Conversations: Student Portfolio SIG
Student portfolios at USQ – continuing the journey
Student portfolios (ePortfolios, digital portfolios, online portfolios) are not a new concept or practice in education. At USQ provision was made over 12 years ago for ready access to the Mahara portfolio platform where many students and staff created and continue to maintain an online presence.
More recently choice of platforms has extended to WordPress through the Create@USQ initiative. In 2021 pilot courses from Education, Psychology & Counselling, Visual Arts, and Nursing participated and over 2,000 student portfolios were generated across about 30 courses.
An evaluation of the pilot revealed affordances of the WordPress platform including templated approaches and flexibility for personal branding. Moving into 2022 and beyond this initiative will continue to grow and provide a viable option for student portfolios to align with the needs of the USQ Academic Plan – employability, digital literacy, Work Integrated Learning (WIL), and First Year Experience (FYE).
What is a portfolio?
A portfolio is a digitised collection of artefacts, and reflections purposefully compiled to share one’s work, efforts, and progress. In an ever challenging and competitive world a portfolio is part of your personal and professional branding. It may be linked to assessment and also provide long-term storage for your work and accomplishments.
Creation of a portfolio requires some technology mastery to digitise artefacts and create the online resource. It also involves evaluation of personal beliefs, philosophies, and objectives and sharing these in clear, informative and productive ways. The actual contents of a portfolio will depend on you.
Remember a portfolio should tell a story of you and your learning and professional journey.
The fours stages of portfolio development
The 4 stages of portfolio development include: collect, select, reflect and connect.
Collect – a range of evidence including, where contextually appropriate, media-rich artefacts from your learning and experiences.
Select – critically select key artefacts that share meaningful evidence of your growth, attainments and professional standing.
Reflect – make sure you reflect on and share narratives of ideas and experiences that have influenced your transformation.
Connect – look for points of connection among your artefacts, experiences, and reflections, to construct and present a “portrait” of you.
The top 10 reasons why you should create a portfolio
If you are ever in doubt as to the importance of creating a personal/professional portfolio, here are 10 reasons to help you get motivated….
- A portfolio helps you craft and present evidence-based and professional knowledge, skills and dispositions.
- A portfolio reveals your employability through sharing carefully selected artefacts and reflections that identify skills and competencies.
- You can share your CV through your portfolio.
- A portfolio is a way to connect and interact with others. Interaction often takes place via the blogging feature where viewers can comment.
- Creating a portfolio enhances your digital and online literacy which are also good employability skills.
- A learning portfolio is often used for assessment, such as reflective posts.
- A portfolio stores and shares multimedia creations for assessment or other purposes.
- A portfolio stores such items as documents, photos, videos or links that have meaning to you.
- A portfolio supports your ‘brand of me’ customisation and personalisation and how you want to promote yourself to others.
- A portfolio helps foster global connections and networks through sharing experiences and career development.
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