Portfolios for learning and more brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. Host Kristina Hoeppner talks with portfolio practitioners, researchers, learning designers, students, and others about their portfolio story.
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KatieAnn Nguyen is a Chemistry student at Dominican University of California. She's also a peer mentor for digital portfolios at Dominican.
In this episode, KatieAnn shares what she does as a peer mentor and why she thinks portfolios are important for students to create.
This episode is the third of five interviews with portfolio authors from Dominican University of California whom I was privileged to meet in preparation for and during the first AAEEBL ePortfolio Retreat that was held at Dominican on 18 October 2024.
Production information Production: Catalyst IT Host: Kristina Hoeppner Artwork: Evonne Cheung Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Introduction
When were you introduced to portfolios?
How do you support students creating portfolios?
Do you have more than one portfolio?
What are the benefits of creating a portfolio?
What could have been done better?
Q&A: 3 words to describe portfolio work
Q&A: A tip for learning designers and educators
Q&A: A tip for learners
Kristina Hoeppner:
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 you'll hear my interview with KatieAnn Nguyen. KatieAnn is a student at Dominican University of California where I visited in October 2024 as part of the first AAEEBL ePortfolio Retreat. Christina Mayes, the manager of the Fletcher Jones Digital Portfolio Lab at Dominican and one of this year's new AAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force members recommended I have a chat with her. Welcome to the podcast, KatieAnn!
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Thanks for having me.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you study?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Right now I'm a Chemistry major, third year at Dominican University of California, and I have two minors in Community Action and Social Change, which is our social justice minor here at Dominican, as well as Global Public Health, and I have aspirations in the future to apply to medical school and go on to become a pediatrician.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Fantastic. That's quite the journey in health that you're having, helping people and supporting them throughout, and you're already starting now with supporting your students here on campus. KatieAnn, when did you create your first portfolio, please?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I first began my digital portfolio in my'Navigating college' class here at Dominican. So at Dominican, we have a class that we enrol first year students, and it's to help students navigate in college in this sense. So we help them develop study habits, figure out how to register for a class next semester, as well as practice financial literacy, and all these little things that you never really think about in your first semester, other than like,'Oh, where am I gonna live? What am I gonna bring?' We basically focus on those little things. One of the components of Dominican's curriculum is that we develop a digital portfolio. I was introduced to the topic in this 'Navigating college' class by two peer mentors, which is what I do now as a role here at Dominican. We basically work with students to develop this digital portfolio, and I started my first year here, so my freshman semester 1. So my first semester here at Dominican, I actually began my digital portfolio.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Is'Navigating college' actually a mandatory course or can you still opt in?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
It's an opt-in course. We do encourage students to participate in it just because we believe that it brings students together, and it also connects them with different topics that they might not think about when they're first coming into or starting out at college in the first place.
Kristina Hoeppner:
You just mentioned that you are now a peer mentor yourself, so people you encountered in your first semester. How do you support the students in their creation of portfolios?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
This year is a little different as a digital portfolio mentor just because I work primarily with everyone's digital portfolio. So I have different meetings with them, I talk them through making aesthetics, figuring out what is really important to them that they want to showcase on this digital portfolio. Because at the end of the day, I like to emphasise that, 'Oh, a digital portfolio, yes, it is for career development, but it's also a reflective piece, and it's how you can look back at your time here spent at Dominican. What different experiences have you been a part of? What was really meaningful during these four years at Dominican?' I like to emphasise and work with them on, first, creating something that they'll be really proud of going back and looking back on, and second, creating something that they can take with them as a little artefact from their time here at Dominican.
Kristina Hoeppner:
When you're working with your students, do you have a sort of template that you give them or do you model portfolio work them for them? Do you use exemplars of what students had done before?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
First, I like to showcase mine, and I like to preface that it can be really overwhelming just because I've been working on my digital portfolio for so many years. So I like to preface that not everyone's is going to look like this at the beginning because again, it is a showcase of your four years here at Dominican. So as you continue your time here, it's obviously going to grow a little bit more. You're going to develop a little bit more skills, a little bit more things to strengthen your work here. So I like to showcase mine, and mine talks about my work here as a chemistry student. I do a lot of work in the lab, in the wet lab, and I do a lot of hands-on research. So I showcase some of that, my coursework and everything. Depending on their major, we do have some sample student showcases, and I like to show them the different examples, too, so that they can get the wide range of what is working. What do I like from this portfolio, and what do I like from this other portfolio, and how can I combine that into something that I'll be really proud of. If it's a nursing student, we have a couple of nursing majors, then I like to showcase a different one, so that way they can see a chemistry one, a nursing, and then another nursing. If it's education, I know they have very strict guidelines, so we do have a couple education majors, too. So I really like to emphasise showing instead of just telling because it really demonstrates these students, 'Oh, why is this important?' And it really gives them insight on how this can come together as a whole.
Kristina Hoeppner:
And also see that every student creates their portfolio differently. Only because yours has lots of images and then text next to it and lots of images again, somebody else who might prefer to represent themselves differently can also do that.
