TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATOR INITIATIVE 2020
Using ePortfolios for PostGrad Counselling:
Student Professional Preparation and Employability
Dr Nathan Beel (BACoun, GradDipCoun, MCoun, PhD) is a Senior Lecturer of Counselling in the School of Psychology and Counselling. Nathan is Program Director (Undergraduate Counselling) and Bachelor of Science (Counselling), and Acting Program Director of the Graduate Certificate of Counselling and Graduate Diploma of Counselling, and Counselling Discipline Lead.
Program and cohort
Graduate Diploma of Counselling (GDCN) and Master of Counselling (MCCO).
558 postgraduate students.
Context
Counselling accreditation requirements emphasise that students engage in progressive monitoring and evaluation of their work, on becoming reflective practitioners, engaging in professional/personal development, and having a portfolio of work in placement. In addition, we believe a program-wide portfolio strategy may help enhance employability.
An eportfolio will assist in student’s cognitive engagement by enabling them to see the development of their expertise and knowledge over time and to determine what is displayed and to whom, particularly if students use it as a digital CV. It will also provide a platform for social engagement if used as a means of introducing students to one another’s portfolio work. The eportfolio will assist students in developing agency in that while we expect it will be integrated into course work, it can be used by the students for more than course work, in that it can contribute to develop (and articulate) development of a professional identity.
Description of program design
The School of Psychology and Counselling’s Academic Plan First Year experience lists the culmination of a portfolio of competencies from their studies as an employability goal, as outlined:
“Our plan is designed to enhance students’ employability, not just through embedding new content throughout our curricula and delivering innovative learning experiences for our students, but through the creation of individual student portfolios. These portfolios will be populated from the students’ first semester at USQ, demonstrating how the courses they have completed are contributing to their developing skill set, culminating in an e-portfolio that showcases their professional competencies. This activity will not only benefit students by highlighting to prospective employers students’ growing skill sets, but this enriched student experience should be augmented across the psychology and counselling disciplines as measured by positive course health check data and University QILT data, specifically in terms of enhanced skill development.”
The aim of this project is to establish a portfolio-based platform that proffers an effective and efficient eportfolio solution for our postgraduate counselling students at the GradDip and Masters levels, develop program-level resources to support individual student’s creation of their eportfolio, and provide staff training to integrate eportfolio learning tasks into postgraduate counselling courses in the future.
