Alternative Assessment

Overview of Alternative Assessment

Definition and purpose

Alter­na­tive assess­ments are edu­ca­tion­al eval­u­a­tion meth­ods that empha­size the appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge and skills in real-world or mean­ing­ful con­texts, mov­ing beyond tra­di­tion­al stan­dard­ized test­ing.

Alter­na­tive assess­ment encom­pass­es var­i­ous meth­ods that dif­fer from tra­di­tion­al stan­dard­ized tests. Alter­na­tive assess­ment includes approach­es like inte­gra­tive and holis­tic assess­ment, focus­ing on stu­dents’ abil­i­ties to apply knowl­edge in nov­el ways. Alter­na­tive assess­ment “is pred­i­cat­ed on the view where­by, the stu­dent, the text, and the con­text impact learn­ing out­comes” (Janisch, Liu, & Akrofi, 2007, p. 222), and strong con­sid­er­a­tion is required to choose the most appro­pri­ate assess­ment to achieve the desired results.

The pri­ma­ry pur­pose of alter­na­tive assess­ments is to pro­vide a more com­pre­hen­sive eval­u­a­tion of stu­dent learn­ing by empha­siz­ing mean­ing­ful tasks that reflect real-world appli­ca­tions. This approach aims to enhance stu­dent engage­ment, pro­mote deep­er under­stand­ing, and devel­op skills that are trans­fer­able beyond the class­room.

Many stu­dents pre­fer this form of assess­ment because it removes the stress of grades to focus on learn­ing. Some schools also use a pass/fail sys­tem, in which a stu­dent either pass­es or fails a class.

Alter­na­tive assess­ments cater to dif­fer­ent learn­ing pref­er­ences and can pro­vide a more holis­tic under­stand­ing of a student’s strengths and areas of improve­ment. Alter­na­tive assess­ments also encour­age reflec­tion and metacog­ni­tion.

Colum­bus State Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege has a vari­ety of resources and videos about alter­na­tive assess­ment basics. There are many exam­ples to con­sid­er when chang­ing assess­ment strate­gies.

The 4 Pillars of Alternative Assessment

David Clark and Robert Talbert’s book “grad­ing for growth” iden­ti­fies 4 pil­lars that are required for alter­na­tive grad­ing with an empha­sis on feed­back. This arti­cle breaks down the 4 pil­lars and is writ­ten by Robert Tal­bert.

Alter­nate­ly, David Clark talks about his expe­ri­ences with alter­na­tive assess­ment, dis­cuss­es ben­e­fits and chal­lenges and pro­vides con­crete exam­ples of how to apply.

You can watch the dis­cus­sion in the 19-minute video below.

Course Redesign: Alternative Assessment

Getting Started: Considerations and Best Practice

When chang­ing an assess­ment or enhanc­ing an exist­ing one, there are steps to be con­sid­ered. The resources avail­able on Teach Any­where con­sis­tent­ly empha­size to start small. Per­haps you begin with adjust­ing a rubric or you replace an assess­ment that you inher­it­ed when you took over the course and that you feel does not accu­rate­ly eval­u­ate stu­dent learn­ing.

These pages about alter­na­tive assess­ment have been devel­oped with the 4 pil­lars of alter­na­tive assess­ment in mind.

Tips to Begin

The 4 pil­lars are indi­cat­ed in rel­e­vant areas through­out.

  • Hav­ing a strong ratio­nale for the change will be moti­vat­ing.
  • Ratio­nale can also be shared with stu­dents.
  • Clear­ly define the knowl­edge and skills stu­dents should demon­strate by the end of the course, and which relate to this assign­ment.
  • Deter­mine how the learn­ing out­comes align with course assess­ments or if updates or improve­ments may be required (this learn­ing out­come align­ment chart can assist). This is called con­struc­tive align­ment.
  • Deter­mine which of the learn­ing out­comes could be enhanced by inte­grat­ing an alter­na­tive assess­ment.
  • Deter­mine which of the learn­ing out­comes could be enhanced by inte­grat­ing an alter­na­tive assess­ment.

