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e-Portfolios
& The Inquiry Learning Process:
"People
who talk about education have forever been mouthing aphorisms about
teaching students to think for themselves. It is the holy grail of teaching.
Everyone believes it, but very few do much about it."
Roger
Hutchins P19 www.edge.org/3rd_culture/hillis04/hillis04_index.html
One of the key intentions
of portfolios was to provide a more authentic assessment process rather
than simply setting a test at the conclusion of a given unit of work.
In other words the intent of portfolios was to represent the learning
process that the student had gone through in coming to understand the
concepts that underpinned the objective of the unit or topic.
“ePortfolios
contents and services can be shared with others in order to support
Prior Learning Accreditation and Recognition (PLAR), complete or replace
exams, reflect on one’s learning or career, support continuing
professional development, plan learning or search a job.”
http://www.qwiki.info/projects/Europortfolio
The need for students
to be very clear as to the specific purpose of the portfolio as this
purpose will vary depending upon the objectives set by the teacher,
the student or the collaborative objective(s) that have been set.
The use of inquiry
learning, and the setting of well structured questions including the
essential or key question as well as subsidiary questions, all of which
allow students to build the knowledge and concepts necessary to answer
the key/essential question through the inquiry process model.
The specific purpose
of a portfolio could be any of the following:
- Present a portfolio
that shows the design process that your group went through in order
to create your final product, system or environment.
- Your portfolio
should show the development of the ideas behind your final work of
art.
- The focus of
this unit in social studies is on looking at differences and similarities
in cultures. Create an electronic portfolio that will become a "time
capsule" which will be "dug up" in 50 years time. Create
the portfolio with the discoverers of your time in mind and write
about them from this perspective.
- In doing your
research there were many different inputs that had an effect on your
final result, and your portfolio should represents these and their
relative significance to your final research document.
- Use your electronic
portfolio to show evidence of the following qualities that you/your
team have had to call into play throughout this unit of work:
§
Persistence§
Teamwork (belonging, participating and contributing)
§
Reflective practices
§
Problem solving§
Critical literacy
§
Managing your time effectively
§
Confidence
- Your portfolio
should be in the form of a log/blog which represents the history of
your personal learning journey through this topic.
- Your portfolio
should represent a reflective process (Journal) on how your fitness
levels increased over the three-month period, and should include the
encouragements and/or discouragements that you encountered, and their
affect on your attitude towards the fitness program that you developed.
- At the beginning
of the science unit you will have had an understanding of the idea
of "floating and sinking" and at the end of the unit your
ideas may vary between considerably different and somewhat modified.
Your portfolio should reflect a flowchart showing your initial ideas
and how they evolved to become your final understanding of why things
float or sink.
- Your portfolio
should include a collection of 8 one-minute videotape clips showing
how the play production process evolved. Your presentation should
demonstrate four key elements: attitudes, your understanding of the
play's messages, the development of the set and your ability to work
as a team.
- Using your understanding
of the seven different intelligences (Gardner: Multiple Intelligences)
demonstrate how each of these intelligences was applied through this
unit of work, showing the development of your ideas by highlighting
two pieces of work that in your view are representative of as many
of the different intelligences as possible.
“The
ability to pose questions to understand ourselves and our world is at
the heart of what it means to be human. Unfortunately, this essential
human trait is distorted in many schools by an answering pedagogy: When
questions arise, knowledgeable teachers ask the ignorant students questions
primarily in the form of an examination.”
Yoram
Harpaz and Adam Lefstein: Communities of Thinking http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200011/abstracts.html#harpaz
In order
to record the inquiry learning process effectively an electronic portfolio
requires the following "spaces", tools and resources.
Some simple project
management tools:
- An online blog
in order to record reflective comments and encourage cross-fertilisation
of ideas between members of a team and members of other teams who
may share common interests.
- WYSIWYG spaces
where students can cooperatively create multimedia presentations online,
24/7.
- An online library
of reviewed resources that students can access from any Internet enabled
computer, eliminating the need for them to spend hours sifting through
the vast unfiltered libraries of resources (Google et al).
- Discussion areas
where students can share their ideas with other students and also
invite experts to come and be involved in their learning process.
- Access to software
that will enable students to create resource material and share their
resulting discoveries and the learning process with their peers, parents/caregivers,
teachers and the world.
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