Bobbi Kamil: Demonstrating learning

Kristina Hoeppner 00:05

Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner.

Today I have the pleasure to be speaking with Dr Bobbi Kamil, the first Associate Dean at SUNY Empire, the State University of New York, Empire State College, in the early 1970s. 

Thank you so much, Bobbi, for making time on your vacation while you are in Aotearoa New Zealand, to talk with me and provide your perspective on portfolios after I've already talked with your husband, John Ittelson.

Bobbi Kamil 00:56

I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Kristina Hoeppner 00:59

This interview was completely unplanned. So let's see where it takes us.

Bobbi Kamil 01:04

It's been a long time since we started Empire State College in 1971.

Kristina Hoeppner 01:11

The reason why we're having you on the podcast today is because Empire State has a long history of portfolio work and also quite a different way of assessing students. Can you tell us about that?

Bobbi Kamil 01:26

In 1971, the State University of New York decided that it would really pursue the idea of giving adult learners the opportunity to earn degrees. And so we set up, I think, at the beginning, six sites that were considered to be learning sites. Ours was one. We were in Albany, New York, and so we were Empire State College, State University of New York, Empire State Campus.

And our idea was to bring adult learners back to education, but to realise that during that time between when they were in high school and were now coming back as adult learners, many things had happened to them. And so we said, we need a way to assess what they've learned over these years. We came up with a concept of we need portfolios. They need a chance to demonstrate what they've learned over those years.

Kristina Hoeppner 02:31

What we are these days calling demonstration of prior learning or prior knowledge. That was part of the DNA then of how you admitted students.

Bobbi Kamil02:39

It was, in fact, the total DNA of how we admitted students. Anyone could apply. Depending on where they were able to demonstrate their competencies that would tell us where in fact they entered and how long it would take them to finish.

Kristina Hoeppner 02:57

The other thing that I remember about Empire State was also that students created their own degrees, so put together what they wanted to learn, and how they wanted to learn.

Bobbi Kamil 03:09

Exactly. It was exactly what happened. Students at that point in their life knew where they wanted to go, and it was really fun to be able to mentor them. That was the term we used for the faculty member who designed with the student, their learning portfolio, and led them through the whole process of their education.

Kristina Hoeppner 03:31

How did you actually get involved in this new way of running degrees at a university?

Bobbi Kamil 03:39

I fell into it. Like most of us [both laugh]. I just fell into it. It was an opportunity to do something very different. I had gotten my PhD in a very traditional university, Syracuse University, which was one of the two campuses in the United States that really focused on the concept of instructional technology for learning.

We and Indiana were the two schools leading that. So when I finished my PhD, I looked around for something that was going to take that incredible opportunity I had to learn at my own speed toward a degree and put it in to a place where students would have that opportunity as undergraduates.

Kristina Hoeppner 04:28

How did the faculty take up that invitation of working with the students, having students design their degrees? Because of course, it was so very different from what they had experienced at other institutions. Was there a lot of reteaching or workshopping with the faculty?

Bobbi Kamil 04:45

That was what I did. I helped faculty members who were traditional faculty members become able to work with students in a very different way. In fact, it wasn't their pedagogy being placed on students, but they became a guide on the side, rather than the [both laugh and talk] sage on the stage or god in heaven, which some of them believed they were. So we all moved together at about the same rate. We had to teach the faculty how to be mentors, we had to teach the students how to become independent learners. It was a fascinating opportunity.

Kristina Hoeppner 05:27

Did faculty members then also create their own portfolios as part of the process?

Bobbi Kamil 05:33

What an interesting question. They did, and they then were evaluated based on their portfolios, which was a very difficult thing for them. They weren't used to being evaluated. You know, once you become a professor, your career is pretty well laid out. It was difficult for them to realise that in Empire State, you needed to also be evaluated to make sure that you were doing what you believed was the right course, but also what the college believed was the right course.

Kristina Hoeppner 06:08

How did the university help their faculty on that path? What were the mechanisms of support?

