Steve Kerby
OMDE 608; 9040
November 4, 2003
Digital Portfolios: Centerpiece for Learner-Centered Support
2,000 words exactly (sans header, title, and references)
Online Version

Online Digital Portfolios: Centerpiece for Learner-Centered Support in ODL

Introduction

It is becoming increasingly obvious that there is far more to student support services in Online and Distance Learning (ODL) institutions than admissions, registration, counseling, career services, and a good library. Faced with high drop out rates and reports of the "loneliness of the long-distance learner," ODL institutions are having to rethink what it means to provide student support services.

Robinson (1995) suggests that we need a theory of learner support that includes curriculum, course design, and interaction. Rumble (2000) argues that we should rethink the whole structure of the university and put the learner at the very center of all support services. Granger and Benke (1998) proclaim the importance of knowing your learners and argue that academic institutions must discover students' needs and take them into account in course design and delivery. In discussing online courses, Thorpe (2002) asks a key question: "If much of the content of such a course is generated through online interaction and collaborative activities, how can we consider course design without also dealing with learner support at the same time" (p. 106)?

Old fashioned Student Support Services is evolving into client-centered learner services that takes into account the entire learning experience of the student.

But how can we do that? How can ODL institutions support a student's entire learning experience?

This paper will argue that a digital portfolio program, properly implemented, can give an ODL institution a "management window" into the student experience and provide a tool--not only for student assessment and performance, but also for advising, encouragement, intervention, technical support, community building, collaborative learning, and the development of learner independence.

What is an Online Digital Portfolio?

Kilbane and Milman (2003) define portfolio as "a goal-driven, organized collection of artifacts that demonstrates a person's expansion of knowledge and skills over time" (p. 4). An online digital portfolio offers digitized versions of those same artifacts; but, unlike hardcopy portfolios, hypermedia versions offer the ability to link to multiple artifacts, coordinate the presentation with audio and video, and make student performance easily accessible to an instructional/support learning community.

Online Digital Portfolios:

• offer instructors a means of assessment based on performance standards
• offer students sophisticated ways of presenting themselves to employers and graduate schools while learning and applying key technical skills
• offer a support community (peers, faculty, staff) a context for providing support (instructional, advising, technical) on an as-needed basis
• offer a learning community a learning resource
• support project-based and problem-solving approaches to instruction
• support constructivist, collaborative, and learner-centered approaches to instruction

Online portfolio systems are not completely new. Alverno college has had an online portfolio system since 1999 (Young, 2002). Young reports that a number of institutions are experimenting with digital portfolios; he notes that "the key benefit of e-portfolios is that they can breathe new life into the academic-advising process and help students reflect on how their disparate activities become a well-rounded education" (para 13).

How Would an Online Digital Portfolio Be Implemented?

Brindley (1995) reminds us of the importance of context when considering learner support initiatives. Obviously, an Online Digital Portfolio System (ODPS) would have to be carefully thought out, designed with input from key stakeholders (faculty, staff, administration, students), and geared specifically to the institution or program. In many cases, this would be a culture-change issue and would likely have to be implemented in stages, with a task force, pilot program, and evaluation committee.

Offered here is a one suggested outline.

Basic Structure:

• Each program determine its own set of standards around which students must build their portfolios.
• All students be required to produce an exit portfolio upon completion of the program (senior seminar or capstone class).
• Although the exit portfolio would not be due until the capstone class, its shell and major components must be published on a school intranet site by the end of the first foundations course; its URL would be available to the college community.
• All required courses in the major (or degree) would have portfolio components and contribute to the final exit portfolio.

Support:

• Each program would have its own separate, online, self-paced (but monitored) DP class.
• At a minimum, these DP classes would offer technical help, portfolio templates, instructions, strategies, and a discussion board (with fellow students, peer mentors, and a rotating group of faculty) where students could ask questions, get advice and guidance on the development and presentation of online portfolios.
• This DP class would be a side-by-side component to the student's entire time of study in the program, lasting from two to seven years.
• The student would remain a member of this class until at least three semesters in a row have passed without her/him registering for an official course.
• One key objective of the DP class would be to nurture student independence in a cooperative/collaborative community of learners.

Four Key Learner Support Issues

1. Know Your Learners.

Granger and Benke (1998) state that the "overarching lesson for every aspect of distance learner support is: Know your learners (p.2). But how do we know them? King (1995) argues for the importance of data collection, and Phillips (1995) makes the case for a student record/management system. No doubt, data collection and management systems are important tools for learner support. But if they were complemented by a program-wide ODPS, where each student has made available his/her work and progress, a support community could have access not only to the student's work and progress, but also a tool to evaluate the student's strengths, weaknesses, and support needs.

In designing instruction and providing support, perhaps the most important action an institution or program can take is to know their learners. Such key support activities as advising, encouragement, and intervention can only take place in a context of knowing. Online Digital Portfolios can provide that knowing.

