Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:49
I want to comment on Stefani's paper, which despite the typos seemed the most coherent comment on the whys and hows of eportfolios we have come across so far...
First off she makes an explicit connection between a PDP (Personal Development Planning) and CPD (Continuing Professional Development). So the former is when students keep a portfolio of the stuff their studying and the latter is when a professional (like a teacher) keeps a portfolio to show what an ace they are at their job and how they keep up-to-date with current practice.
Now I've mentioned before that I'm what's called PD (Professional Development) coordinator at our college, so I originally had more interest in the CPD, BUT our Chancellor Sheikh Nahyan said in a keynote address to our annual conference that all students should have a PDP by the end of the college careers, so now it seems I have even more reason to get on board the portfolios...
So Stefani goes to say that in order for college wide PDP to happen, we need to "model good practice". So the nub of it is we should get teachers to produce their CPDs before we ask students to produce PDPs, which is what I'm currently trying to make happen at our place...
Stefani offers some additional insights, such as what constitutes a CPD (courses and conferences, professional interactions, networking, consulting experts etc) and then draws parrallels between this and PDP.
She also talks about the role of a portfolio as a tool for reflection and even a way to measure 'teaching excellence' an issue in our colleges as well. We find that many teachers, especially those from a "content" background (business, health etc) don't have much background in teaching, with many of them coming from industry, so anything that can encourage good pedagogic practice could be just what the doctor ordered...
She goes onto describe how this excellence might be measured, or at least the domains for consideration, and again this seems to be very concrete applicable advice...
A final point to mention is she uses her own university's LMS, so with me using BlackBoard Learn as my portfolio I'm in good company
New blog post
I want to comment on Stefani's paper, which despite the typos seemed the most coherent comment on the whys and hows of eportfolios we have come across so far...
First off she makes an explicit connection between a PDP (Personal Development Planning) and CPD (Continuing Professional Development). So the former is when students keep a portfolio of the stuff their studying and the latter is when a professional (like a teacher) keeps a portfolio to show what an ace they are at their job and how they keep up-to-date with current practice.
Now I've mentioned before that I'm what's called PD (Professional Development) coordinator at our college, so I originally had more interest in the CPD, BUT our Chancellor Sheikh Nahyan said in a keynote address to our annual conference that all students should have a PDP by the end of the college careers, so now it seems I have even more reason to get on board the portfolios...
So Stefani goes to say that in order for college wide PDP to happen, we need to "model good practice". So the nub of it is we should get teachers to produce their CPDs before we ask students to produce PDPs, which is what I'm currently trying to make happen at our place...
Stefani offers some additional insights, such as what constitutes a CPD (courses and conferences, professional interactions, networking, consulting experts etc) and then draws parrallels between this and PDP.
She also talks about the role of a portfolio as a tool for reflection and even a way to measure 'teaching excellence' an issue in our colleges as well. We find that many teachers, especially those from a "content" background (business, health etc) don't have much background in teaching, with many of them coming from industry, so anything that can encourage good pedagogic practice could be just what the doctor ordered...
She goes onto describe how this excellence might be measured, or at least the domains for consideration, and again this seems to be very concrete applicable advice...
A final point to mention is she uses her own university's LMS, so with me using BlackBoard Learn as my portfolio I'm in good company