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KAREN RAMSAY JOHNSON AND SUSAN KAHN INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS Association of American Colleges and Universities January 29. 2011. ePortfolios , Liberal Learning, and First Generation College Students: Teaching and Assessing Reflection. Blended campus founded 1969
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KAREN RAMSAY JOHNSON AND SUSAN KAHN INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS Association of American Colleges and Universities January 29. 2011 ePortfolios, Liberal Learning, and First Generation College Students: Teaching and Assessing Reflection
Blended campus founded 1969 Metropolitan research university 20+ schools; professional schools dominate 30,000+ students Mostly first-generation, reflecting low educational attainment statewide Professionally oriented The Context of IUPUI
IUPUI English Department Six tracks • Literature • Writing and Literacy • Creative Writing • Film • Linguistics • Individualized Curriculum E450, the capstone seminar, serves all six tracks
E450: The Capstone SeminarDesired Outcomes • Integrate learning • Articulate learning in terms meaningful to employers and other audiences • Use evidence to substantiate claims about abilities and skills • Foster metacognition and empowerment for learning • Build confidence in value of degree
E450: The Capstone Seminar • Two Components (incorporated into webfolio): • Career/Professional Development • English in the World/Global Citizenship
Reflection • Central to course goals • For each component, we want students to enhance their ability to reflect and articulate what they’ve learned across their studies
What is reflection? • Metacognition • Re-processing ideas to support understanding • Questioning assumptions • Seeing in multiple contexts • Self-examination • Integration • Self-assessment
Claims About Value of Reflection • Reflection helps students make knowledge by articulating connections • Reflection introduces students to new kinds of self-assessment that they carry into the rest of their lives • Reflection helps develop habits of reflective practice • Reflection supports deeper engagement in learning • Reflection provides evidence of learning not available by other means
Forms of Reflection • Account/analysis of a process • Review of progress • Goal-setting • Synthesis • Analysis of an experience • Analysis that connects a series of experiences • Analysis of an artifact • Analysis that connects a series of artifacts
Some issues to consider • How can we teach students to reflect? • What kinds of scaffolding/support do students need at different levels and in different contexts? • When and how often should students reflect? • How can we assess reflection?
Development in Reflective Thinking • Self-assessment • Understanding of how knowledge is created • Identity as a lifelong learner
Development in Reflective Thinking “Second in this section is my outline for a graphic novel titled What Good Men Dream. This was my first attempt at writing anything like this. Over the course of the semester every student worked on an outline for a story and at the end we polished it and presented the full outline with a few sample pages. Mine went very well and the teacher was pleased with it.”
Development in Reflective Thinking “‘Afternoon at Grandma’s House’ was my first attempt at writing a form poem. I chose the sestina because of its difficulty, and I was very pleased with the way that my piece came out. I found that I had a little difficulty keeping the line lengths consistent as the piece went along, but I focused on keeping my language compact and precise. Wordiness is something I struggle with, so this was a real challenge to me.”
Preparing for Reflection • Evaluation of sample reflections • Written and oral peer review of rough drafts • Final reflection • Importance of: --Thoughtful, appropriate prompts --The “right” amount of reflection to assign
Reflection Examples “I never thought there would be an overarching theme to my college career….Through my work as an English major, which has included taking classes in literature and writing and linguistics and editing, I have realized that the one overarching theme is the power that words have to change the world; and as a Political Science major I have been blessed and cursed with the ability to see and understand those changes in a way that is sometimes heartbreakingly real….There is a gift that English majors are given that we sometimes forget about and take for granted…it is our desire and ability to see everyone in the world as people with stories that can turn on a dime when one simple word is spoken to them or about them.”
Reflection Examples “Indeed, even when I tried to study other disciplines I found myself still thinking within the Liberal Arts mindset. The clearest example of this was a paper I wrote about Charles Babbage during my Fundamental Computer Science Concepts course. While looking at the history of computing, as it is commonly taught, I noticed some interesting narrative gaps and accepted assumptions. My paper focused only on assumptions made by present historians looking back at Babbage, but the impulse for the paper was some fundamental errors I noticed in the way the history of computing is told. As I mentioned, there are many assumptions made about what Charles Babbage intended to produce (given that he produced very little), but even worse the entire narrative stems from an idea of technological determinism – that is technology advanced the way it did and when it did because it was bound to. While a common way of viewing any topic within history (e.g., WWII was inevitable because of WWI), it is only one view, and completely ignores the idea of contingency – that is just because something has occurred does not mean that it was certain to occur.”
Assessing Reflection In your groups: In groups, use the rubric for Development in Reflective Thinking to discuss and begin to evaluate the two reflections Based on your experience of discussing the sample reflective essays, discuss the utility of the rubric. What would you add or modify? What aspects of reflection are hardest to capture in rubric language? How much leeway is it possible to give students whose reflective thinking tends to the unconventional?
Conclusions E450: A work in progress Questions? Suggestions?
Contact us: • Karen Johnson: kjohnso6@iupui.edu • Susan Kahn:skahn@iupui.edu
Issues • Balancing needs of stronger and weaker students, especially in terms of instructions and prompts • Modifying concepts appropriate for traditional students so that non-traditional students see the value of their non-academic experience • Maintaining 1st-generation students’ pride in their educational achievements while helping them form realistic expectations for the job market
Issues 2 The Central Issue • Students often arrive at the capstone with little or no direct experience of reflective thinking. • They view their education as a series of discrete courses. • They view reflection as having no practical value or as a rote exercise in repeating the language of the rubrics, the readings or the instructors and speakers.
Solutions: Revised Assignment Structure • Begin webfolio construction in first two weeks • Write short reflections before writing final • component refection essay • Incorporate readings about metacognition and reflection
Solutions: Job Search • To help with students’ understanding of the realities of the job market and of the importance of reflection and self-assessment: • Involvement of alumni and local business leaders in stressing the value of reflection and webfolios • Presentations and examples of employee webfolios
Solutions: Fear of the Future • Use of a text, currently K. Brooks, You Majored in What? • Increased use of alumni guest speakers who are recent graduates and can more directly address student concerns about the current job market
Solutions: A Multifaceted Approach to Reflection Three Short reflections, peer-reviewed and revised: • Personal: an experience that is understood differently in the present • Textual Reflection: a transformative encounter with a text (loosely defined) • Career: Use of two or more artifacts to demonstrate skills relevant to job or further education
Culminating Reflection English in the World/Global Awareness: An extended reflection on students’ long term goals both professional and civic
Solutions: A Culture of Reflection • ePortfolio and University College: The Personal Development Plan • English and the ePortfolio
