By Emily Cook, TLS staff writer
Carleton’s electronic portfolio system is creating new ways for students to reflect on their learning, and become better teachers as a result.
School of Linguistics and Language Studies professor Eva Kartchava coordinates the Teaching English as a Second Language program at Carleton. She says she uses cuPortfolio in her practicum class to help students reflect on their teaching experiences.
“During the course, [cuPortfolio is] their place to learn and submit work, but also by the end of the course, they can actually take that away and make it part of their CV,” she says.
Kartchava says she has a template students follow for their reflections, but they have freedom to make the portfolios their own. Though it may be daunting at first, she says the template gets students thinking deeper and questioning things they would otherwise take for granted.
“They think about ways to present information in a meaningful way, in a way that represents them well, and in a way that really speaks to their experience,” she says.
Kelly Doucette, one of Kartchava’s former TESL students, says cuPortfolio allowed her to expand on her learning, and bring together all the work she’d done throughout the semester.
“That was a really rewarding feeling, to look back on what I had done and see how far I had come,” she says.
Kartchava says she tweaks the rubric every year based on her growing experience with and knowledge of cuPortfolio, and that the focus is not only the work put into it, but also the depth of reflection.
Though she initially had her doubts, Kartchava says she sees now the extra push cuPortfolio gives students to reflect and see how they are represented to the outside world.
“Now I see a lot of good, a lot of potential, and a lot of evidence to say that this works in this platform,” she says.
To find out more about Kartchava’s experience with cuPortfolio, watch the full interview below. You can also watch interviews with other instructors on the cuPortfolio instructor peer support site.
Below is a list of time codes related to the start of a new question in the video. You can jump to a new topic by moving the video time bar to the respective time codes.
5:12 – What value has cuPortfolio added to your course?
5:58 – How did creating a cuPortfolio template for your students help support their learning?
7:07 – How did you assess student portfolios?
9:11 – What advice do you have for an instructor who is new to teaching with cuPortfolio?