LSFY Instructors

I presented the idea of a Learning ePortfolio to a group of the LSFY instructors yesterday afternoon. I began by sharing John Zubizarreta's IDEA Paper #44, The Learning Portfolio: A Powerful Idea for Significant Learning, with the group. We talked about how we as a college came to this point, the current initiatives contained in the Strategic Imperatives (esp. Strategic Imperative 3), and the natural "signposts" in a student's four-year path here at Augustana at which a learning eportfolio could be of significant value. Those include

• completion of the LSFY program,
• declaration of a major (or majors),
• application for Augie Choice,
• Senior Inquiry and
• pursuit of a profession or graduate studies.

Focusing on writing, we are hoping that all LSFY101 Instructors will have their students archive all drafts of significant writing, the feedback they receive from the instructor and reflect on their growth in their writing abilities during the term. (The list of Writing skills from the LSFY Skills matrix as well as the LSFY writing rubric will be included in the eportfolio template.)

We are also hoping that we can train the first-year students in the use of a learning eportfolio during their orientation. Since we have decided to use Google Sites as the platform for the eportfolios, we expect that this training can be easily incorporated into training for Google Apps (e.g. GMail, Calendars, etc.) already planned. We will ask that students include a sample of their writing from High School (perhaps the one used in their college application) as the first "artifact" in their portfolio. 

I tried to make it clear that the LSFY instructors (LSFY101 in particular) are pivotal players in launching this initiative. Towards the end of my presentation I asked them to write down any obstacles (from speed bumps to high hurdles) they saw from their perspective. Alli Haskill agreed to collect those and send them via campus mail.....I'm watching my mailbox.

Next step: call together a design team to whip the template (created by Becca Noffsinger) into shape. Stay tuned!