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.
In this interview Mike shares how he uses the artificial intelligence reflection bot Riff with his students to encourage deeper and more meaningful reflection in their portfolios and how he incorporates his students' work in their portfolios into his lectures.
Production information Production: Catalyst IT Host: Kristina Hoeppner Artwork: Evonne Cheung Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Introduction
Why do you use portfolios?
How do use the AI reflection bot Riff?
Are there other ways you use / want to use AI for portfolios?
Q&A: Words to use to describe portfolio work
Q&A: A tip for learning designers and educators
Q&A: A tip for portfolio authors
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, my guest is Prof Dr Mike Altieri from Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden (OTH Amberg-Weiden). If you listened to Episode 69 with Christina Stollner and Romy Hösl, you would have already heard his name. Christina mentioned that he is using the reflection bot Riff with his students in their portfolio work. I wanted to learn more about that and thus invited him. Thank you very much for sharing your experience, Mike.
Mike Altieri:
You're very welcome.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What do you do at OTH Amberg-Weiden?
Mike Altieri:
I'm a professor of Media Didactics in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Media, and Computer Science. My work focuses on designing and researching innovative forms of digital and hybrid teaching. This includes areas like digital exercises, of course, ePortfolios, and the integration of AI in education. One of my main areas of focus here is the Educational Technology Programme, which can be studied entirely online or on campus, so hybrid. Overall, I'm passionate about using technology to enhance learning and to support students in developing reflective, future ready competencies.
Kristina Hoeppner:
You also have a project, the Projekt Dreiklang, where Christina and Romy are also members, which is funded by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre.
Mike Altieri:
Yes, that's right. Now we transferred the outcome of this project into our university to make it continuously available.
Kristina Hoeppner:
That's fantastic that you do have the opportunity to create that sustainable practice, embed the practice of portfolios at your institution, and that you can also continue with that work.
Mike Altieri:
That was very important from the beginning that we use the money responsibly. Now we have it integrated into our daily work at university. This was a great advantage to have this project, and now we can use the outcome of the project and continue the work.
Kristina Hoeppner:
And also work together with other institutions as Romy and Christina had already told us, which is great to have that network available.
Mike Altieri:
Yes, we also set up a website where people can connect using ePortfolios in Germany or even outside of Germany. So we have a lot of connections, and there is a very vivid community here in Germany.
Kristina Hoeppner:
You came across portfolios five years ago. How did that come about?
Mike Altieri:
I started working with ePortfolios, I think it was 2019. I introduced them into my teaching because I wanted to address three specific goals. First, I wanted to encourage students to ask more questions. I had noticed that during my former lectures or traditional lectures, students rarely ask questions, not because they didn't have any but because they needed time to process the material first. By adding a dedicated space for questions in the ePortfolio, the number of student questions increased dramatically, in a positive sense, in some courses, up to tenfold. This is the reason why today, I reserve the first 30 minutes of each lecture just to respond to these questions from the ePortfolios. Second, I aim to strengthen students' reflective skills by making structured reflection a regular part of their learning processes. And third, I wanted to create a way for students to preserve and revisit their knowledge over time. This is something that traditional lecture formats often don't support. I experienced that ePortfolios have proven to be a very effective tool for achieving all these three goals.
Kristina Hoeppner:
I find it fascinating that you use the first 30 minutes of the next class to answer your students' questions. How long are your classes?
Mike Altieri:
They are two times 90 minutes.
Kristina Hoeppner:
You also mentioned that your students are asking way more questions than they did in the past. Are they then also asking more questions during those 30 minutes? And then do you get into a conversation with them?
Mike Altieri:
There is some conversation, but the main part is to answer all these questions, and then the lecture goes on in the usual way. Afterwards, they have to summarise the lecture in their ePortfolio, and when they summarise and reflect on it, they automatically produce questions, a lot of questions, and they write it down in the ePortfolio. Then I pick it up, present it within the next class or lecture, and discuss this with them.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Since your students continue asking questions, I assume they enjoy this practice and working this way and being able to ponder the content that they have absorbed, that they are learning, and then asking questions afterwards, before the next class?
Mike Altieri:
Yes, they feel that they get deeper than before.
Kristina Hoeppner:
In the episode with Christina and Romy, Christina had mentioned that you are using Riff, the AI powered reflection bot. That was developed by Dr Letitia Britos Cavagnaro at the d.school at Stanford University. How do you incorporate the reflection bot into your practice?
