Talk:Ashley's Portfolio Page

Focus -- Jianwei Zhang 15:32, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Ashley, You have made quite some progress in this design project. I want to point you to an existing course that you may have reviewed: E-Portfolio. You may want to think deeper about how you will distinct your course from the existing one, so that you can avoid repeating the same kind of work and focus your energy on addressing identified important issues in at a deeper level. For example, the above course is a general introduction to e-portfolio focusing on "teacher-centered" issues; you may focus more on using e-portfolio to support student-directed inquiry and assessment engaging students in self-reflection and regulation, with the teacher providing guidance and formative feedback. Is this close to what you're thinking about?

For content/topics that have already been taught in the above course, you can simply include links to the corresponding sections without needing to re-creating similar pages. An example is UNIT_1_-_A_Quick_Review_of_Inquiry-Based_Learning in which it is noted "There are many very good resources on what exactly inquiry learning is including a mini-course on inquiry found here."

Learners -- Susan.towey 20:41, 20 March 2009 (EDT)

I like the idea of using electronic portfolio, your users are students, but I wonder if it would also benefit educators who are unfamiliar with the process and use of technology. I have heard of this type of portfolio but have personally no idea how to facilitate one for my students. I would like to use something like this for my AVID student's next year.

You have a great start to your project, One side not you spelled portfolio wrong in your first page(2/22 I am interested in doing a case study on Electronic Portolio's)

Susan

Great Idea! -- Melissastepanian 15:47, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Ashley -

Great idea!

I think electronic porfolios are great ways to create a deeper sense of student understanding of progress. I wish that more teachers felt comfortable enough with the learning strategy to try it! I find that the students would also find this appealing because it directly connects to their own learning styles and strengths.

Question for You - I have been playing around with my wikipage and have been having trouble setting up a "contents" section in order to create quick navigating links throughout my page. How did you do that? I would truly appreciate your help.

Thanks so much!

Looking forward to hearing back from you soon!

~Melissa

Re. objectives and ICM -- Jianwei Zhang 10:17, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Great that you have defined and sequenced the objectives in a clear and proper way. Nice work! Two questions for you to consider:

(a) There seem to be two different purposes EP is used for: as a formative assessment tool and as a self-presentation (like a resume). Am I right that you're primarily focusing on EP as formative assessment and reflection? If so, you may want to make it clear to students, so that they understand the significance and relevance of EP: becoming a reflective and strategic learner.

(b) In your map, understanding uses of rubrics is listed as an entry skill. Do you think this expectation is too high?

Peer Review - Dan Fountain -- DanFountain 11:21, 29 March 2009 (EDT)

Ashley, your page looks great and I think electronic portfolios are a great idea to use in the classroom. You look like you have a lot of the lessons and things of that nature already layed out, and nicely organized and everything was easy to follow. My question would be is there anyway that you might address the problem of middle school students often having trouble staying with a project for a long period of time? If a student falls behind on their portfolio, or does not do a part of it, is there anyway they can recover? You definitely have a great start and it is a great topic. ~Dan

Feedback on your lesson design -- Jianwei Zhang 11:52, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

Nice work! I enjoyed reading your lesson plans to implement EP among middle school students. A few suggestions

(a) Contextualize your lessons: EP can be used for different purposes in different curriculum contexts. You may want to clarify the curriculum contexts/activities in which your EP lessons will be embedded in, for example, in an inquiry project, with EP as an integrated learning activity and assessment tool.

(b) Since providing these lessons as an classroom case study aims at helping other teachers who may learn from and adopt your work, you may want to elaborate more on the role of the teacher in these lessons.

(c) Cross-referencing E-Portfolio may help to save some of your time.

-- Melissastepanian 17:39, 27 April 2009 (EDT)

Great work!

I do agree that there should be more focus on the role of the teacher. You have picked a great topic which certainly needs to be examined by more educators. Your course will certainly help in their development. Great job!

-- Susan.towey 23:16, 28 April 2009 (EDT)

Ashley,

I love the 8th grade portfolio example, this hits home with its importance in the classroom. I look forward to sending this along to some of my colleagues.