Kristina Hoeppner: 0:05

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. Over the last year alone, I interviewed 32 people involved in portfolio practice. They are students, learning designers, and faculty at higher education institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the USA. In this episode, I'm looking back at the advice that they have for learners who create portfolios. And so their advice can be put into five different categories. These categories are 'Authenticity and identity', 'Embracing creativity and risks', 'Purpose and audience', 'Reflection and growth', and 'Ownership and pride'. So let's take a look at each of them and hand the microphone to the experts. Theme one is 'Authenticity and identity'. That is one of the most consistent themes from our guests, not just in the past year. This is the idea that a portfolio is fundamentally a self-portrait. Rather than performing for an audience or checking a box, the best portfolios reveal the person behind it. The portfolios bring in their voice, their values, and their personalities. Dr Rob Lowney is a Senior Learning Technologist in the Teaching and Enhancement Unit at Dublin City University in Ireland. He states,

Rob Lowney: 1:57

So, when I think of portfolios as being student-centred and creative and fun, that one always sticks out in my mind, really, and I love portfolios like that, where you can really get a sense of who the author is, and you get to know them through the portfolio. So that would be my big advice for portfolio authors, is just throw yourself in there. It's a great vehicle for showing yourself and showing your learning, and for reflecting, so make the most of it.

Kristina Hoeppner: 2:21

Dr Megan Mize, the Director for ePortfolios and Digital Initiatives in the Academic Success Center at Old Dominion University in the United States, says, ...

Megan Mize: 2:32

I always encourage students to think about how they can represent themselves so that they're not just posturing or performing what they think people want from them to be as real and as authentic as they might be because if you're posturing, you may put yourself into a scenario that you don't like, you're not a good fit, and then you're going to be really unhappy, and you would have spent a lot of time, effort, and frustration. So to view it as a place, especially within an institutional context, where we are inviting you to have more agency than you might have in other assignments, and to take that seriously.

Kristina Hoeppner: 3:08

Brandi Gilbert, who is the Director of the Life-Health Sciences Internship Program at Indiana University Indianapolis in the USA, shares,

Brandi Gilbert: 3:17

Make it your own and don't be afraid to use your own voice. It doesn't have to be as stiff and formal as a class assignment or research paper. Some of my favourite ePortfolios, if you hadn't told me it was that student writing it, I could still identify this is that student because it sounds so much like them.

Kristina Hoeppner: 3:38

Now, let's go to Aotearoa New Zealand. There Dr Vickel Narayan from Massey University encourages learners with the following words.

Vickel Narayan: 3:48

Embrace yourself, embrace your thoughts, embrace what you want to say, and make this space yours. The more you do that, the more clarity you get about who you are, but also what you try to achieve if you're enrolled in a course, what you're trying to actually then achieve as an outcome in the course, assessment wise, but also learning wise. I think the more we acknowledge our own self and what we bring, the expertise, and we always underplay this in higher education, we actually assume that many learners are here because they don't know a lot, they can't offer a lot.

Kristina Hoeppner: 4:24

Dr Lindsay Richardson, who is Adjunct Professor of psychology and Acting Assistant Director of Digital Learning at Carleton University in Canada, wants her students to set themselves apart from the rest.

Lindsay Richardson: 4:37

Find a way to stand out and reduce your audience's cognitive load. Look different, be different. Do what feels authentically right to you, and don't worry so much about traditional standards that a portfolio ought to look like this or should look like that. I often say to my students, don't let anybody 'should' all over you, like, if somebody's coming at you with, 'you should this, that,' forget about it. For this, especially, it's a portfolio, it's meant to be about you, put something that makes it you, that's how you can really stand out.

Kristina Hoeppner: 5:14

Now, over to Germany, where Cordula Schwiderski leads the Service Point for Media Didactics at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg. She emphasises that portfolios don't even need to be shared.

Cordula Schwiderski: 5:28

Be yourself, be creative, write down - sometimes just for yourself - what you see, what you feel, what you think about your learnings.

Kristina Hoeppner: 5:38

Back across the pond to Professor Dr Norm Vaughan from Mount Royal University in Canada, who sums it up briefly.

Norm Vaughan: 5:45

Take ownership and pride in your portfolio, make it a reflection of who you are and also who you want to become.

