E-Portfolios: A Reflection
Why should we use an E-Portfolio? To help us tell, remember, and reflect on our personal, professional, and/or educational story.
In the Reflection4Learning post they mentioned a quote by Donald Schön (1988):
“…for storytelling is the mode of description best suited to transformation in new situations of action.... Stories are products of reflection, but we do not usually hold onto them long enough to make them objects of reflection in their own right.... When we get into the habit of recording our stories, we can look at them again, attending to the meanings we have build into them and attending, as well, to our strategies of narrative description.”
This was eye-opening for me. During 5302, I made my ePortfolio and subsequent blog posts because I had to. I wanted to pass the class with a good grade, and that was the requirement. I read the information about COVA, I understood the premise of it, and love the idea for young students in a classroom setting. But for me, I was frustrated that I wasn't being told exactly what to do. It stressed me out. Looking at the portfolio as MY story changes things a bit. My story is something that I can personally connect with. How many times have I been to a professional development session and forgotten everything we did because I was so busy participating that I never sat down and reflected on what we learned? More times than I'd like to admit. My portfolio would be a great way to write and reflect about those experiences
Who has ownership of a learner's E-Portoflio?
Giving the learner ownership of their ePortfolio should be the educator's number one priority. It is this sense of ownership that makes the whole process relevant outside of the classroom. A true ePortfolio is something that any learner, and at any age can take with them and build upon throughout their educational and professional experiences. It is not the "one and done" assignment that I grew up with.
Looking back, I don't remember a lot of my educational experiences in grade school or college. Why is this? I didn't own them. I took the class, did the homework, studied what I had to, took a test, and moved on. It was never relevant to me. I just knew I had no choice, but to do it. The countless pages of essays and research papers, the hours and hours in a music library studying music from 100s of year ago has long been lost. I have to wonder if education was based on the COVA model when I was going through school, if I would have retained more information.
My experiences in my first two classes with Lamar, have opened my eyes up to more new ideas and though provoking conversations that I can ever remember having in my undergrad. I struggle with being given so much ownership in my learning, but can easily see the benefits and can see my growth. I am slowly gaining the confidence to trust my instincts and do what I know I can do.