  More can be found about learn­ing out­comes on Teach Any­where.                 

  • Select an alter­na­tive method that best mea­sures the course learn­ing out­comes and that aligns with teach­ing and learn­ing activ­i­ties.
  • There are numer­ous exam­ples of alter­na­tive assess­ment with­in the teach any­where pages.
  • Reflect on the 4 pil­lars to help you choose.
  • CTLI can also help you with ideas and sug­ges­tions!
  • Pro­vide stu­dents with clear and suc­cinct cri­te­ria to help them under­stand what is expect­ed in the assess­ment.
  • Con­sid­er mak­ing a short Kaltura video to post on Bright­space that explains the assess­ment and expec­ta­tions.
  • Decide on how you will iden­ti­fy if the stu­dent has met the desired competencies/achieved the grade. Con­sult CTLI for feed­back and fur­ther sug­ges­tions.
  • Use rubrics or alter­nate mark­ing schemes that remove the empha­sis on a grade to pro­vide mean­ing­ful feed­back that sup­ports stu­dent growth
    (pil­lar #3: marks indi­cate progress).
  • Inte­grate ways that encour­age stu­dents to think about their own think­ing and learn­ing — Peer eval­u­a­tion and self-assess­ment, for exam­ple.
  • Con­sid­er the feed­back loop in the 4 pil­lars of assess­ment.
  • Review infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed about giv­ing and receiv­ing feed­back.
  • Con­sid­er pro­vid­ing class time to have stu­dents read the feed­back and discuss/ask for fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion.
  • Guide stu­dents though the process, using clear and trans­par­ent lan­guage (pil­lar #1: Clear­ly defined stan­dards).
  • Gath­er feed­back from stu­dents, peers and your own reflec­tions to eval­u­ate and revise the assess­ment as need­ed for future use.
  • Scaf­fold assign­ments to encour­age resub­mis­sions or even bet­ter resub­mis­sions demon­strat­ing appli­ca­tion of feed­back (pil­lar #4: reassess­ment with­out penal­ty).
  • Stay informed on new alter­na­tive assess­ment ideas.
  • Con­sid­er enhancing/changing the assess­ment based on reflec­tion and feed­back

Learner Readiness + Professionalism Checklist

Par­tic­i­pa­tion marks are con­tro­ver­sial in post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion are often con­tro­ver­sial due to their sub­jec­tive nature for both stu­dents and instruc­tors. Bain (2019) argues that instruc­tors should view par­tic­i­pa­tion grades as oppor­tu­ni­ties for “skill build­ing “ oppor­tu­ni­ties and offers strate­gies to help man­age this approach.

CTLI pro­vides an alter­na­tive to tra­di­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion grades, build­ing on Bain’s sug­ges­tions by encour­ag­ing stu­dents to self-assess their behav­ior on the class­room. The learn­er behav­ior check­list replaces instruc­tor – observed par­tic­i­pa­tion, shift­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty and account­abil­i­ty for behav­ior to the stu­dents. This way, any deduc­tion marks are made by the stu­dents them­selves, not the instruc­tor.

As Bain (2019) sug­gests, the check­list is pro­vid­ed at inter­vals through­out the semes­ter, allow­ing stu­dents ample time to iden­ti­fy chal­lenges and adjust. It also includes a sec­tion for reflec­tion to pro­mote metacog­ni­tion.

The check­list is pro­vid­ed here in a Word doc­u­ment, enabling instruc­tors to cus­tomize descrip­tions and cri­te­ria. Alter­na­tive­ly, this can be done as a large group activ­i­ty, involv­ing stu­dents in set­ting the cri­te­ria in the ear­ly part of the semes­ter.

Ungrading

Sep­a­rat­ing grades (val­ues, num­bers, per­cent­ages, lev­els, let­ters) from feed­back (ver­bal or writ­ten com­ments, direc­tions on where to improve, out­lin­ing strengths, sug­ges­tions for next steps) is the first step in ‘ungrad­ing’ your course.