Kristina Hoeppner: 5:53

Theme two is 'Embracing creativity and risk'. For many students, the portfolio is new, and they don't necessarily know how to handle it. This is especially true when it comes to assessment because the portfolio differs so wildly from other assessment methods. Interviewees encourage learners to embrace creativity, experiment, be brave, and risk to do something different. So, let's actually hear from one of the students. McKenna Slaughter is a master's student and Graduate Assistant in the Writing Center at University of Central Florida in the US. She speaks from experience when she says, ...

McKenna Slaughter: 6:35

Students can benefit from leaning into the support that they're being offered, asking questions and experimenting, really approaching with an inquisitive mindset. Practically start the assignment early, they take a while. And finally, don't be afraid. I think students get really intimidated starting ePortfolios, but you learn so much. You learn so many things about web design and tech literacy, and all these things that you know that you're learning, and you also learn a whole bunch of extra stuff that you don't even know that you're developing while you're doing it.

Kristina Hoeppner: 7:07

Salsabil Qaddoura is an undergraduate who majors in Law in Liberal Arts at Indiana University Indianapolis. She shares her metaphor.

Salsabil Qaddoura: 7:17

Take your creative risks. When I've had the analogy of this yard versus my neighbor's yard. This is your project. This is your yard. You can choose to landscape it to make it look nice or not. Take ownership of your work, be proud of it, and take creative risks.

Kristina Hoeppner: 7:31

Her professor, Dr Debbie Oesch-Minor, who is also the President of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) and the faculty overseeing the ePortfolio Studio at Indiana University Indianapolis, wants learners to give the portfolio a go.

Debbie Oesch-Minor: 7:50

The number one thing you want is patience, bravery, and the ability to go for it. Just try it. You can delete it really easily, or copy it, or duplicate it, or shape it in lots of different ways.

Kristina Hoeppner: 8:03

James Pearce, the Educational Software Development Manager in the Centre for Learning and Teaching at University of Bath in the UK, asks learners to...

James Pearce: 8:13

Experiment. Consider how you can present your work. Not everything should be text. Can you provide an image that will do just as well, or image gallery, or video, or even audio, anything like that? The portfolio should be able to handle all of those. So you know, experiment, go a bit crazy.

Kristina Hoeppner: 8:31

Back across the Atlantic to Canada, where Jack Rice is the Director of Digital and Extended Learning at Acadia University. He wants portfolio authors...

Jack Rice: 8:42

To be messy. Be messy, make mistakes, and just get started. In education, we've made students fearful of presenting things that aren't perfect. It's difficult to be a 13-year old or a 15-year old, and you know, feel that you're really being judged by your community and people that are around you and going through these difficult changes in your life. Same thing, students come here in higher education, they're still sort of later adolescence, so a lot of cases they've got a lot to worry about. So don't give them one more thing to worry about.

Kristina Hoeppner: 9:14

In Germany, Antje Koenen is a Senior Teacher for English and German at Max-Beckmann-Schule in Frankfurt am Main. She wants students to have a great experience with the portfolio.

Antje Koenen: 9:25

Enjoy. I say to my students, if you want to be proud of yourselves, how do you do that? When are you proud of yourselves? Then we talk about that, and then I say, well, look at your portfolios, are you proud of yourselves? And then they are. So, my tip often is, again, start simple. Don't start with multitasking, video, whatever. Do something nice.

Kristina Hoeppner: 9:48

Associate Professor Dr Amy Cicchino, who is the Director of the Writing Center at the University of Central Florida, continues in the same direction.

Amy Cicchino: 9:57

Play, be creative, have fun with ePortfolios. There are so many times in the education system where we have to fill in a box and fill in a form, and it's very tight and restricted and guided. EPortfolios are so not that because it's such a switch, ePortfolio authors, especially students, can feel really overwhelmed by that process, but I would say it's okay. Lean in, right? Like, trust the process to draw on a Yancyism. There, just have fun with it.

Kristina Hoeppner: 10:30

Dr Martin Sticht, Research Assistant at the Chair for Computer Science for Media Informatics at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg in Germany, has a brief message for students creating portfolios.

Martin Sticht: 10:42

Try it, be brave, don't be scared about getting bad marks.

Kristina Hoeppner: 10:48

Experimentation and a 'Just do it' attitude do not mean that the portfolio is aimless. Theme three highlights that because these interviewees share tips around 'Purpose and audience'. Several interviewees emphasised the importance of knowing why you are building your portfolio and who you are building it for. That ensures that purpose and audience are clear in every portfolio that is created to make it impactful and meaningful. Nghi Chau, an Undergraduate Peer Tutor in the Writing Center at University of Central Florida, and a Legal Studies, Writing and Rhetoric, and Social Structures and Opportunities student emphasises the intentionality.