Mike Altieri:
Reflection is one part of the ePortfolio. My students have to create a site after each lecture that contains five subsections. First a content summary. Second, a reflection. Third, questions. The fourth part is 'The most important thing I learned today,' and the fifth part is their homework. I think most of the questions arise in connection with filling out this reflection part, but maybe also by filling out the content summary. I use Riff as a tool to support my students in developing their reflection skills, which are often a little bit underdeveloped at the beginning because many students tend to confuse reflection with summary. Their so called 'reflections' are often just a repetition of the course content, rather than a deeper engagement with their learning process. Here Riff really helps and changes that immediately because it provides prompts, AI-generated prompts and questions, that guide students toward meaningful reflection, encouraging them to think critically, make connections, and express personal insights. For example, it might ask 'What challenged you today?' or 'How could this be applied in a different context?' These nudges shift students away from a pure summary toward reflective thinking. In my lectures, the use of Riff is voluntary, and indeed, students engage with it in different ways. Some use it once and never again, others use it occasionally, and some, after a first experience, use it continuously.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What do you have to provide to the students who want to use Riff?
Mike Altieri:
I only give them the link to the Riff bot, and then they can start reflecting about what they have learned. There is an initial introduction by the Riff bot, and after this, the conversation starts.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do you customise that initial prompt for the students, or do you use the standard question that Riff offers?
Mike Altieri:
I customised it a little bit. The Riff bot introduces himself and tells the students why he is here and what is his aim. After this, the bot asks the first question.
Kristina Hoeppner:
That's a very interesting use case of generative AI because typically the chatbots give us answers, but in the case of riff, it's actually only asking questions.
Mike Altieri:
Yes, there is a new option for lecturers in Riff that I think is very exciting and interesting because lecturers can now choose between different types of bots. There are now eight available bots. I tried them out. For me, the most interesting one was a bot that asked questions from the student's self in the future. It will be a discussion between the student and the student a few years later.
Kristina Hoeppner:
I like Riff very much because it does have the theory on reflection and how to reflect built into it. You had mentioned that typically when students initially think about reflection, it is just a summary, just a description of what they had done. And that is where Riff is really helping because it takes you deeper into that reflection, following the reflection framework of 'What? So what? Now what?' So that initially there is that summary, and then it is going into the'So what?' So how did you feel? What have you learned? And then looking forward into the future. Now, what are you going to take with you for future classes or future explorations?
Mike Altieri:
Whenever students use Riff, even just once, the quality of their reflections tends to improve significantly. Their writing becomes more focused, more personal, and more reflective, not only in the reflective part of the portfolio. Instead of simply summarising content, they begin to ask themselves deeper questions, connect ideas, and think more critically about their learning. I've also noticed that students who use Riff often develop a more consistent and structured reflection habit, and so their ePortfolio entries show more depth over time and often reveal a clearer awareness of their own learning process. What's especially interesting is that this happens without any direct instruction or grading pressure from me. Riff acts as a kind of reflective mirror, guiding students gently but effectively toward better thinking. For some students, this is a turning point in how they understand and use reflection as a learning tool.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do you then, for those that don't use the tool, give specific reflective questions that they should be answering?
Mike Altieri:
I actually started using fixed reflection questions. I provided students with guiding prompts to help them structure their reflections and think more deeply about the learning. But in my experience, this didn't work very well. Some students may not even have noticed those suggestions, and others didn't really engage with them. For me, it was essentially a one way communication. I was proposing questions they might ask themselves, but there was no real interaction. A bot like Riff changes that. It actively requires engagement. That means students write their reflections and immediately receive tailored follow-up prompts based on what they actually wrote. This makes the process interactive, adaptive, and, of course, much more effective. There are students that don't use these fixed questions and don't use Riff. What about them? Then we talk about reflective competencies. Some have very good reflective competencies, and they don't need tools like Riff, and they don't need these guiding questions. But I would say this is a minority. The majority is not really aware what reflection means and how it works. For those students, it's very important to have some scaffolding, and here, scaffolding by Riff is much more effective than a scaffolding by fixed questions. This part of the students, their reflection competencies are quite poor, I would say. If they don't use tools like Riff, it always remains some kind of summary, summary of the content when they should reflect about the content.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Yeah, the adaptive questions, I find, are what makes a big difference so that students can think about their specific context. Because, of course, while in your case, your students sit in the same lecture so get the same initial input from you, they are still taking it on differently, have different experiences, and with fixed questions, you might get more similar answers, whereas Riff can pick up on those experiences because what it typically does is it mirrors back the response from the student and then asks another question.
Mike Altieri:
This kind of flexibility is especially valuable in higher education where I teach because here students vary widely in experience and also in self-awareness. Riff can challenge each learner appropriately, not too little and not too much, and help create a learning experience that is both personal and cognitively engaging.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do students encounter portfolios only in your lectures or are portfolios built throughout their entire study programme?
