Kristina Hoeppner 00:05

Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is a 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, and I look forward to speaking with Ingrid D'Souza today. Ingrid is an educational designer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and holds a Master's degree in education. I met Ingrid many years ago first online through the Mahara community website, and then at an Eportfolio Forum that is organised annually by ePortfolios Australia. Thank you, Ingrid, for taking time to catch up about portfolios.

Ingrid D'Souza 00:56

Hi Kristina. It's lovely to meet you, again.

Kristina Hoeppner 00:58

Ingrid, what did your journey to working with and advocating for portfolios look like?

Ingrid D'Souza 01:05

My journey began a long time ago, probably even before I met you. So if I just go back to my career in the health industry, where I was a nurse and a midwife, and while educating students and new graduates in the clinical field, I became really interested in how students learn. From that, I kind of went off, as you mentioned, and did a Master's in education, as I was an eLearning Specialist as it was called back then. 

Really, my journey with ePortfolios began with my own journey because my own journey was to, you know, keep my record somewhere, and I don't know if anybody listening remembers, but basically, we just have a plastic manila folder, right, and everything got slipped in there, and it fell out, and then you went to an interview, and you had to open it up and show your certificates and things like that. So you know, that was back in the good old days. For me, that was really where my portfolio journey started and grew over time, and I was very excited when we actually went online, so to speak, or had electronic portfolios, which was, you know, very exciting, because no longer did I have this manila folder that if you dropped everything scattered on the floor, particularly when you are nervous at an interview. So yeah, so portfolio journey with me started a very long time ago, I guess.

Kristina Hoeppner 02:13

That reminds me so much of the pictures I've seen from one of our district health boards here in New Zealand, where there was just this huge cupboard full of those portfolios from the nurses. 

Ingrid D'Souza 02:25

Yep, we had to keep them, you know, and as a midwife, I was reflecting on this just the other day, I had to physically keep a logbook of all the births, and you know, all of the women I looked after in labour and things like that, and I did my training over in England, so home births and stuff. So that was a logbook, and I actually found it the other day, still, with all my terrible writing and all the notes and things like that. So that was a portfolio of establishing an accreditation and giving me my certificate back then.

Kristina Hoeppner 02:52

So Ingrid now, of course, you are an Educational Designer at Monash University, and prior to that, at a number of other organisations. You have been supporting lecturers and learners creating their own portfolios now for years. What is your role as learning designer then in this process?

Ingrid D'Souza 03:10

Okay, so yes, it's been a while that I've supported both academics and students with portfolios, probably around seven to 10 years in the electronic format that I talked about before. It started very, very slowly for me, you know, there wasn't a great interest in ePortfolios because how do I put things online, and how do I scan documents and things like that, you know? It's much easier now, obviously, with mobile technology, but my role as an educational designer that I see is actually several different arms to it. There's like the educational design, which is around the curriculum and the assessment and constructive alignment of the learning outcomes and things like that. And then there are the stakeholders, you know, there is the university, there are the academics that I work with, obviously, more, but there's also the students, you know, and I think it's important to recognise that there is an end product, and particularly, I think, to this university policy and strategic plans that affect ePortfolios or portfolios in general. 

But to me, it's actually what gets physically produced at the end by the students that we sometimes don't see as educational designers. So I constantly have to sort of go back and talk to the academics and say, 'Look, how did it go? Was it okay? What happened? What didn't happen?' Because I want to learn from that experience. Luckily for me, the academics have been very good at sharing what the students have done, obviously, with the students' permission, and you know, they've happily shown me it through the assessment platforms and things like that. So I get to see that end result, which is really lovely, but while I'm implementing it or going through the process, it's very much about that ed design, the curriculum, learning outcomes, making sure the policies around the university you met, you know, all of those background things that nobody thinks about around portfolios and then the outcome, but for me, it's the outcome, right? What did that student get? What did they achieve from the journey that they went through?

Kristina Hoeppner 04:56

Yeah because it is the portfolios to benefit the students, the work there.