Bobbi Kamil 06:16

Oh, we did a lot of hand holding. We did a lot of beginning to introduce them to technology. You know, everybody was used to paper and pencil. Now all of a sudden, they could look at different ways to evaluate what students were doing. And we just did a lot of hand holding of everybody. Our own education as we learned more and more technology, as the technology began to change was fascinating.

Kristina Hoeppner 06:44

So this really sounds like the very similar processes that we use with students. So the scaffolding of portfolio practice because often times, students don't really know how to reflect or how to give feedback or how to receive feedback because they haven't learned that in school, you actually also had to do with the faculty.

Bobbi Kamil 07:03

Who also didn't know how to reflect on their learning. I mean, it was the same process. We were teaching the students, we were teaching the faculty.

Kristina Hoeppner 07:13

Why aren't more institutions using that concept? 

Bobbi Kamil 07:18

At some point, the Danforth Foundation began to provide money to bring together a number of institutions who were in fact doing the same kind of thing. At first, we were sort of shuffling in the dark, when the Danforth money was provided to Empire State, it was also provided to Minnesota who's doing similar things.

I think there were seven institutions at that point that they brought together. And we began to share information. That was wonderful because we learned from each other about how to direct students, how to deal with faculty. We each brought our own piece of the pie.

Kristina Hoeppner 08:01

Did that collaboration go on for a number of years?

Bobbi Kamil 08:04

Oh, yeah, went on for quite a number of years. I'm very bad at remembering dates, but I think we had that Danforth grant for five years, maybe.

Kristina Hoeppner 08:16

That's what we've also seen at the AAEEBL conference or pretty much really at any conference that you attend where everybody is interested in the same topic that it is that idea exchange that helps you move forward, rethink what you have done in the past, what you might want to try out. So it's wonderful to hear that there were a number of other organisations and institutions that went along the same path as you did.

Bobbi Kamil 08:43

I think Danforth was one of the first groups that allowed us to begin to build that collaborative process you're talking about. It was just an incredible opportunity for us to see what others were doing and to have a little faith in what we were doing. It was all at that time so new. It was such a different way of saying at the end, that student has achieved what they need in order to earn that degree.

Kristina Hoeppner 09:13

What did it actually take for the university to get the students because the entire idea of the institution and how students learn and bring in their prior knowledge was so novel that there must have also been quite a bit of scepticism from people of 'do I actually want to go out there,' or [Bobbi laughs] did people say, 'yes, this is exactly what I've been waiting for.'

Bobbi Kamil 09:34

Absolutely not. I mean, we were the State University of New York. We were very traditional. To have an Empire State within the State University of New York took incredible vision. It really did. Jim Hall, who was the first President did a magnificent job of selling the concept within the walls of the State University. So it gave us a chance to offer a degree to students who otherwise would have been denied. University students were 18. Our students, I think my oldest student was 55 and said, 'I've always wanted a degree. I'm willing to try.'

Kristina Hoeppner 10:15

Do you remember how many students you had in the first year then?

Bobbi Kamil 10:19

Not many [laughs]. I think we had seven faculty, me, and Tom Clark was the Dean of Empire State, of the new campus, and I think we each mentored one student. By the time I left Empire State, we had maybe 30 faculty mentoring maybe four students each. So it started to grow, and then it just exploded. Learning centres started to pop up all over the state of New York, faculty, who had been very resistant to the idea, who were traditional faculty, saw students who were progressing.

Adult Learners are very different from those young students. Adult learners are focused, committed, and willing to work hard. I'm not saying that traditional students don't, but it takes them a while to grow into that. Our students were committed from day one.

Kristina Hoeppner 11:19

You've been using portfolios from the start at Empire State. 

Bobbi Kamil 11:22

Yes.

Kristina Hoeppner 11:23

How did the adult learners take that on? Did that idea of creating a portfolio work better for them because they were not used to the normal sort of assessments, multiple choice or writing long essays, or writing term papers and such. Did that actually also help them with their assessments?

