Exemplar 3: Using e-Portfolios for Work Integrated Learning

The Laboratory Medicine program at RMIT University is an internationally accredited programme offering students careers in all the major areas of laboratory medicine. e-Portfolios were first trialled as a way for students to record their Professional Practice placement in 2008. Since then, there have been iterative developments of the e-portfolio practices and processes to allow students to record their compulsory 40 week Professional Practice, Work Integrated Learning (WIL), placement. This case study is a work-in-progress review of the current use of e-portfolios in Laboratory Medicine. Students currently record, and simultaneously reflect upon, their WIL placement using a scaffolded template in PebblePad. They are required to share their monthly journal entries with their workplace and academic supervisors creating a triangulated communication process. Overall this has been a positive experience for staff, students and workplace supervisors.

e-Portfolio context: Using e-portfolios to record a compulsory 40 week Work Integrated Learning placement in 3rd year Laboratory Medicine

Dates of provision: 2008 onwards

Reason for implementation: To provide students with an e-portfolio to record the 40 weeks of their Work Integrated Learning placement in medical laboratories nationally and internationally.

Purpose/s: Work based learning, Employability/Graduate attributes, Assessment
 

Learning processes involved: Information capture, Information retrieval, Reflection, Feedback,

Practice: (Generally fully developed, with iterative improvements through annual review)
 

Key staff involved:

Dr Indu Singh - Programme coordinator, Laboratory Medicine

Jane Moon - Workplace placement supervisor

Meaghan Botterill - Senior coordinator: Educational technology integration, Educational Technology Advancement Group

Medical sciences.pdf