Ingrid D'Souza 05:00

Absolutely, because it's showcasing them, right? I think that's what we forget, you know, as academics. Even when I think back to my own work as an academic, I was concentrating on the assessment and not on the end product, you know, like, what were the skills and the knowledge that my students achieved? Instead, I was ticking a box: had to do the assessment, this was the mark, I marked it, I went through that process. But what was that journey that the student went through to acknowledge who they were and create their journey and demonstrate their skills to me as an academic? So yeah, to me, it's a really important product, I guess, were the best words that comes out of the journey that they take.

Kristina Hoeppner 05:38

Ingrid, you mentioned quite a bit assessment and aligning the portfolios to the curriculum, making sure that university policy is followed it, and that it also fits into the strategic plan. So what sort of types of portfolios do the students create then mostly? Is there maybe a main type that your lecturers use at Monash?

Ingrid D'Souza 06:00

So I've worked in two different faculties so fa. In the previous faculty, it was in the Faculty of Arts, so it's a very creative journey, you know, they were creating portfolios to demonstrate skills or showcase their work in a different way. In the Faculty of Medicine at the moment, the way that they're using portfolios is very much around clinical placement around competencies when they're out on clinical placement. So it's very kind of assessment driven. So you know, obviously, there is an assessment tasks, I'm going to make this up, because I don't know for sure that this happens. But say, for example, I need to do as a nurse an aseptic dressing, the clinician will watch me do it, tick off the form that I've done all of the aspects because it's very task driven. It would be much better electronically, and then they sign off, they might give me some feedback on it as the person demonstrating it, and that goes into my portfolio. It's a tick box type of thing. 

So you know, if I think back to my own practice, as a midwife, I would have had to do a normal delivery or birth, you know, that would have been somebody watching that I did all the right steps, care for the mother, care for the baby, etc., etc., met the competency standards to become a midwife amongst other things. So that's a different way of using it in Medicine. It's not as creative, I guess, as it was in the Faculty of Arts. So people don't recognise that portfolios are still important. They don't see it. You know, when I've talked to people, they go, 'Oh, that's Art, Ingrid. And we're in, you know, Health. And I'm like, 'Yes, but it's still a portfolio.' So the concept of showcasing the student's ability to complete the degree is what I'm getting at, I'm not talking about the physical tasks that they have to do. 

It's used in different ways in different faculties. Those are the only two I've worked in, you know. I've tried to introduce it into another area, which was Criminology. They didn't see the need for it, but I think it's just as important that we put together a CV, a portfolio of all of the things that we do, and I think it can be adapted to different ways of working from an assessable part because you're assessing the students competency.

Kristina Hoeppner 08:02

Exactly, I think especially when it comes down to the competency portfolio that we can see that pretty much with any profession that has competency standards. So I still remember when I started with portfolios here in New Zealand, working for the Mahara team is that hairdressers were using it extensively here at Weltec, but also in Australia. And then also plumbers were using portfolios, or more recently, I also learned that morticians were using it and so you think like, 'Oh, okay,' but yes, it's a profession like any others. You need to follow certain standards... 

Ingrid D'Souza 08:40

Exactly. 

Kristina Hoeppner 08:40

You need to demonstrate that you're competent in your practice, a so what better way to do that with a portfolio where you then actually also become the reflective practitioner, where it's not just showing that evidence and ticking the box and saying, 'Yes, I've done it,' but also what have you learned from it?

Ingrid D'Souza 08:55

Exactly. And I think it's that lifelong journey. You know, it's a catchphrase these days, but I think it is a lifelong journey. And, like I said, I can look back on physical documentation that I've got in boxes in my house, whereas if it was electronically, I could send it to someone and prove I've done X, Y, and Z. I think that's really important that we look at it much more broadly. I think it's been narrow the vision of portfolios. I mean, even for myself as a potential academic, you know, I could showcase even my PhD work, you know, that I'm currently doing. I could showcase that in a portfolio. You know, the articles I write, the presentations I might do. That's all part of that process. So I think a portfolio is much more than just competency based or ticking a box or professionalism. It's about so many things that showcase the individual and is able to tell the professional story as well as maybe the social story about that person.

Kristina Hoeppner 09:50

That's what I love about portfolios that they are so very versatile, and you can use one piece of evidence but maybe with a different reflection in a completely different context to demonstrate a different aspect of your learning. 

