On the PCHE course, a major component of the assessment is the portfolio. We have to maintain this portfolio throughout the course, and include reflections on our learning and teaching experiences, along with anything else we feel is relevant, such as clippings from articles and planning materials from sessions we’ve taught. At the end of the course, we all submit our portfolios and then the external examiner selects a few (partly at random, but to cover a decent cross-section of the course demographic) to make sure that the overall standard is good.
I keep my portfolio in digital form, using Circus Ponies Notebook on my laptop. This works very well for me, as I can type prose considerably quicker than I can write with pen and paper, so I’m able to keep up with my thoughts better. It also means that I can include movies and audio clips: for example, I have done a couple of supervision sessions with other people on the course and recorded the debrief session rather than taking notes. There are still a few physical bits of paper that I have too, primarily handouts from course workshops, but almost all of it is digital.
"Files" by S. C. Asher, Flickr
Now, I fully understand the reasoning behind having everyone submit their portfolio on the same day, even if only 3 or 4 will actually be checked by the examiner. If only those requested by the examiner were submitted, how could the examiner know that the rest had even produced a portfolio?
What I struggle to understand is this: why do I have to print off 100+ pages of A4 that may never leave the folder I submit them in? I’m going to have to put the multimedia bits on a CD anyway, so why can’t I submit the whole thing on CD. I could export it both as HTML for screen reading and as a PDF for the examiner to print and read offline if she prefers. All the links between sections would be preserved for easy browsing. I could even submit it by email (albeit quite a large one) and do away with having to submit a physical artifact at all. With a digital copy of the digital original, there’s nothing to stop the examiner from perusing it in whatever way she sees fit.
I’m not sure why it is that it’s done in this way: most likely it made sense when the course was first set up. I am sure, though, that it’s time to update this policy. In my ideal world, there would probably be a central e-portfolio system for us to use, but given the very personal nature of the PCHE portfolio this would probably need to be optional, since for some people the advantages of a physical portfolio outweight the disadvantages. However, even being allowed to submit the portfolio on CD would be a start.
Do you assess your learners using a portfolio? Is it a physical or digital artifact, or somewhere in between? Leave your comments below.
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To update you all on the situation which inspired this rant, my portfolio was indeed selected, so the external examiner did read it. I didn’t print it out completely in vain after all. He commented himself, though, that it would have been much easier to navigate had he been able to view it in electronic form. It seems that documents build around hyperlinking and tagging don’t lend themselves easily to linear navigation on paper: who knew?
Either way, hopefully I’ll have done enough to cause this issue to be revisited by the course tutors (lovely people, all) and the rules will be revised for the future.
Hi Jez – how are you doing? I saw your email to Jonathan, and I couldn’t resist a look at your blog. So I have a question (or more of a challenge for me really) which relates to my personal development in Internal Consulting capability, which is:… Much of the evidence required around how I am developing these skills, is to be via “reflective writing” after meetings, events etc. I feel pretty stupid saying this, but having had no actual uni education, I really have no idea how to go about “reflective writing”. I am very much a “facts” or list person, eg This is what I did, this is what we achieved. Where to I start to understand exactly what is reflective writing – and how can it help me with my evidence for development?
Jez – I don’t know if this response is attached to the right topic – maybe it should be a new one? but hope it might give food for thought – or produce some tips to help me!
Hi Jenni, thanks for getting in touch and thanks for the question — definitely food for thought. It probably merits a new post of its own, but until I get round to that here are some thoughts.
In my experience, reflection isn’t something which all, or even many, university students are expected to make use of. It seems only to be common in teaching and areas related to medicine, particularly psychotherapy. Until I started doing my teaching qualification in the second year of my PhD I’d never come across it, so you’re probably in a significant majority there!
The purpose of reflection is, as far as I can make out, to learn from your own experience in a more structured way than just picking things up as you go along. By thinking not only about what you did, but how and why it did or didn’t work, you can figure out how to improve.
Anyway, I’m like you, in that I like facts and lists. One technique that I’ve found useful to get beyond that is to set a timer for, say, 10 minutes, and sit down and write (with pen and ink or at my laptop) for that period of time without allowing any stopping or editing. It doesn’t matter what comes out, as long as you don’t stop writing! Then, I can go back over what I’ve written, sometimes with a highlighter, and draw things out into fact-and-list form.
Anyway, this is plenty long enough for now — I’ll write a more detailed post soon, promise!
Hi both,
I was on a coaching development programme last year and had to write personal reflection assignments at regular intervals as part of the assessment. The title we were set for the final reflection exercise was
“‘Reflect upon your personal development as a coach over the duration of the coaching programme”
This leaves it quite open for how to approach the assignment but I believe the aim was to reflect on what I learnt from my coaching experiences: how I feel I added value (or not) to my coaching sessions; how the models helped or hindered me; what does my experience tell me about me as a coach; how might I do things differently next time; do my own preferences or judgements play a part and what can I learn from this…
The aim was to build self-awareness and learning. It is not to describe what actually happended but to think deeply about / reflect on what I leanrt from the experience. It took some practice before I found my rhythm but after some initial scepticism, I can honestly say I found the experience enlightening, cathartic and very useful.