Integrative Learning, E-portfolios, and the Transfer Student

Peer Review, Summer 2005 by Flower, Michael J, Rhodes, Terrel L

The participation of Portland State University (PSU) in a three-year Integrated Learning Project (ILP)-cosponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Association of American Colleges and Universities-has involved developing and assessing advanced strategies to help students pursue learning in more intentional, connected ways. The underlying assumption of the ILP is that fostering students' abilities to integrate their learning will give them the habits of mind needed to make informed personal, professional, and civic decisions throughout their lives.

Much time and attention has been devoted to designing and implementing the first year and last year of PSU's four-year integrated general education program, University Studies. The program begins with the yearlong Freshman Inquiry course, which focuses on critical thinking skills, and culminates with the senior-year capstone. However, the middle segment of the program (the focus of PSU's project), which accommodates all students who began their college career at PSU and a large number of transfer students, has not received the same attention since the adoption of the University Studies general education program in 1994. Several groups of faculty, mentors, and students have worked on proposals to improve the integrative learning in the middle portion of University Studies during the past two years. Last year, the ideas that came from those groups went to the University Studies Committee-the faculty policy and curriculum committee for the program-for discussion and revision. The plans for redesign have been continually revised as the discussions have progressed. The current redesign of the middle part of the program was presented and discussed at the fall 2004 University Studies faculty retreat.

In the midst of these project redesign discussions, the provost resigned, but the interim provost has initiated another set of conversations about University Studies. The ideas he presented in a white paper on undergraduate education-which include enhancing internationalization of the curriculum as well as implementing the recommended changes in the middle portion of the program-are now being considered by a faculty committee that will soon make recommendations to the president and the faculty senate.

The PSU Integrated Learning Project focuses on enhancing the transition into PSU and the University Studies general education program for the approximately two-thirds of students who transfer to PSU after completing their freshman year at another institution. Through specific interdisciplinary course content, the Transfer Transition courses orient students to PSU and help them improve their communication skills, learn the process of inquiry from the perspectives of several different disciplines, and build a foundation for the effective and efficient application of information technology resources. Courses provide students with multiple opportunities to practice and become proficient in the four University Studies goals-communication, critical thinking, ethics and social responsibility, and the diversity of human experience.

The E-portfollo as a Reflective and Integratlve Repository

It is not easy to capture and portray the varied ways in which student course work exemplifies a growing mastery of the four University Studies goals and the ability of students to integrate their learning in terms of both content and the cognitive goals of the program. The disciplinary and interdisciplinary emphases of instructors range as widely as the particular projects taken on by students. Over the past several years, the University Studies program has explored the use of electronic portfolios as a mechanism for compiling students' work samples and their reflections on the nature and quality of their work. Students who begin their university careers at PSU are now invited to construct an electronic portfolio during their Freshman Inquiry course, an invitation that has been taken up by students in useful and creative ways. Given this initial success, the University Studies program is now expanding the use of the e-portfolio through a pilot study with students in Sophomore Inquiry, with the final aim of having the e-portfolio encompass the entirety of a student's undergraduate course work as well as cocurricular experiences.

There are many good reasons to utilize the e-portfolio as a repository of student work and as a framework for encouraging ongoing reflection and integration. Most importantly, perhaps, is the ability to store the variety of works that students produce: written text, graphics, video, and audio, as well as integrative displays of such work in the form of student-designed Web sites. Given the richness of its content, the e-portfolio serves as a primary medium for evaluating program success. A key component of every portfolio is a set of student reflections on their own learning in the context of the general education goals.

The e-portfolio also represents an economy of means; much can easily be saved to a small amount of server space. Additionally, there is easy access to an e-portfolio for a range of viewers-fellow students, instructors, graduate and professional school admissions committees, and employers.