What Culture Do We Want? An Argument for

Deliberative Assessment with Eportfolios

Darren Cambridge October 22, 2010

Assessment Institute

A Disruptive Innovation

E-Portfolio “projects … at their most effective … are (in very good ways) highly disruptive. They throw up needs for organizational change; change in governance; changes in the roles of many [faculty], and the consequent need for [faculty] development, changes in pedagogy, and hence to the nature and shape and form of [majors], and the consequent needs for educational development support; changes to the student’s ‘contract’ with [her institution] … If they are to deliver maximum effect … projects must accept and embrace all of these areas of implication, and no doubt others.”

−David Baume

Don’t do e-portfolio just for the purpose of assessment.

Rethinking Assessment

Assessment means making student learning visible so that it can inform programmatic and curricular innovation and demonstrate effect on learning and identity development

Looking afresh means asking:

• What kinds of learning do we value? • What assessment process do those values

imply? • How does this change how we think about

outcomes and evidence?

Minimum competence versus excellence and opportunity

WHAT DO WE VALUE ABOUT INDIVIDUAL LEARNING AND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT?

Authenticity

• Finding truth through examination of what is unique about oneself

• Enacting that difference through creative expression

• Protecting choice as a core value

Social Authenticity

Becoming an authentic individual is not a matter of recoiling from society in order to find and express the inner self. What it involves is the ability to be a reflective individual who discerns what is genuinely worth pursuing within the social context in which he or she is situated.

“Finding the Thread in My Life”

Integrity

• Consistency and coherence over time (lifelong)

• Consistency and coherence across roles (lifewide)

• Achieved and asserted through narrative

From Subject to Author

• Ordering role of institutions and traditions shifted to individual

• From being our values, relationships, and experiences to having them

• Overarching principles that mediate competition

• Thinking about the self as a system you compose and conduct

Symphonic Employability

• Career identity integrates– Human capital

(competencies)– Social capital– Adaptability

• Cultivated by narrative- Ashford et.

al.

Social Integrity

Environments for Growth

• In both personal and professional domains– Learning as attitude toward life– Supported by inviting environments

rich in content and people – Technology as a means to guide and

support

• Communicated by the portfolios as a whole

• Can inform her profession

IMPLICATIONS FOR HOW WE DO ASSESSMENT

Three curricula

Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom

Competencies

• Communication• Critical Thinking• Strategic Problem Solving• Valuing• Group Interaction

• Global Understanding• Effective Citizenship• Aesthetic Awareness• Information Technology

Rubrics

Liberal Education for America’s Promise• Knowledge of Human Cultures

and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences

and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral

communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving

• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and

engagement—local and global

– Intercultural knowledge and competence

– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for

lifelong learning

• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced

accomplishment across general and specialized studies

VALUE Intercultural Rubric

• Useful • Cost-effective• Reasonably accurate and truthful

– Multiple– Direct

• Planned, organized, systematized and sustained

• Kinds of direct evidence– Portfolios of student work – Student reflections on their values,

attitudes, and beliefs, if developing those are intended outcomes of the course or program

Deliberative Assessment

• Student are privileged informants about their own learning.

• Evidence of learning needs to come from multiple contexts, and the relationships between them need to be articulated.

• Assessment should be a system of deliberative processes inclusive of all stakeholders that makes programs more responsive to them.

A New Role for Competencies

• Standardized– Matching performance to a

pre-defined set of outcomes– Articulating expectations to students

• Deliberative– Capture standards all stakeholders value as enacted in

practice and examining alignment of both student and programmatic performance

– Means for mutually accountable connection between individual and organizational learning

– Boundary objects

Ineffable Essentially Contested

• Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are important but don’t think we can measure– E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility

• Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956)

– More optimal development because of contestation

Liberal Education for America’s Promise (LEAP)• Knowledge of Human Cultures

and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences

and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral

communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving

• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and

engagement—local and global

– Intercultural knowledge and competence

– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for

lifelong learning

• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced

accomplishment across general and specialized studies

Eportfolios for Contested Outcomes

• Measurable learning outcome: Ability to articulate a reasoned stance based on evidence

• Makes multiple understandings of outcomes visible

• Requires reasoning to be articulated• Grounds understanding in evidence and

experience• Puts multiple positions into conversation

Deliberative E-Portfolio Assessment

• Assessment as both a social and individual good means moving:

• From measuring outcomes to putting authentic, integral self-representations into conversation

• From consensus to contestation • From proof to inquiry • From authorship to participation with

authenticity and integrity

Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research

• 60 campuses from five countries

• Six three-year cohorts• Individual research questions • Common questions • Bi-annual meetings and online

collaboration

• Demonstrated links to increased student engagement, retention, study skills, course completion, and employability

• Two members received 2010 FIPSE funding for project informed by Coalition work

• AAC&U VALUE project leadership campuses largely drawn from Coalition membership and results frequently cited in their publications

Cohort VI

• Focused on assessment that capitalizes on what is distinctive about e-portfolios

• Non-negotiable core • Capabilities of the digital, networked

environment• Role in accreditation

• Interaction of Pieces of Evidence– For meaningful assessment, interaction of pieces of evidence

within an eportfolio is more important than single pieces of evidence

• Relationship between Evidence and Reflection– Reflection on pieces of evidence within an eportfolio and on

the eportfolio as a whole provides information for assessment that isn’t available by other means

• Meaningful Comparison without Standardization– Eportfolios enable meaningful comparison of student learning

across institutions (and other contexts) without standardization• Material Practices

– The material practice of eportfolio composition generates distinctive knowledge about learning

Meaningful Comparisons without Standardization

Eportfolios enable meaningful comparison of student learning across institutions

without standardization.

Can deliberative assessment scale?

Maximizing return on attention

Capturing the knowledge generated through the deliberative process

Published by Stylus, 2009

ncepr.org/darren (slides here)

dcambrid@gmail.com

Published by Jossey-Bass, 2010