Centre for English Language Education (CELE), University of Nottingham

e-Portfolio context: CELE is an international centre based on three campuses, the UK, Malaysia and China. In the UK CELE run 4 terms of Pre-session English for Academic Purposes courses taking students from level 1 to 4. Students are a mixture of undergraduates and postgraduates. All 400+ students will be using an e-portfolio for sharing their coursework with their tutors and personal development planning (PDP) from September 2013. They are supported by academic and language tutors.

Dates of provision: Pilot use at levels 1 & 2 started in October 2012. Mahara has subsequently been adopted for use at all 4 levels of study, currently accounting for more than 100 students and around 20 tutors. There is every intention to continue implementation into the 2013-2014 acdemic year.

Reason for implementation:  There was a need for students to map and evidence their progress through a newly designed course that allowed them to get frequent feedback on draft and assessed work from different  tutors and also to support them to take responsibility for their own learning. As Mahara use is to be established more widely across University then introduction to this tool will support their continuing studies.

Purpose/s:   To support personal development planning (PDP) in relation to developing skills in the use of English. To enable sharing of coursework with academic and language tutors who can monitor progress and as preparation for an assignment this is a reflection on progress.  

Learning processes involved: reflection, collaboration, feedback, target setting

Practice:
The students are entitled to 7 face-to face tutorials each 10 week course with one of their academic supervisors as well as their language advisor. They have to share their weekly tasks which are assignment drafts with one academic tutor who gives feedback in Mahara.  A tutorial with the academic tutor is used to discuss the feedback. This is then commented on by their language advisor and a separate tutorial is held.  Mahara serves as a repository for this ongoing collaborative process. This process is key to supporting a shared understanding of appropriate language use, current issues and achievements and targets based on evidence.

In addition, there is an increasing interest in extending the use of Mahara to include greater scope for collaborative learning by encouraging learners to take greater ownership of their own spaces, organised around class groups. Some tutors are also experimenting with using Mahara for delivering content which students can subsequently modify and comment on. There is also interest in making greater use of the journal feature to encourage students to become more reflective about their learning. Although these uses are still at a developmental stage, as tutors are becoming more comfortable with using Mahara there is a definite sense of them beginning to embrace and explore the opportunities afforded by online portfolios.

Due to the unique needs of the international students who study at CELE, specific help materials have been developed which aim to make Mahara simple to use for non-native speakers. These include brief step-by-step guides to the basics of setting up and organising an online portfolio, and more detailed guides including screenshots. Guides have also been developed for staff to help encourage them to get to grips with new developments and procedures. There is an intention to extend this provision in future with greater use of video capture to help demonstrate best practice for sessional staff who join CELE on a termly basis.

Key staff involved: Dave Button

Dave Button is a tutor on CELE’s presessional English courses. In addition to teaching, his role includes syllabus design and materials development, for both in-class and online use. Dave has been teaching for over 20 years, and has professional experience in designing both commercial and educational websites in the UK and abroad. He previously worked as the head of e-Learning at the University of Birmingham’s English for International Students Unit (EISU) where he developed a bank of online materials to help support students in the autonomous development of a wide range of language skills and academic competencies. He has spoken at a number of conferences on the need to address the unique requirements of non-native speakers in online materials, and is currently interested in promoting a more informed use of e-learning amongst EAP tutors and international students. This has lead him to develop a range of support materials which aim to provide accessible help for speakers with low levels of English, thus improving usability.

Dave’s interest in Mahara in particular emerged while attending a conference at the University of Nottingham. It was felt that Mahara could help facilitate effective development of language skills, partly by providing a space where all the tutors’ comments and feedback on a range of weekly assignments could be collected together. It was hoped that this would make it easier for the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and for the tutors to provide more targeted support based on the feedback given. A small pilot study was initially carried out amongst a small number of students, which was mostly successful in terms of achieving these aims. As a result, Dave has continued to promote and support the use of online portfolios amongst staff and students, and Mahara is now being used as an integral part of all presessional courses at CELE.

Examples/further information 

Centre for English Language Education (CELE), University of Nottingham