Ungrad­ing mean­ing rethink­ing the way we are putting val­ues on stu­dent learn­ing and crit­i­cal­ly reflect­ing on what grades are doing to stu­dent learn­ing — are they help­ing? are they fos­ter­ing the right con­text and cul­ture of growth and devel­op­ment?

Once you see this sep­a­ra­tion and under­stand how grades (putting a val­ue on learn­ing) does­n’t aid in the learn­ing process, ungrad­ing prac­tices and ped­a­go­gies will become more clear.

Ungrad­ing: Sep­a­rat­ing Grades from Feed­back [PDF]
This hand­out pro­vides ideas on how to sep­a­rate grades from feed­back and build more stu­dent reflec­tion, metacog­ni­tion and ongo­ing feed­back into the stu­dent learn­ing expe­ri­ence.

An Alter­na­tive Grad­ing Glos­sary
The fol­low­ing is a curat­ed col­lec­tion of read­ings, blogs, books, research arti­cles and oth­er writ­ings that explore what ungrad­ing means from var­i­ous view­points and dis­ci­plines and how it can be applied in the post-sec­ondary class­room (and still give a let­ter or num­ber for stu­dent tran­scripts!)

Instructors Who Support Alternative and Ungrading Approaches

Maha Bali

Maha is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Cen­tre for Learn­ing & Teach­ing at the Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in Cairo, Egypt. She is a full-time fac­ul­ty devel­op­er and edu­ca­tor teach­ing dig­i­tal lit­era­cies and inter­cul­tur­al learn­ing.

  • Bali, M. et. al. (Jan­u­ary 5, 2021) Alter­na­tive Approach­es to Grad­ing | Video
  • Bali, M. (March 23, 2019). Reflec­tions on Ungrad­ing for the Fourth Time | Blog post
  • Bali, M. (March 20, 2018). Ungrad­ing My Class — Reflec­tions on a Sec­ond Iter­a­tion | Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion Arti­cle

Susan Blum

Susan is a pro­fes­sor of anthro­pol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame. She’s been teach­ing col­lege stu­dents for over 30 years and for much of that time she was a con­ven­tion­al grad­er. Since around 2106 she has giv­en up grad­ing except for hand­ing in grades at the end of term.

  • Blum. S. (Decem­ber, 2020). Ed. Ungrad­ing: Why Rat­ing Stu­dents Under­mines Learn­ing (and What to do Instead)?| For­ward by Alfie Kohn | Book from West Vir­ginia Press
  • Blum sto­ry with­in arti­cle by Supi­ano, B. ( July 19, 2019). Grades Can Hin­der Learn­ing. What Should Pro­fes­sors Use Instead? | Web Page
  • Blum, S. (Novem­ber 14, 2017). Ungrad­ing: The sig­nif­i­cant learn­ing ben­e­fits of get­ting rid of grades. Inside High­er Ed. | Web Page
  • Blum, S. (Decem­ber 20, 2016). Liv­ing and Learn­ing with Risk: Against Rubrics and Grades. How “Ungrad­ing” Allowed my Stu­dents to Try Some New Things | Blog post

Cate Denial

Cate Denial is the Bright Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can His­to­ry, Chair of the His­to­ry depart­ment, and Direc­tor of the Bright Insti­tute at Knox Col­lege in Gales­burg, Illi­nois.

  • Denial, C. (Novem­ber 9, 2020). Ungrad­ing in a Pan­dem­ic | Blog Post
  • Denial, C. (Decem­ber 11, 2019). More Thoughts About Grades | Blog Post
  • Denial, C. (Octo­ber 16, 2017). Mak­ing the Grade | Blog Post

Lau­ra Gibbs 

Lau­ra is an instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa where she joined in 1999. She’s been teach­ing ful­ly online cours­es since 2002. She teach­es gen­er­al edu­ca­tion cours­es in the human­i­ties.

