National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Learning

(KapCC Project Leaders: Kelli Goya, Lisa Kanae, Judith Kirkpatrick, Tanya Renner)

• Several programs at the College currently require student electronic portfolios, including New Media Arts, the Culinary Institute of the Pacific, the Educational Interpreters, Educational Assistants programs, all of which are in development and have some eportfolio elements defined. The developmental writing program also uses portfolios for research and assessment.  
• The Title III 2004-2009 funding has, as one of its primary assessment tools, the use of electronic portfolios for various programs such as the Malama Native Hawaiian support group, the Hospitality hotel and tourism operations program, and the Long Term Care program as pilot groups. Also, the International Education Emphasis group and our culinary program will be requiring electronic portfolios as program assessment venues. Electronic portfolios, in addition, are a key component of pending funding applications.

Goals

• The College supports the use of department webfolios not only to assess but also to use for career advancement and promotion of critical thinking and reflection.
• Track and increase Native Hawaiian student success and retention
• Assess emphases and programs such as our International Education, Information Technology, Writing Across the Curriculum, emphases, and our transfer level associate degrees.
• Develop a Kapi'olani teaching eportfolio template for faculty.
• The ACE/FIPSE consortium has consulted and chosen to use, for assessment of its varied international programs, the Open Source Portfolio, after much consideration and consultation.

Current issues

Our primary motivations for adopting an eportfolio program for this campus are learner-centered, and include the following goals:

1. improve student learning

2. improve assessment of student learning

3. develop long-term relationships with students, from pre-enrollment to transfer and employment, enrich the information that students take with them when they graduate. 

Focus

1. Research focus is to identify those structures e.g., templates, assignments, instructions, and other scaffolding), that will:

• reliably elicit the kinds of skills and knowledge we intend to measure •e.g., written communication, quantitative reasoning)
• promote deep reflection and personal assessment
• help students to develop an increasing sense of empowerment and responsibility for their own education
• promote critical thinking
• give students the means to create a showcase for their work

2. Research focus:

• develop scoring strategies that will reliably measure the learning, especially the qualitative, abstract, and multidisciplinary learning, that can be demonstrated in an eportfolio.
• discover and document whether similar structures can be used effectively across disciplines and/or across different levels of academic development.

Currently, faculty members are exploring how to structure eportfolio assignments for improvement of learning in a way that simultaneously produces measurable learning outcomes and a vehicle for students to display their work. Others have developed scoring rubrics and are in the process of testing them out with a variety of qualitative portfolio data, including assessment of written communication, assessment of critical thinking, and prediction of success in subsequent courses. There is also substantial interest in helping students to create ways to exhibit their achievements and abilities in an eportfolio that would provide the richness that a simple transcript cannot.

Topic to research with all campuses in the cohort.

 Our Malama Hawai'i program, which provides support for Native Hawaiian students, has piloted an eportfolio project that encourages students to assess their work in terms of Hawaiian values (e.g., cooperation, inspiring others through example, compassion, story-telling, and family connections).

• This eportfolio model provides extensive, personalized support for academic planning and tracking of work accomplished.
• We will extend this innovative model to a broader cultural setting by discussing the values in more generic terms (e.g., self-awareness, cultural identity, functioning as a role model, and empowerment), and promoting the use of the model in our First Year Experience program. Students will develop an understanding of how their personal values relate to their educational experience, while simultaneously clarifying and delineating their educational and career goals.
• Our hypothesis is that this can be accomplished through the establishment of an electronic structure that will challenge students to engage in continuous assessment and reflection about their values and their educational/career objectives. 
• Dependent measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach and to identify ways to strengthen it include self-reports regarding achievement and attitudes before-and-after for eportfolio users and those who don't use eportfolios, GPA, qualitative scoring of artifacts, and retention rates.

 Current research

• Portfolios are used in our developmental composition course, spearheaded by the course coordinator, Krista Hiser. They have identified elements in portfolios that predict success in college-level courses. Results, shared internally to date, bring consistency and and qualitative improvement to the developmental English program.
• The Title III Strengthening Services and Support for Students project is underway with plans to use a Malama Hawaii ePortfolio as a medium to track student self-assessment and reflection based on a Hawaiian values framework from pre-college students to transfer students to a four-year institution or employment.
• The culinary faculty are requiring eportfolios for course and program assessment in their Culinary Institute of the Pacific program. Templates are evolving.

College Benefits

• The College would benefit from collaboration with other institutions who are currently implementing eportfolio programs for all students. We have consulted with various campus leaders such as Sharon Hamilton, IUPUI, and know this is a long-term commitment by our College, but feel the Coalition would be a catalyst to successful implementation across our campus.
• We would like to not reinvent the wheel, but instead learn from others' experiences, especially in terms of training and support needed, troubleshooting, and potential applications we have not yet considered.
• The College will network with others to keep up with ways of using this technology in a paradigm shift to developing a culture of evidence in our programs.
• Research power—larger and broader samples for more accurate results.
• Avoiding insularity so that we may be more creative and informed about our choices.

  KapCC will bring the following activities

• A history of delivering quality products, both in terms of education and research.
• Participation by a unique and diverse student body and faculty.
• Serious commitment and experience in learning outcomes assessment, learner-centered education, educational innovation, and a wide variety of delivery strategies.
• Many faculty members already involved at various levels with eportfolios: pre-education and educational assistants programs; New Media Arts; Culinary; Hospitality; a writing faculty committed to student portfolios; a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty who will have student research driven eportfolios as a part of their pre-transfer program.
• The College has developed and disseminated successful rubrics for assessment of its service learning and international education programs.

updated 05.05.05
Professor Judith Kirkpatrick
Coordinator Kapi'olani Information Technology Emphasis
Eportfolio Project Manager
Kapi'olani Community College
4303 Diamond Head Road
Honolulu, HI 96816
kirkpatr@hawaii.edu