Bobbi Kamil 11:44

I think what they had to do was a very much more difficult question. They had to look at what they had been doing in their lives and evaluate how that learning, in fact, moved them along the continuum. It was a mentor working with the student to begin to help them see that, in fact, a lot of the learning they had done, in fact, led to a degree. They produced portfolios, as John pointed out earlier in your other questioning, first, they were paper, and we had all kinds of piles of paper to assess, and slowly as a technology developed, we moved it on to electronics, and that made all the difference in the world.

Kristina Hoeppner 12:33

Because nobody needed to lug around these big binders [Bobbi exlaims 'Oh'] and drive them from one campus to another [Bobbi exlaims 'Oh'] .

Bobbi Kamil 12:40

For sure. Those binders, I can't believe how happy I was when we no longer had to carry them from one place to another.

Kristina Hoeppner 12:49

For the students then they also needed to learn to reflect then in a lot of ways with the help of the mentor to see their learning journey and how their prior experiences contributed to where they are now, right?

Bobbi Kamil 13:03

Absolutely, and to realise that these were the steps they needed to take next. So reflection was a really important key. Looking back at yourself and analysing what you learned, how you could move it to the next step was part of the process.

Kristina Hoeppner 13:21

It is a very interesting concept. When I first heard about Empire State and how the degrees were made up, I couldn't comprehend it initially because it was so very foreign. But then having thought about it a little bit, it actually did make very good sense, and I applaud you also for having taken on the challenge back in the day to see it through and to establish the university with the other colleagues that you had at the time.

Bobbi Kamil 13:48

It was fascinating to then marry John so many years later and to realise that the whole concept of Empire State was now again being developed. And the concepts weren't very different. I would look at him and I'd say, 'Yeah, we did that 10 years ago, dear.' Somehow our marriage has survived 28 years beyond that, and we've learned and grown together, even doing portfolios on our own lives.

Kristina Hoeppner 14:17

What is in your portfolio then?

Bobbi Kamil 14:19

Oh, yeah. We've travelled, we've grown, we've assessed our learning. We continue to enjoy our children, our grandchildren. We collect photos, we collect memories, we evaluate those. We love our friends, we evaluate our friendships, and keep growing.

Kristina Hoeppner 14:39

What advice do you then have for people nowadays or new to portfolios? What should they maybe do or be aware of in order to also become that reflective practitioner in their personal lives as well as their professional lives?

Bobbi Kamil 14:56

Oh you all are so far beyond where I was. I can't give you any advice except to tell you that the more you look inside yourself, the more you're willing to look at how you're growing and developing, the better off you'll be.

Kristina Hoeppner 15:11

What are your three portfolio words or short phrases that you would like to impart to our listeners?

Bobbi Kamil 15:20

Well, for us reflection was always key; evaluation, assessment, but always being willing to look inside yourself and ask hard questions.

Kristina Hoeppner 15:32

Your tip for learning designers. What advice would you give them?

Bobbi Kamil 15:38

Don't be afraid to ask hard questions.

Kristina Hoeppner 15:41

Ask hard questions of yourself, of your students, or your institution, or all of it?

Bobbi Kamil 15:46

Of all of them. The hard question to your institution is 'How committed are you to allow students to grow?'

Kristina Hoeppner 15:54

Thank you so much, Bobbi. It was wonderful to have this impromptu interview with you.

Bobbi Kamil 15:59

It was so wonderful to be here in Wellington, looking at you, realising that the last time I saw you was in 2011, and you've grown so much in your questions and your ability to build the podcast. That's really fun.

Kristina Hoeppner 16:14

Thank you. Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? 

This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Bobbi Kamil. Head to our website podcast@mahara.org where you can find links and the transcript for this episode. This podcast is produced by Catalyst IT, and I'm your host Kristina Hoeppner, Project Lead and Product Manager after portfolio platform Mahara.

Our next podcast will air in two weeks. I hope you'll listen again and to tell a colleague about it so they can subscribe. Until then, create, share, and engage.