  • Gibbs, L. (2020). Get­ting Rid of Grades | Book chap­ter in “Ungrad­ing Why Rat­ing Stu­dents Under­mines Learn­ing (and What to Do Instead)”  | Blog Post
  • Gibbs, L. (2016). (Un) Grad­ing: It can be done in col­lege | Guest post on Edu­ca­tion Week Teacher | Blog Post
  • Gibbs, L. (2016). Teach­ing: Ungrad­ing for More Feed­back. Per­son­al Blog Post found on site Anato­my of an Online Course | Blog Post

Claris­sa Sorensen-Unruh

Since 2002, Claris­sa has been a full-time chem­istry instruc­tor at Cen­tral New Mex­i­co Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. In her class­es she uses ungrad­ing, blogs and encour­ages open and engaged ped­a­go­gies. The sto­ry of all of her ungrad­ing expe­ri­ences are found on her main blog web­site at: https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/ungrading/

  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Jan­u­ary 14, 2020). Ungrad­ing: What is it and why should we use it | Blog post on ChemEd XChange
  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Jan­u­ary 3, 2020). Ungrad­ing: Pro­to­type II (Gen­er­al Chem­istry II) | Blog Post
  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Febu­rary 10, 2019). Ungrad­ing: A Series (Part 1) | Blog Post

Jesse Stom­mel

Jesse Stom­mel has writ­ten some sem­i­nal blog posts on this top­ic over the past few years and has ungrad­ed his Eng­lish, dig­i­tal human­i­ties, film and com­mu­ni­ca­tions cours­es for decades. He is co-founder of Dig­i­tal Ped­a­gogy Lab and Hybrid Ped­a­gogy. Jesse has been an edu­ca­tor since 1999 and cur­rent­ly teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver.

  • Stom­mel, J. (Octo­ber 26, 2017). Why I Don’t Grade | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (2023). Ungrad­ing for Equi­ty | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (2023). Undo­ing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop. Hybrid Ped­a­gogy Inc., Den­ver, CO. Overview Post and Open Ver­sion
  • Stom­mel, J. (May 9, 2022). Ungrad­ing and Alter­na­tive Assess­ment | YouTube video of Pre­sen­ta­tion
  • Stom­mel, J. (Jan­u­ary 3, 2022). Com­pas­sion­ate Grad­ing Poli­cies | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (June 11, 2021). Ungrad­ing: An Intro­duc­tion | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (June 2, 2021). Grades are Dehu­man­iz­ing: Ungrad­ing is no Sim­ple Solu­tion | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J.  (March 3, 2020). What if We Did­n’t Grade? A Bib­li­og­ra­phy.  | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (Feb­ru­ary 6, 2020). Ungrad­ing: an FAQ.  | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (March 11, 2018). How to Ungrade | Blog Post

Peer Assessment

Peer assess­ment (some­times referred to as review) is a process where stu­dents eval­u­ate and pro­vide feed­back to anoth­er stu­dent.

When stu­dents active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the eval­u­a­tion process for their peers, they gain auton­o­my and choice, which evi­dence shows enhances engage­ment. Whether the eval­u­a­tion is for­ma­tive or sum­ma­tive, when imple­ment­ed cor­rect­ly, this process ben­e­fits both stu­dent and instruc­tor.

For stu­dents, engag­ing in peer assess­ment encour­ages them to inter­act with assess­ment cri­te­ria which will ben­e­fit their own work, while sug­gest­ing alter­na­tive assess­ment ideas to their peers (Mul­der, Baik, Nay­lor, & Pearce, 2014). Added to this, stu­dents learn how to pro­vide peer feed­back, an essen­tial attribute to their life beyond the col­lege walls. Typ­i­cal­ly, when engaged in peer eval­u­a­tion, it is not­ed that stu­dents pro­vide more feed­back than instruc­tors which can be invalu­able for learn­ing.

For instruc­tors, mak­ing space by not hav­ing to grade assign­ments can off­set time spent focused in more inten­tion­al teach­ing in oth­er areas or prop­er­ly guid­ing stu­dents through the per assess­ment process. Work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with stu­dents in this man­ner, helps an instruc­tor to under­stand any mis­con­cep­tions the peer asses­sor may have when pro­vid­ing feed­back, and is avail­able to steer the stu­dent to cor­rect the mis­un­der­stand­ing which may have gone unad­dressed oth­er­wise. 

