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The Development Process 2001-2002. Finding the Funds. $3 Million Dollar Title V Cooperative Grant with New York City College of Technology over Five Years. New Student Technology Fee. Significant Institutional Support. The Planning Year. Year-Long Planning Committee.
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Finding the Funds • $3 Million Dollar Title V Cooperative Grant with New York City College of Technology over Five Years. • New Student Technology Fee. • Significant Institutional Support.
The Planning Year • Year-Long Planning Committee. • Year-Long Faculty Research Team Process. • Faculty-Led Assessment Plan Developed & Passed.
The Research Team’s Methodology • Researched key issues such as curriculum, infrastructure, pedagogy, faculty development, template design, and the impact of the ePortfolio on the college community through articles and web research. • Conducted phone interviews and site visits to key campuses to explore the practice of ePortfolios compared to the theory of ePortfolios. • Presented to groups around the college to share research, gather key questions and issues of concern to our college community and to facilitate discussions about ePortfolios.
Launching an Assessment Process • The college’s Core Competencies include: reading, writing, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, information literacy, technological literacy, and oral communication. • Additional competencies specific to programs are being developed by individual departments. • The College-Wide Curriculum Committee is developing rubrics & an assessment process.
A Working Plan • Started with a pilot. • Targeted ePortfolio intensive courses: FIGs, Intro to Major, Urban Studies, and Capstone courses in majors. • Linked the ePortfolio to the 7 core competencies, beginning with writing, reading, and critical thinking. • Created a management system balancing access, security, ease of use, and flexibility. • Built a provisional system.
Launching the Pilot Year • Created an Informational Site for students & faculty. • Identified pilot faculty (many of whom came out of Designed for Learning). • Created an ePortfolio Faculty Development Seminar to support pilot faculty. • Piloted in 2002-2003 with 20 faculty and 1100 students (twice as many students as expected).
FYE Academies • First Year Experience as a year-long “package.” • Specialized basic skills courses, thematically linked to Intro courses in the major. • Studio Hour in Semesters one and two • New Student Seminar in Semester I & Fundamentals of Professional Advancement in Semester 2. • Year-long series of co-curricular activities.
Launching the Academies • When fully operational all students will be linked to one of three parallel FYE Academies. We piloted the first academy in 2003-4, and the second two will begin in the spring of 2005. • Business/Technology Academy: for students majoring in Computer Information Systems and Business • Allied Health Academy: for students majoring in Liberal Arts/AS and Allied Health. • Liberal Arts Academy: for students in Liberal Arts/AA, Fine Arts, Education, and Human Services.
Goals of the FYE Academies • Contextualize basic skills instruction so as to increase student motivation and improve student learning outcomes. • Create a more relevant educational experience for students: first-year activities are related to students’ majors and interests. • Engage students more completely by including a variety of “extra-curricular” experiences that contribute to student success and development. Help personalize students’ educational experience by creating smaller “communities” for students. • Develop a greater sense of community and connectedness to the institution. • Provide an organizing framework for first-year advisement, orientation, and professional development activities, for which the ePortfolio will provide support. • Provide a focus for cross-disciplinary faculty collaboration: basic skills, content-area, Co-op, and counseling faculty can engage in joint faculty development, align skills development with content-area course demands; develop co-curricular activities.
Next Steps • Simplify by implementing a new system to support management of ePortfolios. • Focus on FYE Academies & ESL Clusters. • Partner with the College Assessment Committee to launch the pilot assessment process. • Expand the ePortfolio through outreach to the College community and beyond. • Continue to support faculty as learners: new skills, new ways of teaching. • Continue to support faculty as leaders : outreach, formal and informal discussion. • Continue to support students as leaders: ePortfolio Consultants.
Next Steps, continued • Create and expand interest in new college sectors: Coop, Advisement, Phi Theta Kappa. • Help students complete ePortfolios. • Extend ePortfolio to include Adult and Continuing Education, Community Outreach, Assessment, Transfer, etc. • Strengthen ePortfolio in 2nd Year Courses such as: Urban Studies and Capstone Courses in the Major. • Enrich ePortfolios with student-authored multimedia narratives through digital story-telling. • Use Digital Stories for community outreach & research projects. • Support use of ePortfolios for assessment and transfer.