Ingrid D'Souza 10:03

Yes, absolutely.

Kristina Hoeppner 10:05

Ingrid, do you have maybe one or two other examples? You've already talked a bit about the benefits that you see that portfolios can bring, but maybe a couple of other examples where you see yes, these were definitely things that I've seen, either the students learn and benefit from, what they might not have gotten otherwise, or even potentially the lecturers?

Ingrid D'Souza 10:27

Anyway, I was working with this group of students in second year, and we were on a completely different project, and I was helping them actually with Moodle. At the end of the conversation, I was just asking them how the year was going and what was happening, things like that. And this one particular one that I got on really well, which was quite stressed because the following days, he had an interview, and I'm like, "Oh, what's the problem? You know, it's an interview, right? You'll be fine." She, "No I've got to produce something that they can see my work." And I'm like, "Oh, okay, well, what sort of have they asked you for?" "My stuff," evidence, so to speak, but she obviously didn't use that word. And I'm like, "Oh, well, you've done all of those assessments in the portfolio platform. Why don't you just send them that?" She said "But they're attached to my assessments." And I said, "But the beauty about it is, they're in your portfolio. So why don't you put a page together?" and we talked about putting together a, you know, I was using Mahara at that time, putting together Mahara pages with, you know, her CV, her photo, what does she like to do, you know, just a bit of an intro to herself, a covering letter, just so that she was introducing why she thought she was appropriate for this internship, and then evidence, reflective evidence of her journey through these four units that she would have already done. 

Yeah, so one thing that came to mind when I was reading through some of the prompts you sent me was around this one students, it was in a bachelor course. And I had been working with the academic to establish portfolios as a programmatic implementation, and we decided with the academic that the student does four units every semester, two units would definitely have a portfolio component. 

So she literally put it together overnight, and sent it to me. And then, you know, I just gave her a few feedback, like, make sure you give them a bit of guidance how this is going to work because not everybody's seen her portfolio before. And, you know, looks great, just fluff this up to that sort of thing. She sent it through. Needless to say, she did get the internship, which is really lovely. She just sent through a link, you know, obviously to the person before the interview. 

But the beauty about this, I think, and this is why I love portfolios, was she said to me in our conversation, "so if I'm sending the interviewer a link, can I send that link to anyone?" And I'm like, "Yeah, sure, you know, who you're thinking of?" And she said, "Well, my boyfriend and my parents live overseas," and this was obviously during COVID time, "they haven't seen my work. They don't know what I've been doing for the last 18 months or so. And so, you know, could I send it to them? Could they look at it?" And I'm like, "Absolutely, if you are happy to share that link, you know, through an email and all that sort of thing. Absolutely." And so she did, and her parents were just so excited that they were able to be part of her learning journey because they've obviously sent her off to Australia, and you know, she's alone here, or, you know, she's got friends, but they don't know what she's doing, and so for them, it was just such a joy. And she emailed me later and said, not only did I get the internship, but you know, mom and dad was so excited to see some of the work I had done. And you know, her boyfriend was excited because he got to see it as well. 

For her, it was more than just getting an internship. It was more than doing some assessments that were guided, but for the units, it was actually about sharing her learning with others, and I think that was, you know, definitely showcasing the benefits of ePortfolio beyond the assessment. To me, that was really exciting.

Kristina Hoeppner 13:32

This is also a really wonderful example, because it shows besides the versatility that you can turn an assessment into a showcase portfolio that you send on for employability purposes, to also then make that personal connection and also actually show your family or friends so that they can, as you said, partake in that learning journey, which they otherwise might not have either easily understood or wanting to read through an assessment paper that they have done or not had had access to on the learning management systems side, but really bring also that personal aspect back into their life.

Ingrid D'Souza 14:09

That was very exciting. And just briefly, another one was during COVID and during lockdown, we had to move assessments online, obviously, and one of our academics, you know, after spending some time with me and understanding what portfolios could do, she actually produced a class where group work and all of that occurred, but she actually made them do posters in a, you know, ePortfolio platform. In this case, again, it was Mahara. 