Let’s not for­get that stu­dents might not always enjoy the peer feed­back process, and instruc­tors may expe­ri­ence push­back. Stu­dents may find it uncom­fort­able to grade their peer or pro­vide feed­back on some­thing that they are them­selves unsure of.  How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to share the evi­dence behind this strat­e­gy to demon­strate the ben­e­fits for both them and their peers.  

  • McGill offers a great resource about how to design peer assess­ment com­plete with ideas for assign­ments and how to use rubrics.  
  • U of Alber­ta also has some rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on peer assess­ment.
  • Cor­nell pro­vides exam­ples of how to “get start­ed” with peer assess­ment.  
  • UBC pro­vides exam­ples from fac­ul­ty who have inte­grat­ed peer assess­ment as well as infor­ma­tion on how to get start­ed.  

If this is a strat­e­gy that you wish to inte­grate into your course, con­tact CTLI for sup­port.

Self Assessment

In post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion, stu­dents are used to the age-old prac­tice of hand­ing in an assign­ment and ner­vous­ly wait­ing till it is returned with a grade attached. Flip­ping this process and encour­ag­ing self-assess­ment encour­ages stu­dents to be a real­is­tic judge of their own work and how to make room to improve. When stu­dents become more self-aware about their learn­ing and can take steps to make change, this is moti­vat­ing and helps them to devel­op self-direct­ed learn­ing qual­i­ties that will ben­e­fit them after col­lege life is done.

Self-assess­ment not only increas­es stu­dent self-aware­ness but sup­ports the stu­dent to set clear goals on how to improve and strive towards next steps in the learn­ing process. Self-assess­ment can be used in both for­ma­tive and sum­ma­tive ways using ideas from the exam­ples below. As you read, con­sid­er how you might incor­po­rate some of these into your course to sup­port stu­dent self-assess­ment.

Strategies to Promote Self-Assessment

Wrap­pers

This guide from Cor­nell pro­vides many exam­ples of how self-assess­ment can be used using some­thing called “wrap­pers” for home­work or for an exam. The intent here is to have the stu­dent work through the ques­tions before and after the assignment/exam. Hav­ing stu­dents reflect on what went well and how prepa­ra­tion might change based on this idea also sup­ports metacog­ni­tion.  

Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, Cen­ter for Teach­ing Inno­va­tion: Self-Assess­ment

Teach Any­where also has infor­ma­tion and exam­ples for you to work from: 

Rubrics

Rubrics can aid in the self-assess­ment process. This helps stu­dents iden­ti­fy areas for improve­ment and take own­er­ship of their learn­ing process, pro­vid­ing a clear frame­work to eval­u­ate their own work and gain an under­stand­ing of high-qual­i­ty per­for­mance.

The most com­mon rubrics are: 

  • Ana­lyt­ic rubric: Breaks down each assessed com­po­nent and pro­vides feed­back on each.  
  • Holis­tic rubric: Eval­u­ates the entire work, look­ing at over­all qual­i­ty and per­for­mance.  
  • Sin­gle point rubric: Sim­pli­fied ver­sion of ana­lyt­ic rubric, mak­ing it eas­i­er for stu­dents to inter­pret.  
  • EMRN rubric: 4 lev­el rubric (see below)

This rubric was used in Prac­ti­cal Nurs­ing lev­el 1 for a reflec­tion assign­ment.   

In this exam­ple, stu­dents are encour­aged to add in their reflec­tion to the left-hand col­umn and the instruc­tor adds their assess­ment to the right side. The stu­dent assigns their grade and the instruc­tor agrees or alters with feed­back for ratio­nale in doing so.  

The “empha­sis” helps to guide stu­dents on where and how much effort to put into the sec­tion.  

Con­sid­er mak­ing a small Kaltura video with a com­plet­ed rubric exam­ple on screen to demon­strate to stu­dents how self-assess­ment works! 

If you want to inte­grate self-assess­ment into an assign­ment – con­tact CTLI for sup­port.