2. Learning Styles and Constructivism.

Throughout the 20th century, an enormous amount of research has been done on learning styles. Much of this has been outlined by Kemp, Morison, and Ross (1998). Curry (1990) usefully categorizes much of the research into three models: Social Interaction Models, Information Processing Models (includes Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences), and Personality Models (includes the famous Myers-Briggs indicators). But whatever the mysterious process of learning happens to be in an individual, and whatever model we chose to map that process, there is one key twentieth century insight that lies at the heart of all learning theory: individuals rely on personally constructed filters through which we view the world.

This brings us to constructivism. Essentially, constructivism is a teaching methodology that (a) recognizes we build our own knowledge structures, and (b) encourages instruction that takes advantage of that.

There may be as much written on constructivism in recent years as there has been on learning styles. Garrison (1993) and Tam (2000) both offer research overviews and balanced perspectives of constructivism in the context of distance learning. Both argue that it is no longer sufficient to provide distance learners with pre-packaged instructional materials, but, rather, we should focus more on student choice on how they want to learn.

A learning/assessment process designed around digital portfolios would offer students an array of choices on how they want to learn and how they want to demonstrate that learning. The performance standards of the program (and the structure of the DP) would be made clear, but how the student demonstrates competence in those standards can (and should) be largely left up to the student. Perhaps it would be a project, paper, research, experiment, annotated bibliography, or presentation. Perhaps it would be an animation, video, or audio. Perhaps it would be a collection of interviews or case studies. The key point is that the student chooses.

By placing students more in charge of their assessment and performance, an ODPS would be a methodology of instruction that supports a variety of individual learning styles and a constructivist approach to learning.

3. Community and Cooperative Learning

There can be little question but that the development of Internet technologies-- specifically the Online Learning Platform (WebCT and Blackboard)--has provided ODL with an exciting, new dimension: online learning communities.

McMillan and Chavis (1986) define community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (p. 9). Research suggests that the existence of learning communities not only increases students' persistence in courses (Bruffee, 1993; Dede, 1996), but also can significantly contribute to the learning experience and promote more positive attitudes toward learning (Wellman, 1999).

Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1998) provide an overview of the research and rich theoretical base of cooperative learning and make a compelling case for its implementation in college instruction.

The point of putting portfolios online is to make a student's individual work available to the learning community. This availability not only provides a context for advising and help, it also makes a major contribution to the learning community.

It is almost inconceivable that a cooperative learning effort in today's digital and networked society could function without something like a digital portfolio system at its heart. And it is almost inconceivable that an online digital portfolio support class, running concurrently with the program classes, would not make a significant contribution to a student's sense of belonging to a learning community.

4. Learner independence and Scaffolding.

Much has been written on the importance of supporting, nurturing, and encouraging independent learning in the distance learner (Moore, 1986; Paul, 1990; Holmberg, 2000; McLoughlin, 2002). Indeed, the very roots of distance education are grounded in the soil of independent learners who, in early correspondence schools, had to rely almost totally on self-motivation. In today's networked environments, however, the term 'independent learner' takes on an additional connotation. To function well in a knowledge economy and networked communities, the type of independent learner we should nurture, Holmberg argues, needs not only be self-motivated, but also able to judge material, "select relevant matter, compare items and arguments, analyze and synthesize" ( p. 75). Paul goes so far as to argue that independent learning should be a fundamental institutional value and a measure of a distance education institution's success.

One key strategy for encouraging and supporting student independence has been the methodology known as scaffolding. Pressley, Hogan, Wharton-McDonald, and Mistretta (1996) define scaffolding as "providing assistance to students on an as-needed basis with fading of assistance as their competence increases" (p. 138). Traditionally, this methodology has been used in the classroom setting. McLoughlin (2002), however, has written extensively on scaffolding in the online environment, offering design guidelines that support learning and foster independence. These guidelines include orientation, coaching, task support, problem definition, reflective thinking, and feedback from peers and mentors. An ODPS as outlined above not only can implement the kind of guidelines McLoughlin describes, but also can add coherence and continuity to the entire program, integrating the classes and functioning even more effectively as a "scaffold."

"The most important point about scaffolding," McLoughlin and Marshall (2000) claim, "is that it engages the learner actively at his/her current level of understanding until the point where the support is no longer required (para. 9). An ODPS can do just that--not just encourage students to analyze, synthesize and reflect on their own learning, but do so in a community of support, where faculty, mentors, and peers have a window into their performance and an opportunity to interact and provide support on an as-needed basis.

An ODPS could be the ultimate scaffolding strategy for producing independent learners.

Conclusion

An ODPS, wisely implemented, could be the centerpiece of a learner support initiative that (a) allows the institution to know its learners, providing a support/instructional community a "management window" into student learning and performance, (b) encourages a variety of learning styles and constructivist strategies, (c) contributes to and takes advantage of community building and cooperative learning, and (d) produces independent learners.

Online Digital Portfolio programs can be the foundation for a new era in learner-centered support in many ODL institutions.

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