. developed at the Knowledge Media Lab at Carnegie, KEEP was designed for instructors to be able to make quick "snaphot" websites of their best practices.
But on several of our campuses, we have been using the KEEP tool to create student sites.
For example, at SFSU, our English Education students are documenting their work:
http://www.cfkeep.org/html/stitch.php?s=16037422061001&id=70274436911824
The URL's for these portfolios have been unfriendly--today we learned that there is a new version of the toolkit that will shorten URL's and add a tagging function to make it easier to find one's work.
Our 2 days of work together (CSM, SFCC, De Anza, Skyline, SFSU, East Bay, Stanford) was fruitful. We deepened our discussions around use of ePortfolios in advising, transfer and at the course, program and institutional levels. Small group work yielded insights and anchored some pilots for the coming year within and between our campuses.
At Carnegie, we heard about their new "Teaching Commons" archive--an extension of a search able Gallery of snapshots, and a renegade "build-out" of KEEP by some grad students at Claremont College "KEEP Social Learning Suite 1.0".
Lots of potential & we will be creating a KEEP site for our DTLC (Digital Teaching & Learning Consortium) activities.

EPortfolios in Higher Ed--Blogging The Quest!

2007-06-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

Have wanted to begin documenting my adventures in ePortfolio land for a while, so this is the first plunge into these blogwaters. Starting this blog in Santa Monica at the Google teachers academy,to learn more about tools like Sketch up, google earth, and docs/spreadsheets and the ways that teachers are using the tools to support classroom activities.

The call to adventure (heroine's journey!) began almost 4 years ago, when I walked one summer into the chair of the Health Education Department's office one summer. Next to Mary Beth Love's desk was a pile of paper-based culminating portfolios from the class of 2004. Portfolios were required of all Master of Public Health students in the program, and it fell on her to grade them at the end of a 3 year program.
Opening one, I was struck by the reflective writing, evidence of community-based work, and how unique each portfolio was--scrapbooks of their time in the program.

"We could do these electronically," I naively suggested. Little did I know that a simple comment would inititate a journey into ever widening circles of vendors/solutions and opensource debates, conferences, research, and a new position within the university.
We did launch the MPH eFolio pilot, with our first eFolios completed by the class of 2005. I will hope to tell some of the unique, individual stories of how having an ePortfolio changed student's lives in this blog.
To learn more about that project: http://www.sfsu.edu/~hed/masters/portfolio.htm

New jargon, new academic technology friends, new pilots each semester within a wide range of disciplines. We made this site this year to assist with the effort: http://eportfolio.sfsu.edu

So while I begin today, hoping and imagining a web-based/Google eportfolio tool, or the big dream of giving each student upon admission a "toolkit" with email, LMS access and an ePortfolio, we are not quite there.
But it's time to keep track of what has happened on our cmapus, and this blog is the tale of my journey--or in the re-telling the best that I can muster at this point!

In the beginning...

2007-06-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

there was the portfolio process...

My background is in the performing arts, so the concept of product/performance based review and assessment comes naturally...at Cal Arts, portfolios were required for admission, and both formative and summative review. We were asked to write a reflective statement for each course, which was met by instructor review of your work--this provided a kind of reflective dialogue between students and faculty.

While this may not be possible or desirable in all disciplines, the concept of reflecting on your work and projecting how the product, performance, or evidence might be of use in your professional development is central to my definition of a portfolio.

So when we required all of the students in the Master of Public Health Program to create "eFolios", I figured I'd better set one up for myself as well: http://ruthcox.sfsu.myefolio.com
Luckily, the Minnesota-created software (Avenet & MNSCU) made it easy and fun!

Master of Public Health ePortfolios:2004-2007

2007-06-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

The MPH program at SF State is an innovative program with unique features:

Educational partnerships with Bay Area Departments of Public Health and community-based organizations to strengthen the link between theory and practice through hands-on experience.
Students move through the program together for three years in a “learning community.”
Supervised practice with a team of community-based, experienced public health professionals.
Participatory learning that is focused on complex contemporary problems in diverse communities.
Evening classes to accommodate working professionals.
An ecological approach, emphasizing the importance of addressing multi-level determinants of health to achieve health equity.
Student electronic portfolio development.
Emphasis on written and oral communication skills development.
Reflective Seminars to strengthen students’ skills in collaborative leadership.
Faculty committed to social justice and active in advocacy and public policy work.

Students are introduced to their eFolios in Year 1 and use them throughout their time in the program for formative (advisor meetings) and summative review. Here are a few examples of completed MPH eFolios:
http:pedroarista.efolioworld.com
http://catherinemagee.efolioworld.com
http://rachelpoulain.efolioworld.com