Mike Altieri:
Yes, indeed, portfolios are a part of the entire study programme, but as far as I know, I'm the only one that uses Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner:
You had said that you are changing the initial prompt that Riff gives. So it does have an interface for educators where you can see all the responses, and there have also been made additions, where you can now filter responses and look for certain categories. Are you making use of any of these features that you see on the back-end of it?
Mike Altieri:
No, I don't use this educator interface. I make this very, very clear to my students. The conversation between the students and the Riff bot can be very personal. I want to protect this private space. If I read their conversations, some students might hesitate, or it could also lead to answers that sound more like what they think I want to hear. That's why I completely stay out of it. Instead, students can decide what they want to share. They are asked to summarise their reflection in their ePortfolio, and some write it in their own words, others copy the whole chat with Riff. So this is completely up to them. I want them to feel free and in control of their own reflection process. Reflection competency sounds abstract, but reflection is not abstract. It's very, very personal, or it can be very, very personal. The students get into deeper discussions with the bot, also comparing their learning process with former learning process in their schools, and they mention personal experiences. So I would like that it's up to them to share this part of their conversation with me in the ePortfolio or not.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Do you sometimes use Riff yourself for your own reflections?
Mike Altieri:
Yes, not very often, but whenever I have to bring ideas forth, for example, when writing an application, then I use Riff.
Kristina Hoeppner:
How does it help you in that practice? Does it help you brainstorm?
Mike Altieri:
Yes, I use it for brainstorming.
Kristina Hoeppner:
I'll have to give that a go. Mike, have you asked your students how they feel using Riff, the ones that are using it and the students who are not using it, do you know why they are not using it?
Mike Altieri:
The students who use Riff continuously, they regard Riff as a conversational partner or a conversational agent, and they really like it, and they see the benefits. Of course, there are some students who don't like this kind of conversation, and this is similar to the case some students don't like to write texts.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Yeah, because Riff does rely on you typing responses. I did see one version of it where Leticia was also experimenting with voice control. That, of course, is also very interesting to see how that then changes the reflection altogether.
Mike Altieri:
Yes, this is interesting. I tried it out, but it does not work with German language so good. Maybe we have to wait a little bit.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Are there some other ways of how you would like to use AI in your portfolio practice? Because we've now been talking about the reflection and students getting more personalised prompts. Is there anything else that you are maybe already currently exploring or that you want to look into more?
Mike Altieri:
With respect to Riff, I already mentioned that I would like to try out these different types of bots that are now available. Another very big topic is AI-based feedback. We all know giving good feedback on ePortfolios takes a lot of time, especially in large classes. I think it's one reason why some lecturers who would like to use ePortfolios, don't use them because they have classes with more than 100 students, and it takes a lot of time, even if they use peer feedback, to have a look on all these ePortfolios. We are currently experimenting with using AI to support this process, and what we have seen so far is that the quality of the prompts really matters, and the quality of the feedback differs extremely between different large language models. We are learning a lot at the moment, and we put a lot of effort in this topic, and we will share our first results at the conference soon.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that conference room. Thank you so much for sharing all that you do with Riff in regards to reflection as part of your portfolio practice, Mike. It will be interesting to see how your students continue to use it and then hopefully also in other parts of your study programme, so that they can continue with their good reflection practice. Now to our last three questions, and the first one is, which words or short phrases do you use to describe portfolio work?
Mike Altieri:
I would describe portfolio work as reflective, personal, and a great use case for AI in education.
Kristina Hoeppner:
What tip do you have for learning designers or instructors who create portfolio activities?
Mike Altieri:
Give students a clear structure to start with, but also enough freedom to make the portfolio their own. If possible, integrate regular moments for feedback or sharing, even if it's peer feedback. Be aware that reflection doesn't come naturally to everyone. So students often need support in learning how to reflect, and this is where tools like Riff can be very helpful.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Last but not least, what advice do you have for portfolio authors, for your students?
Mike Altieri:
Take your portfolio seriously, not for the grade, but for yourself. It's not just a task to complete, but a space to think, to question, and to grow. Don't just describe what you did. Try to make sense of why it mattered, what you learned from it, and how it connects to your goals and other topics. At the beginning, reflection can feel very unusual, but the more regularly you do it, the more valuable it becomes. And at last, remember your portfolio is not for your lecturer, it's for you, so make it something that you would want to look back on in a year or two.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Thank you so much for all these tips for everybody who's been listening to this episode. Mike, I also look very much forward to seeing you and your colleagues in a few weeks in person, and maybe we can take a look at how you're using AI for feedback.
Mike Altieri:
Thank you, Kristina, for the interview and for the invitation.
Kristina Hoeppner:
Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Prof Dr Mike Altieri. Head to our website, podcast.mahara.org, where you can find resources and the transcript for this episode. Our next episode will air in two weeks. It would be wonderful if you told a colleague, so they can listen as well. Until then, create, share, and engage.