Nghi Chau: 11:33

Having careful intent, having a specific purpose is always going to help you with developing an ePortfolio, and I think it can especially be motivating to learn the skills that you are required to do in order to develop that ePortfolio. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to make an archive. So just having that purpose in mind, having things that you want to specifically accomplish with that ePortfolio, is especially helpful when it comes to developing it.

Kristina Hoeppner: 12:00

Dr Tessa Forshaw, Founding Scholar of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University and co-author of the book 'Innovation-ish - How anyone can create breakthrough solutions to real problems in the real world' with Rich Braden, of whom we are hearing later, stresses...

Tessa Forshaw: 12:19

Function is more important than form. It's very easy in this era of Instagram - we're so far focused on the facade, on what a thing looks like, and if it's beautiful or Instagramable, or you know, whatever. And actually, the thing that matters the most in good design is the function. If it doesn't do the thing that the users need, if it doesn't fulfill the purpose, if it doesn't do for the nurses demonstrating patient care, if your portfolio doesn't do that, if it doesn't demonstrate the, you know, appropriate care of patients and the competencies that you need to exhibit, but it looks pretty, who cares? Function over form.

Kristina Hoeppner: 13:03

Soropepeli Ramacake, Assistant Lecturer at University of the South Pacific in Fiji, wants students to take their time to understand what they are asked to do.

Soropepeli Ramacake: 13:14

Read the instructions carefully, do not rush things, do not be overwhelmed, take your time, and utilise the ePortfolio because it's to your benefit. Those are the five things that I want to pass on to the students.

Kristina Hoeppner: 13:31

Over in Australia. Marie 'Bernie' Fisher, a PhD candidate at the University of New England and longtime portfolio practitioner, has a tip for everyone who may be overwhelmed when they begin their portfolio journey.

Marie 'Bernie' Fisher: 13:45

Start off with a question that you would like to answer. It might be, 'How do I profile my experience?' Start from there. Just start with something very, very simple. If you're better doing lists, do a list of all your personal versus all your professional.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:02

Pablo Avila, the Associate Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College, a member of the City University of New York, stresses the importance of the audience.

Pablo Avila: 14:15

Be explicit about who's looking at your work and be explicit about what is it that you want them to know about you. I want them to understand that I know this, this, and this skill that will set me apart from another candidate. I know my craft, and here's my portfolio as proof. That requires that they be mindful of their audience. You're going to want to make sure that your message is clear and is to the point.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:40

Now that we've talked about purpose and audience, we should also look at 'Reflection and growth'. That's theme four. A portfolio would not be a portfolio if it doesn't contain the reflective element because a portfolio is more than a record of achievement. It's the space where you make sense of your learning journey. All interviewees touch on reflection, but the following share advice explicitly around it. And reflection also means that it's not just the happy moments that they want to see in the portfolio. They also want to see failures and difficulties that learners encountered, from which they can then grow. First up is Professor Dr Mike Altieri from Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden in Bavaria, in Germany. He shares, ...

Mike Altieri: 15:30

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: 16:18

Dr Sue Schibeci, the Work-Integrated Learning Partner at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, emphasises the process that portfolios allow us to document.

Sue Schibeci: 16:29

So what I'd really like them to do is to focus on their learning and the process that they're learning, rather than what they achieve at the end. It is a really great tool to think about how you're learning as you're going along and using what you've learned in the past as you're doing it in the present.

Kristina Hoeppner: 16:48

Professor Dr David Hicks from Virginia Tech in the USA wants to see the growth in his students.

David Hicks: 16:55

Don't just show. It's not a show and tell, it's not a scrapbook. It's about explaining why something matters to you, why it matters, and how it changed you. Your portfolio is not purely about proving your competence, but it's telling a story of your growth and your ongoing journey to the other side of the desk, and you do it with tightly coupled evidence. Have a positive mindset, but you can still talk about difficulties, but what you're going to do differently in the future as well. But it's always with a positive future mindset to be a teacher and explaining and being aware of your work and explaining why you did things.

Kristina Hoeppner: 17:28

Rich Braden, Founder of People Rocket and co-author of the book 'Innovation-ish' with Dr Tessa Forshaw, emphasises reflection in a portfolio.

Rich Braden: 17:37

A concept from our book is let them be divergent and convergent. Put a lot of things out there, fill up your portfolio, then curate and move forward to the next iteration with the things that are resonating and work, so you constantly are building new things and then curating new things.