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Yeah. A lot of it is, I guess, a lot stylistic. That's something I hadn't really considered before. But yeah, you're right. A lot of it is,'Oh, does someone want a lot of images, or does someone want to have it more wordy?' It just depends on the person. I think it's a really great artefact and a really great tool for students to have because it really showcases them as a person, and then it also showcases their work here.
Kristina Hoeppner:
How many students do you then support KatieAnn?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Right now, I do support anyone who is willing to come. We're in a time where not a lot of students are coming to visit us just because a lot of them are stressed from midterms, and we totally understand that. Right now, I have a set of around 20 freshmen. These are the students who are not enrolled in a digital portfolio class. Instead, I reach out to them about digital portfolio work, I help them get started because they're not involved in the class that does help you get those first steps started. So I reach out to them. They've scheduled a couple meetings with me and my other partner because we split our mentees together. It's around 20 between the two of us. In addition to that, anyone else who is recommended from the'Navigating college' class to book a session with some of our digital portfolio mentors or anyone else who stumbles upon us, I'm always open to helping anyone, as long as it falls within my availability. Sometimes I come in and I don't have any digital portfolio working sessions, and sometimes I do. It just depends on the week.
Kristina Hoeppner:
So you kind of have some office hours.
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Yeah, I do have office hours. I work in the office here two hours a week for digital portfolio and one hour for the Student Success Center.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do the students who create the portfolios as part of the'Navigating college' class or also the ones that here are supporting who are not participating in the class receive any other support in working on their portfolios.
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I'm part of a section of the Student Success Center, so all of it is really incorporated. If you talk to any integrative coach, they'll be able to talk about their portfolio. And so all these students are able to get support from them. In addition, depending on your major, there are some majors that have more of an emphasis on digital portfolio, and some of them who don't have as much of an emphasis, but they all help that you incorporate these different aspects. Before coming here, actually, someone was talking to me and was like, 'Oh, can you come and speak to the chemistry students and the biology, kinesiology students because I'm doing a workshop for digital portfolio I'm helping develop for first year students. Can you come and present?' It's just like little things like that where professors are having people come in and present there. So business majors, someone who is recommended by a professor will go and present their digital portfolio for the business majors. And then, in my instance, the STEM teacher came and contacted me, just because I have more of the STEM background with my digital portfolio.
Kristina Hoeppner:
The portfolio that I saw online that Christina had sent through, is that your only one or do you also have other portfolios that are maybe more class based?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
That's my only portfolio. It's really based on my entire time at Dominican. It incorporates my class list, it incorporates the different activities I've been in, some internships as well. I just really wanted it to portray myself, not just as a student, but also, what do I do outside of studying? What do I do to develop myself as a person?
Kristina Hoeppner:
How often do you update it?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
It depends on where I'm showcasing it.
Kristina Hoeppner:
So you do actually adapt your portfolio. You adjust it.
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I do adjust it, yeah. I adjusted it before the summer. I've touched it a little bit this semester. I haven't had as much time. It does need a little bit more updating, but I try to at least regularly do it at least once a semester to update my classes, add some coursework, also add different things I've been doing that semester because it's fresh in my mind, I can just write it down.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Where do see the benefits of creating portfolios for your fellow students?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I like to tell people who come to my sessions that this digital portfolio is really beneficial in career development. And also I think it's nice to just have an artefact of your time here, because in high school, I didn't have this tool, and so if someone were to ask me, 'What did you do in high school?' It would just be like, 'I think I took this class. I think I went and volunteered here.' I don't have a set thing where I can just say, look back and review what I've done. What I like about the digital portfolio is that since I'm applying for med school later down the line, if I decide to take a gap year, it's not going to be as fresh in my mind. So I'll be able to take this resource and go back on it and say, 'This is something I did in my freshman year,' and this can really help with my application down the line. In addition to students, I would say it's a really nice website to have also applying to jobs because some of my jobs or internships that I've applied to, they've asked, 'Oh, do you have a website?' And this can definitely be a tool that you can put on it, and it can show something a little bit more than just what your résumé can show because it goes a little bit more in depth about your class load, it shows your work experience, anything else like that. It dives deeper in you outside of just being a student, outside of just being a job. It kind of combines all of you and your career exploration as well as your academic development. So it's a really nice resource for both your own personal growth, your own personal reflection, and then also, if you do apply for jobs, you can also add it as a supplement to your application.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What would you have liked to know about the portfolio when you started at Dominican and had no idea since you were not introduced it at high school?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I guess one of the things I would have wanted to know was the emphasis on keeping it regularly updated. Because if I hadn't been a peer mentor, I don't believe I would have been as in depth with it as I am now, but being a peer mentor has definitely pushed me to make sure that it's up to date all the time. But if I hadn't been as up to date, I don't think I would have valued the resource of it as much. I know what a couple students I've talked to, they're like, 'Oh, what's a digital portfolio?' Or'will I really need this down the line?' Working with these students and seeing how much of an impact it has had for me, especially because I like looking back and being like,'This is what I did. It's like a source of pride' knowing that I'm able to create a website and everything, that's a good skill to take with you to any job. It's definitely something that I wish I would have known in the beginning, this is something really important and something that can be really useful in the long run.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Are you showing your portfolio also to your friends or to family, or is it just part of your professional life?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
It depends, but sometimes I do show it to my friends because they'll ask,'What was on your digital portfolio?' Because they'll be working on theirs, or they'll be like, 'What did you take for this semester?' And I can't remember off the top of my head, so I'll pull it up, and they'll be like, 'Oh, what is that?' And I'll just talk a little bit more in depth about it. I haven't shown my family. Maybe that is something I'll have to think about in the future, but it is definitely something I've talked about with my friends more on the casual level, instead of, like, a professional level,
Kristina Hoeppner:
What would you like to be able to do with portfolios that you currently can't?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I think I would say I'm pretty content with how the portfolio works for me. I really like how Dominican emphasises it, and I like how they walk us through the steps of creation, and they talk a little bit about why it's so important in the long run. And I think just them having it as a resource and having it that's something that we have to create during our time here is definitely more than I would have anticipated. I do admit, at the beginning I was a little like 'It's just another thing to create,' but being in my third year now, it's really nice to have and just be able to highlight, 'Oh yeah, I worked with one of this volunteer team,' and so I'm really content with how our programme is set up, and the fact that we have all these different digital portfolio mentors in the DP Lab just to work with different students?
