The Vision

Last spring the College of Education and Psychology developed and approved a vision statement to guide our work with our ePortfolio system. Here is the statement. If you have questions, ideas, other comments, please post a comment.

Vision Statement
Heritage University
College of Education and Psychology
ePortfolio System

Building Community while Constructing Knowledge
to Serve a Pluralistic Society

The vision for integrating ePortfolio2 into the programs of the College of Education and Psychology at Heritage University emerges from careful consideration of the mission of the institution and, more specifically, the conceptual framework of the College. Consequently, the ePortfolio system, along with the Heritage Learning Management System, must facilitate building community in support of constructing knowledge in order to better serve our pluralistic society. This also reflects the conclusions of the Study Group of the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education, which states, "Learning technologies should be designed to increase, and not to reduce, the amount of personal contact between students and faculty on intellectual issues.”

The ePortfolio system must provide a virtual space where learners may access resources, seek formative feedback from peers, instructors, and practitioners in the field, review standards-based criteria, reflect on their progress in light of faculty assessment, and plan for further development. Reflection and planning should occur within courses and across courses in a program and should facilitate development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions critical to the profession.

For faculty, the ePortfolio system must provide standardized descriptions of key activities and rubrics, allow opportunities to give learners rich formative and summative feedback, and provide information related to the faculty member's relationship with other faculty in terms of inter-rater reliability. This requires an institutional commitment to ongoing training of faculty in relation to the assessment system, rubrics, and use of the ePortfolio system itself. Feedback from the program level will help faculty adjust curriculum, methods, and assessment to better serve learners.

The various programs of the College of Education and Psychology must draw on the wealth of demographic and performance data provided by the ePortfolio system to allow faculty to identify program strengths and needs for program improvement.

Tips for First Class Meeting when Using ePortfolio2

First, you may want to discuss the benefits for students of using ePortfolio2.
1. Secure storage of artifacts with professional backup.
2. Ability to organize artifacts in files within the Artifacts Library.
3. Easily share drafts with peers, faculty member(s), teacher in the field.
4. Receive quick feedback on assignments.
5. Easily track progress for each type of product according to criteria in a rubric which is also linked to standards.
6. Construct multiple e-Portfolios for different purposes.
7. Learn to use a tool that will increasingly be required in K-12 schools.

Be sure to let students know that not all assignments will be submitted via Chalk and Wire. You will want to explain to them the way you will indicate in the syllabus which assignments are to be submitted using Chalk and Wire. For example, you may want to type an (eP) after those assignments that are to be submitted using Chalk and Wire.

Last, be sure that students know we’re in this together.