Integrative Learning, E-portfolios, and the Transfer Student

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

These reasons are particularly persuasive in the context of the University Studies program. First, the general education goals of University Studies are manifested in courses of differing design and with differing content, types of assignments, and interdisciplinary emphases. second, the program extends from the freshman through the senior year. And third, a great many students transfer to the university into a program of general education that aims for continuity and coherence-a program that is different from what they most likely experienced as general education at their previous institution(s). Thus there are many reasons to provide an integrative learning framework of the sort that an e-portfolio affords.

Although it is a challenge to institute the e-portfolio as a reflective repository, it is easy to conceive the steps toward student production of an eportfolio for those who begin at PSU and stay through their senior year. The full year of Freshman Inquiry provides ample occasion to develop the rationale, tools, and initial work pieces for the e-portfolio. The continuity from Freshman Inquiry to Sophomore Inquiry underpins the expectation that students will gain in confidence and work toward reflective integration of an increasing body of repository materials. It is not unreasonable to assume that after two years in University Studies, students will have begun to see the value of their ongoing attention to the e-portfolio and its continued elaboration through their junior and senior years.

Transfer Transition

It is those students who transfer into the integrated structure of University Studies who present the greater challenge. We must provide a means for students who transfer to our institution after the freshman year to gain experience with and appreciate the value of the e-portfolio. We hope to meet the challenge in two ways. First, we will offer a greater number of Transfer Transition courses especially designed to introduce transfer students to the form and content of University Studies. This change is likely to help most of those students who transfer in as sophomores. Particular attention will be paid to the e-portfolio, where transfer students will be given the occasion to produce a reflection that ties their earlier academic work to the general education framework at PSU.

second, we will put into place a slightly different approach for junior transfers. While it may be possible for us to field junior-level Transfer Transition courses, those students will be also taking "cluster courses" at the upper-division level (see www.ous.pdx.edu for more information about program curriculum design). Because there are hundreds of cluster courses, we need a flexible mechanism by which work deposited in the eportfolio can be developed. We are exploring the possibility of mini-courses for which graduate students would serve as a general resource to help junior-level transfer students move examples of their work-and reflections on that work-into the e-portfolio. Indeed, this approach promises to strengthen the e-portfolio as a tool for integrating not only general education coursework, but the display of disciplinary work as well.