EMRN rubric: Each let­ter can align to points as indi­cat­ed by instruc­tor: 20. 15, 10, 5 for exam­ple.

To explore more, begin here:

ePortfolios

Curat­ing and Shar­ing Reflec­tions and Exam­ples of Learn­ing Through­out the edu­ca­tion­al Jour­ney

“ePort­fo­lios can be imple­ment­ed in a vari­ety of ways for teach­ing and learn­ing, pro­gram­mat­ic assess­ment, and career devel­op­ment. ePort­fo­lios enable stu­dents to elec­tron­i­cal­ly col­lect their work over time, reflect upon their per­son­al and aca­d­e­m­ic growth, and then share select­ed items with oth­ers, includ­ing pro­fes­sors, advi­sors, and poten­tial employ­ers. Because col­lec­tion over time is a key ele­ment of the ePort­fo­lio process, employ­ing ePort­fo­lios in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er high-impact prac­tices pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to make con­nec­tions between var­i­ous edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ences.” — (AACU High Impact Prac­tices)

Overview

ePort­fo­lios in high­er edu­ca­tion are dig­i­tal col­lec­tions of a student’s work, skills, and learn­ing achieve­ments. They allow stu­dents to show­case their progress, reflect on their learn­ing, and con­nect course­work to per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al goals. Unlike tra­di­tion­al assign­ments, ePort­fo­lios fos­ter deep­er engage­ment by help­ing stu­dents present their best work in a mean­ing­ful way. They are also cus­tomiz­able, allow­ing stu­dents to include mul­ti­me­dia ele­ments like videos, images, and hyper­links to demon­strate their abil­i­ties.

For edu­ca­tors, ePort­fo­lios offer a valu­able tool for assess­ing stu­dents holis­ti­cal­ly. They pro­vide evi­dence of a student’s devel­op­ment, crit­i­cal think­ing, and cre­ativ­i­ty across cours­es. Insti­tu­tions can use ePort­fo­lios to align with accred­i­ta­tion stan­dards and track pro­gram out­comes. Addi­tion­al­ly, ePort­fo­lios serve as a pro­fes­sion­al show­case, bridg­ing the gap between aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing and real-world appli­ca­tions for stu­dents

Websites

Videos

  • Video: What is an eport­fo­lio? (Auburn­Writes) — 2:27 min­utes
  • Video: Suc­cess with ePort­fo­lios in Edu­ca­tion (Rus­sell Stan­nard) — 11:15 min­utes
  • Video: ePort­fo­lios- The Future of Assess­ment in an AI World (Rus­sell Stan­nard) — 11:53 min­utes

Benefits for Student Learning

ePort­fo­lios offer sev­er­al ben­e­fits for stu­dent learn­ing by pro­mot­ing reflec­tion, deep­er engage­ment, and the inte­gra­tion of knowl­edge across cours­es and expe­ri­ences. They encour­age stu­dents to reflect on their learn­ing process, help­ing them make con­nec­tions between aca­d­e­m­ic con­tent, per­son­al growth, and future goals. This reflec­tive prac­tice fos­ters metacog­ni­tion, which improves crit­i­cal think­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing skills. ePort­fo­lios also allow stu­dents to track their progress over time, moti­vat­ing them to take own­er­ship of their learn­ing and devel­op a sense of achieve­ment.

In addi­tion to reflec­tion, ePort­fo­lios sup­port per­son­al­ized and applied learn­ing. By incor­po­rat­ing mul­ti­me­dia ele­ments such as videos, images, and hyper­links, stu­dents can cre­ative­ly demon­strate their knowl­edge and skills. ePort­fo­lios enhance stu­dents’ abil­i­ty to con­nect learn­ing across dis­ci­plines and show­case their com­pe­ten­cies to employ­ers or grad­u­ate schools. This abil­i­ty to syn­the­size learn­ing improves aca­d­e­m­ic out­comes and pre­pares stu­dents for suc­cess in a dig­i­tal world.