We were able to demonstrate that as learning and she could showcase that again to other people, you know, with all the permissions and all of that to actually let others know this course was available and look at the creativity that the students produced. But you know, like a poster is usually static. It's got some graphs, it's got, you know, some words, it might have some pictures. But these students built in videos and podcasts and connections to other things, you know, links and so. It wasn't just a static poster. It was an interactive poster. That's another thing where portfolios can be used dramatically for different things if we can allow that creativity to happen. That is also so important that we move beyond 'this is just an assessment task, and that's all I'm doing.'

Kristina Hoeppner 15:14

Ingrid, you've been working with portfolios now for well over a decade and not just producing your own portfolio, but also teaching others about it and integrating it into courses, but also beyond courses. Are there any trends that you have observed over the years?

Ingrid D'Souza 15:30

I think the biggest trend for me is that it's actually growing. I know, that's not really a trend, but to me, I think the fact that it's just growing is really important. Like I said, you know, 10 years ago, nobody knew about portfolios, it was, you know, jump through this hoop, jump through that hoop. But right now it's growing, and, you know, I'm reading about more and more creativity, more and more people using it. That, to me, is really, really important, and as I said, I wish it was around when I started because I could put everything into that one thing and not look for it and not have it fall open and be visual, and it would showcase me as a person, not just, this is a tick box type of situation. 

So I think for me, that's a really nice trend. The other thing that's become a really comfortable trend for me is the creativity that's coming out of these things just like I just spoke about. The posters, that could never happen, right? And no one knew a global pandemic was going to come, and no one knew we were going to be online, and no one knew that. So the fact that portfolios were used to showcase work that students were doing during a global pandemic was really also another way of demonstrating that trend of creativity that it's not a tick box, it's not just a evidence holding day. It can be much more dynamic and interesting and challenging. 

We as ed designers, we as potential academics, we as you know, people that are looking at authentic assessment even have to start to sort of transform assessment away from that stereotypical essay, test, quiz, whatever that we do and start to make it more creative and make our students want to do it. But by wanting to do it, they'll showcase who they are, and what they've learned. That's the creative side, the trend of creativity, you know, versus growing. So it kind of goes hand in hand. 

Those are the two kind of trends that I think are more important than we have X number of platforms now we could use, and we don't need to be in a platform that is specifically ePortfolio, but we can do it on a website. But that connection to that the student might have from being this is my assessment, to this is who I am, and this is why this assessment is important to who I am. The portfolio is ongoing. It's lifelong. It's a journey. It's all of those things.

Kristina Hoeppner 17:42

There's a lot of really good stuff in there, from the authenticity to showing who you are, growing also in the other fields that we spoken about earlier, and also the fact that you are going back to it because that's also what I see that people especially when they work in a profession where competencies are important that need to be met, they do need to look back, and then they can come back to the portfolio and have all that evidence and their older reflections there and can then also see much better how they have grown. Seeing that on the letter grade is not the same than actually seeing the evidence and the follow on there.

Ingrid D'Souza 18:21

No, absolutely, I think we just have to be creative about the output.

Kristina Hoeppner 18:25

Yeah, be creative, and then also allow the students and learners to bring in their personalities and not just make it a tick box activity. But really also welcome that the reflection is important, that we do want to look at the evidence. 

We know that you are a very big portfolio enthusiast and have certainly converted a number of people as well along the way, but is there something that you would like to be able to do with portfolios, and that doesn't have to be technology specific, that you simply can't get do and would just love to see?

Ingrid D'Souza 18:56

Oh, that's an interesting question, Kristina. This one's difficult for me at the moment because my journey with portfolios has taken a slight U-turn, and there's been a few blocks in my path, not necessarily technology, but around policy and around university strategic plans, and you know, all those big picture items that maybe myself as an ed designer doesn't have as much control over. I have to say that I want to go back to the pedagogical uses and benefits of the platform and not just an assessment tick box. I want to see it grow much more organically for a different word. And currently, I'd like to see portfolios implemented at that programme, degree level and scaffolded. So that students can build on it so that they recognise it from day one that they enter a university degree and that throughout that journey, it's going to be portfolio based, and it's not just something that they do to tick a box. What I'd like to be able to do is see that happen. I don't know if it ever will because I'm up against so many different roadblocks. Yet, to me, it's so important. 

