Exemplar 2:  e-Portfolio Assessment of Psychology of Learning and Study (SS-1401L)

Institution: University of Bradford, School of Social and International Studies.

e-Portfolio context:  e-portfolio assessment of students’ achievements and reflections as part of the Psychology of Learning and Study (SS-1401L), a 1^st Year undergraduate module (level 4). In this module students develop a portfolio by engaging in a series of structured activities to develop academic and employability skills. These activities are linked to a personal-academic tutoring system within the School and introduce the students to PDP activities. Activities include completing a Skills and Personal Reflective Activity profile (SaPRA http://www.brad.ac.uk/developme/sapra/ see Bradford use case number 4), developing skills, and understanding the psychology behind working in teams/group work, learning styles, metacognition, making notes, academic writing, presentation skills, action planning, preparing for employment, critical thinking and preparing for a career in psychology.

The e-portfolio was initially implemented in the institutional Virtual Learning Environment as part of our e-portfolio evaluation and transferred to the institutional e-portfolio when it became available in 2007.

The use of the e-portfolio is being extended to support staff and students on the module at a collaborative academic partner institution (May 2011).

This example also formed part of our research into e-portfolios and developing autonomous learners as part of Cohort IV of the Inter/national Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research (http://ncepr.org/, cohort IV http://ncepr.org/cohort4.html). 

Dates of provision:  2005 to present.

Reason for implementation: availability of Institutional e-portfolio to support module mode of assessment.

Purpose/s: Personal Development Planning, Continuing Professional Development of Staff, Employability/Graduate attributes, Assessment, Lifelong Learning.

Learning processes involved: Planning, Reflection, Feedback, Collaboration, Presentation.

Practice:  fully developed.

Key staff involved: Peter Hartley and Neil Currant initially; now Gillian Marks and Carol Higgison.

Link to example

Tutor Case Study - http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/bradford/viewasset.aspx?oid=434597&type=formresponse.

Related Bradford use cases

4. Skills and Personal Reflective Ability profile tool (SaPRA).

Research links -

Cohort IV of the Inter/national Coalition of Electronic Portfolio Implementation http://ncepr.org/cohort4.html.

See the coalition’s emergent findings at http://ncepr.org/emergent_findings.html and

the University of Bradford Report (2010) on our 3 year research programme (2007-2010) at http://ncepr.org/finalreports/cohort4/University%20of%20Bradford%20Final%20Report.pdf (2010).