The com­po­nents of ePort­fo­lios vary depend­ing on their pur­pose, but they gen­er­al­ly include a com­bi­na­tion of reflec­tive, aca­d­e­m­ic, and pro­fes­sion­al ele­ments. Key com­po­nents often include:

  1. Intro­duc­tion or Per­son­al State­ment: A sec­tion where the stu­dent intro­duces them­selves, out­lines their goals, and pro­vides an overview of the pur­pose of their ePort­fo­lio.
  2. Arti­facts: These are pieces of evi­dence such as assign­ments, projects, essays, mul­ti­me­dia, or oth­er works that demon­strate learn­ing and achieve­ments.
  3. Reflec­tions: A crit­i­cal com­po­nent where stu­dents ana­lyze and artic­u­late their learn­ing expe­ri­ences, con­nect­ing them to their aca­d­e­m­ic and career goals.
  4. Learn­ing Out­comes: Clear align­ment between the show­cased work and pro­gram or course out­comes to demon­strate how stu­dents meet aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards.
  5. Design and Nav­i­ga­tion: A user-friend­ly inter­face that makes it easy for view­ers to access and engage with the con­tent, ensur­ing that the port­fo­lio is acces­si­ble and visu­al­ly appeal­ing.
  6. Future Goals: A sec­tion that con­nects past expe­ri­ences with future aspi­ra­tions, often includ­ing career plans, skill devel­op­ment, or per­son­al growth tar­gets (Yancey, 2009).

The com­po­nents of ePort­fo­lios work togeth­er to pro­vide a holis­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a student’s learn­ing jour­ney, inte­grat­ing aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, per­son­al reflec­tions, and future aspi­ra­tions into a cohe­sive and pur­pose­ful show­case.

Prepar­ing stu­dents to cre­ate ePort­fo­lios involves fos­ter­ing tech­ni­cal pro­fi­cien­cy, encour­ag­ing reflec­tive think­ing, and pro­vid­ing clear guide­lines and sup­port. First, stu­dents need train­ing on the tech­ni­cal aspects of the ePort­fo­lio plat­form, includ­ing how to upload arti­facts, use mul­ti­me­dia tools, and orga­nize their con­tent effec­tive­ly.

Before intro­duc­ing ePort­fo­lios to stu­dents, instruc­tors should first devel­op pro­fi­cien­cy with the plat­form they plan to use. Once com­fort­able, they can guide stu­dents through the basics, such as how to nav­i­gate the plat­form, upload and orga­nize con­tent, and reflect on their learn­ing. Instruc­tors should explain the pur­pose of ePort­fo­lios, high­light­ing how they can show­case aca­d­e­m­ic progress, fos­ter reflec­tion, and sup­port career devel­op­ment. This foun­da­tion­al knowl­edge helps stu­dents feel con­fi­dent in using the plat­form effec­tive­ly.

Equal­ly crit­i­cal is teach­ing stu­dents how to reflect on their work mean­ing­ful­ly. Pro­vid­ing prompts, exem­plars, and rubrics can help stu­dents con­nect their aca­d­e­m­ic expe­ri­ences to per­son­al growth and career goals. Fac­ul­ty can guide stu­dents in select­ing arti­facts that align with learn­ing out­comes and encour­age them to artic­u­late how these arti­facts demon­strate their com­pe­ten­cies. Con­tin­u­ous feed­back and sup­port through­out the process can fur­ther help stu­dents refine their ePort­fo­lios and ensure they feel pre­pared to present their work to diverse audi­ences.

