Going Beyond: Portfolio assessment for student learning, faculty development, and curricular exploration

1. Going Beyond: Portfolio assessment for student learning, faculty development, and curricular exploration Jacqulyn Lauer-Glebov, Carleton College March 2006 AAC&U General Education and Outcomes That Matter in a Changing World

2. Portfolios for Student Learning 3 � 5 essays from 2 of the 4 academic divisions, max 30 pages At least one paper addressing: observation, analysis, interpretation, use of sources, thesis-driven argument Portfolio introduced by a reflective essay

3. Portfolios for Student Learning 79% of students receive a score of Pass 14% of students receive a score of Exemplary 7% of students receive a score of Needs Work

4. Portfolios for Student Learning Work comes from an average of 314 courses out of 700 offered annually Assignments come from an average of 185 faculty members of 290 regular, non-regular, visiting, and fellowship faculty Both courses and faculty are distributed over all four academic divisions

5. Portfolios for Faculty Development Curricular grants Portfolio scoring sessions Workshops Writing Placement readers Brown bag discussions Learning and Teaching Center events

6. Portfolios for Faculty Development

7. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration Writing happens within a context and utilizes content from one or more areas/disciplines Writing is both a skill in itself and a means of articulating other skills (e.g. critical thinking) Writing in portfolios comes from 45% of the courses in our curriculum

8. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration As a table, decide on a working definition of your skill (learning outcomes) Using the matrix, read through the portfolio at your table. Is the skill present in the writing? What is a good example? A poor example? Are there places where the skill could�ve been used but wasn�t? How does reading student work change either your learning outcomes or your idea of mastery?

9. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration

10. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration States questions and issues in numerical terms Identifies appropriate quantitative or numerical evidence Generates, collects, or accesses appropriate data Uses quantitative methods correctly Selects appropriate quantitative or numerical methods Interprets results Assesses limitations of methods used Presents/reports data appropriately Focuses analysis on relevant data

11. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration Willingness to explore Asking what other areas/disciplines are or can be involved Searching for relevant disciplinary approaches Recognizing tensions among different perspectives Integrating perspectives to produce a new understanding Use or develop language that �travels� across disciplines Building complex explanations for complex phenomena

12. Adapted from Washington State's Critical Thinking Rubric Portfolios for Curricular Exploration Identifies and summarizes the problem Identifies and presents the student�s perspective and position important to the analysis Identifies and considers the influence of the context on the issue Identifies and assesses the quality of supporting data/evidence Identifies key assumptions in the author�s position Identifies and assesses conclusions, implications, and supporting logic

13. Portfolios for Curricular Exploration Work in portfolios is student selected and identified Portfolio doesn�t explicitly ask for work using other skills (e.g quantitative reasoning)

14. Special Thanks to: Archibald Bush Foundation for support of writing FIPSE for support of quantitative reasoning HHMI for support of interdisciplinary science