I keep reflecting back on my own journey. You don't do something in first year to not appreciate it and scaffold it in third year, it's a growth that you look back and you go, 'Yeah, I did that in first year, and now in third year, I'm building on that skill.' I built on that skill, even when I left after my degree, but I had no way to record it. You know, I still get asked, 'Oh, how many births did you do when you were a midwife?' And I'm like, 'I don't remember.' Because after I finished, I didn't have to log it anymore, right? There was no one asking for a logbook. And so yet, if I was in that area, I could keep logging it right, I could put it in electronic means and keep a record for my own sake, not for anyone else's sake. 

To me, we kind of silo portfolios because they're attached to assessment. So I guess to answer your question, I think for me the roadblock is that we're not looking at it as a big picture, ongoing professional outcome. We're looking at it as an assessment. We're looking at it as a first year, second year, third year, whatever, and it's siloed. So let's look at it bigger. Let's put in the policy that says 'If you're going to implement a portfolio, start from the beginning, continue, and keep going throughout.' 

Just yesterday, talking to someone in a different field where clinicians who have been in the environment for a long time are coming back to do a short course, I'm like, imagine if they had a portfolio when they started, we could just get them to add to the portfolio and only submit those pages to us that we need because all of their assessments are going to be done in the clinical field, right? So why not connect it up, and they would have the one thing that they've had forever. To me, that's the roadblock. We're not looking big picture.

Kristina Hoeppner 21:42

So we kind of need to find a way of how to get it into the strategic plan of an organisation and then maybe even have not just students and lecturers work with them, but also see how management can work with it because often what we hear is that, yeah, if you do your own portfolio can certainly understand it better.

Ingrid D'Souza 22:02

Yeah, and even where I work as a professional staff in a university, I have to complete a yearly plan, you know, with my manage. I mean, that could be a portfolio, but no one's pushing me into that. So I could do that myself, but the industry, higher ed, is not asking for it. Therefore, I don't put it in my portfolio. Whereas if we integrated all of that, then we could easily showcase it in a way that doesn't need that conversation in a different platform attached to one university and not to another. If I was to move to another industry, then I can take that one portfolio with me. I don't have to recreate it when I go to another place,

Kristina Hoeppner 22:40

Because you're not starting from scratch with your knowledge and your skills, but you're always taking those along with you. Now on to our quick answer round if you're up for it. 

Ingrid D'Souza 22:50

Absolutely. 

Kristina Hoeppner 22:51

Which words to use to describe portfolio work?

Ingrid D'Souza 22:54

So I started with this, and you know, I'm sort of one of those people that are very organised and coordinated. Here's my three words: amazing, adaptable, and I couldn't come up with another 'A' word. So it's flexible.

Kristina Hoeppner 23:04

I was waiting to hear 'creative' in there. 

Ingrid D'Souza 23:07

'Adaptable' probably takes care of the creative. 

Kristina Hoeppner 23:10

Fantastic. Thank you. What tip do you have for other learning designers or instructors who create portfolio activities?

Ingrid D'Souza 23:18

I think this is the one I just mentioned about thinking about it as a lifelong project, a lifelong process and a lifelong product that ends up being used and not just connecting it to assessments. So if there was somebody coming along and wanting to know about ePortfolios, I'd really would like them to start thinking that way.

Kristina Hoeppner 23:35

Now, since we have been talking so much about our learners, what advice do you have for portfolio authors?

Ingrid D'Souza 23:42

Here's where the creative came in. You know, these are my other three words: be creative, be bold, and remember that it's your story. So it's not my story, my assessment as in the academic, it's your story, and you have to tell me that story.

Kristina Hoeppner 23:56

Thank you, Ingrid. It's been so wonderful to talk to you and time has just flown by listening to the stories that you've been telling of the students but also your own personal ePortfolio journey. And so thank you so much for sharing that with us today.

Ingrid D'Souza 24:12

Thank you for the invite. It was been great talking.

Kristina Hoeppner 24:15

Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Ingrid D'Souza. 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 of the portfolio platform Mahara. Our next podcast will air in two weeks. I hope you'll listen again and tell a colleague about our podcast so they can subscribe. Until then, create, share, and engage.