Here are some ideas of prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of ePort­fo­lios:

  1. Stu­dent-Curat­ed Dig­i­tal Port­fo­lios: Show­case how stu­dents in dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines use ePort­fo­lios to present writ­ten assign­ments, research papers, and cre­ative projects. For exam­ple, an art stu­dent may include images of their art­work, while a busi­ness stu­dent might present case stud­ies and reports.
  2. Fac­ul­ty-Led Projects: Pro­vide exam­ples of fac­ul­ty incor­po­rat­ing ePort­fo­lios in their cours­es, such as using them for peer reviews or as a tool for for­ma­tive assess­ment, where stu­dents upload work for feed­back and revise it over time.
  3. Work-Inte­grat­ed Learn­ing: Demon­strate how ePort­fo­lios are used in intern­ships or co-op place­ments to doc­u­ment learn­ing out­comes, reflect on job expe­ri­ences, and show­case pro­fes­sion­al skills to poten­tial employ­ers.
  4. Grad­u­ate Reflec­tion and Assess­ment: High­light how ePort­fo­lios are used in cap­stone projects or senior sem­i­nars to inte­grate learn­ing across a student’s aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney. These port­fo­lios often include reflec­tions on how stu­dents’ skills evolved through­out their stud­ies.
  5. Peer Col­lab­o­ra­tion and Assess­ment: Show how ePort­fo­lios can be used in col­lab­o­ra­tive projects, where stu­dents con­tribute to group port­fo­lios, track their progress, and receive peer feed­back.

Each of these exam­ples demon­strates how ePort­fo­lios sup­port dif­fer­ent types of learn­ing expe­ri­ences, from aca­d­e­m­ic work to pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, and illus­trates the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the plat­form.

Instruc­tors should first devel­op pro­fi­cien­cy with the ePort­fo­lio plat­form before intro­duc­ing it to stu­dents. Once famil­iar, they can guide stu­dents through the basics, such as nav­i­gat­ing the plat­form, upload­ing con­tent, and reflect­ing on their learn­ing. Instruc­tors should explain the pur­pose of ePort­fo­lios, show­ing how they sup­port aca­d­e­m­ic progress, reflec­tion, and career devel­op­ment.

Once stu­dents are com­fort­able, instruc­tors can inte­grate ePort­fo­lios into assign­ments that encour­age reflec­tion and arti­fact selec­tion. Reg­u­lar feed­back helps refine port­fo­lios, while peer col­lab­o­ra­tion fos­ters engage­ment. Grad­u­al­ly incor­po­rat­ing ePort­fo­lios into the cur­ricu­lum allows stu­dents to build mean­ing­ful, pro­fes­sion­al port­fo­lios.

  • Eportfolio’s Eval­u­ate Stu­dent Voice Over Work (Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia) Link
  • Eport­fo­lio Resources (Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria) Link
  • Eport­fo­lio Sam­ples (Thomp­son Rivers Uni­ver­si­ty) Link
  • UCal­gary ePort­fo­lio (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary) Link
  • Yang, M. (2024). “An In-Depth Lit­er­a­ture Review of E‑Portfolio Imple­men­ta­tion.” Jour­nal of Edu­ca­tion­al Tech­nol­o­gy Sys­tems, 52(4), 456–472. Link
  • Cam­bridge, D. (2010). E‑Portfolios for Life­long Learn­ing and Assess­ment. Jossey-Bass. Link
  • Chen, H. L., & Pen­ny Light, T. (2010). Elec­tron­ic Port­fo­lios and Stu­dent Suc­cess: Effec­tive­ness, Effi­cien­cy, and Learn­ing. Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties. Link
  • Eynon, B., & Gam­bi­no, L. M. (2017). High-Impact ePort­fo­lio Prac­tice: A Cat­a­lyst for Stu­dent, Fac­ul­ty, and Insti­tu­tion­al Learn­ing. Sty­lus Pub­lish­ing. Link
  • Miller, R., & Mor­gaine, W. (2009). “The Ben­e­fits of E‑Portfolios for Stu­dents and Fac­ul­ty in Their Own Words.” Peer Review, 11(1), 8–12. Link
  • Uni­ver­si­ty of Water­loo, Cen­tre for Teach­ing Excel­lence. “ePort­fo­lios Explained: The­o­ry and Prac­tice.” Link
  • Water­mark Insights. “Using ePort­fo­lios in High­er Edu­ca­tion.” Link
  • Yancey, K. B. (2009). Elec­tron­ic Port­fo­lios 2.0: Emer­gent Research on Imple­men­ta­tion and Impact. Sty­lus Pub­lish­ing. Link

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