Kristina Hoeppner:
From what I've heard so far, it's a wonderful team, and you also have an amazing space upstairs from where we are sitting right now, where you can get really nice and comfortable. You also have this movable furniture so that you can work in groups, but also separately. Do you then hold your sessions in that Digital Portfolio Lab's room?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I actually give the option between online or in person. So a lot of my in person sessions are held in the Digital Portfolio Lab, and if the Digital Portfolio Lab is taken up for any reason, we just stay in the Student Success Center.
Kristina Hoeppner:
We're already at our last three questions, KatieAnn, so the first one is for you, which words or short phrases do you use to describe portfolio work?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Mine would be exploration, expressive, and reflective.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you for those. What tip do you have for instructors or instructional designers, learning designers when they are creating portfolio activities for students?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I think it can be a really overwhelming task in the beginning just because you look at all these developed digital portfolios, and you're like, 'Oh, am I supposed to have this, this, and this? I don't have any of that.' I remember being in one of my classes and looking at my peer mentor at the time feeling like, 'Am I supposed to have it fully developed like that? I'm barely beginning my time here at Dominican. How much am I really supposed to have?' And so I think for future instructors, just breaking it up can be really helpful because I know in my 'Navigating college' class, we broke it up in different sections. So we worked on my about me in the beginning, and then we worked about what pages we wanted to create; just breaking it up into chunks so it doesn't feel as overwhelming in the beginning can be really beneficial, I think, and it can really help pace students so that way they don't feel 'Oh my gosh, this is just a burden. This is just too much for me to do on top of all my school work!' Breaking it up in different sections, like, 'You can work on your class sections here, or you can work on your volunteer section, or you can even work on your clinical section for our nursing students.' So it's just making sure to make it more digestible in the long run can be really helpful for students.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What advice do you have for fellow students, for at the portfolio authors?
KatieAnn Nguyen:
I would say, just have fun with it. I think it's definitely a great way to express yourself. It can definitely be an extension of your time here at Dominican, and it's definitely a beneficial thing where you can treat it as an artistic expression of your time here. It doesn't have to be like, 'I did this, this and this,' it can also be like,'This is what I really enjoyed,' and it's a time to, like, reflect and think back on all the work you've done at Dominican because you have put in so much work. You've gone out and volunteered in the community, you've gone out and done your clinicals at the different hospitals. You've done so much, and this is your time to showcase that work and to take pride in having such a brilliant showcase because you're able to then talk about it later on, and then show for friends or even family or even future career opportunities, and be like 'This is what I did during my four years of undergrad.' And so this is a time for artistic expression. This is a time for taking pride in what you're doing and then also just showcasing how hard you worked. Because honestly, you do deserve to be proud of it, and you do deserve to think back and be like, 'This is what I did,' and it's just a great experience. And just take it how you want it, and just have fun with it because at the end of the day, this is your digital portfolio. It doesn't matter what I might suggest or someone else might suggest, it's how you make of it. And with all things, it's experience what you make of it.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you so much for these thoughts and insights, KatieAnn to how you work with portfolios on your own, but also as a peer mentor, supporting other students here at Dominican with the practice and giving them a good start into it as well, so that they get into the practice of reflecting and then also hopefully taking it further into their career and using it then there. Thank you so much.
KatieAnn Nguyen:
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to meet with you and talk to you today.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try with your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with KatieAnn Nguyen. Head to our website, podcast.mahara.org, where you can find resources 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 episode will air in two weeks, and again, we will have a member of the Dominican University of California community talking about their portfolio experience. I hope you'll listen again and tell a colleague about our podcast so they can subscribe. Until then, create, share, and engage.