Kristina Hoeppner: 17:56

Similarly, Hannah Brodel, former member of the DiKuLe project team at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg in Germany wants learners to put reflection at the centre.

Hannah Brodel: 18:07

Make this digital space work for you. It's got plenty of opportunities to go deeper in your learning journey.

Kristina Hoeppner: 18:14

Her colleague, Martina Osterrieder, Research Assistant at the Institute of Educational Sciences in Bamberg, and also former DiKuLe member, encourages learners not to regard the portfolio as something they need to do on their own.

Martina Osterrieder: 18:30

Try different learning approaches to find out what works best for you, and keep track of this learning, as this will help you in future endeavours. Engage with other learners and mentors, seek feedback, and also offer constructive and appreciative feedback yourself.

Kristina Hoeppner: 18:48

These tips that we've already heard all have one thing in common. The learner is in the centre of the attention, and the portfolio serves the learner. Yes, students create portfolios for assessment purposes, or they can also create portfolios for certification, but they can still bring in their personality and their own experiences, and they should, because the portfolio is not about memorising facts, but about making connections, transferring knowledge, and making sense of what one has learned. So theme five is all about that 'Ownership and pride'. First up is Associate Professor Dr Mpho-Entle Modise from the University of South Africa. She is the co-editor of the open access book 'Digital resilience of ePortfolios during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic - Lessons for the future' together with Professor Dr Norm Vaughan, from whom you've heard earlier. She says, ...

Mpho-Entle Modise: 19:49

I always tell my students, if you produce a portfolio and it doesn't impress you, how do you expect it to impress me, as your teacher, as the reader, or any other person that is going to interact with your portfolio? It's exactly what Norm is saying, that you must take ownership and take pride in your portfolio.

Kristina Hoeppner: 20:05

Yvonne Moore, the Digital Education Development Lead in the Centre for Learning and Teaching at University of Bath, encourages learners to...

Yvonne Moore: 20:14

Be bold. EPortfolio is a really nice opportunity to showcase how you learn and how you want to present yourself, and I think that idea that you can personalise your portfolio to represent you, I think that's a lovely idea.

Kristina Hoeppner: 20:28

Staying in the UK, Associate Professor Dr Jaye Ryan, who headed the Nursing ePortfolio Programme at Birmingham City University, wants learners to ask themselves the following questions.

Jaye Ryan: 20:41

How are you going to stand out? How are you going to look different than someone else who is completing the same course as you? What I consider is that this ePortfolio could be the key. It will show you as being IT literate, it will show you as continuing your development, not just within the course, but also outside of the course. That will show your potential employer that you have ambition, that you have staying power, that you have determination, and all of these abilities and attributes you can put within your ePortfolio, so that they can really see who you are.

Kristina Hoeppner: 21:22

In the States, Christina Mayes, the Assistant Director of Digital Support Services and an Integrative Coach at Dominican University of California, wants students to know that

Christina Mayes: 21:34

This portfolio is for you. You decide what content it holds and who may engage with this creation. Considering the purpose of your portfolio, how would you like to share your story? How might you elevate your cultural wealth, highlight academic and professional pivots, and authentically connect to your readers? Self-promotion can be a daunting task. This is an opportunity for you to stretch beyond modesty and showcase your brilliance. I encourage you to identify your strengths, skills, and knowledge. Collect items for your digital briefcase, such as sample works, visual stories, moments of achievement, résumé, articulate the connections for your digital artefacts, and ultimately tell us your story. We want to see what makes you you. Connect us back to your purpose, values, and future self. This is your superpower.

Kristina Hoeppner: 22:31

Having listened to tips for these five themes, do you feel like there might be one theme missing? So, let me give you a bonus one because portfolios would not be possible without the incredible support that is provided by faculty, staff, and students at each institution where portfolios are used. Representative for all of these, let me share one final tip from Dr Amy Cicchino.

Amy Cicchino: 22:58

Come to the writing centre. Writing centres are really wonderful spaces to get feedback on your portfolio to support your process. Most institutions here in the United States have writing centres. So I encourage you to come on by your writing centre.

Kristina Hoeppner: 23:15

Now over to you. As you think about your own portfolio work, what tip resonated most with you? Share your thoughts on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, or Mastodon, and tag me or send me an email. This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' Make sure to check out the full interviews in your podcast app or at podcast.mahara.org. And if you found this valuable, share it with a colleague who'd appreciate it, too. Our next episode will air in two weeks. Until then, create, share and engage.