LaGuardia's ePortfolio Practice by Pablo Avila

2001: The beginnings

pcavila — 2021-08-30 16:07:50 UTC

The White Paper project is the first document that represents the ePortfolio implementation at the College. Guided by a philosophy to collect, select, reflect, and connect, the findings of this group spearheaded the beginnings of our ePortfolio practice.

2004: The ePortfolio Scholars Program and Student Showcase

pcavila — 2021-08-30 16:17:08 UTC

The first cohort of the ePortfolio Scholars program ran in this year. Since then, a group of students work closely with an ePortfolio consultant every semester in a series of six to eight workshops where they curate content to add to their ePortfolios. This work goes beyond what students normally add to their ePortfolios as part of their ongoing engagement across different courses.

2007: LaGuardia's ePortfolio Initiative gets national attention

pcavila — 2021-08-30 16:23:58 UTC

LaGuardia receives the MetLife Award MetLife Community College Excellence Award and the 2007 Bellwether Award by the Community College Futures Association in recognition for our instructional innovation in facilitating engagement and success in the first year of college. The use of ePortfolios in First Year Academies was an important aspect of this work.

2008: Making Connections and Capstone

pcavila — 2021-08-30 16:24:33 UTC

Capstone Work
The Assessment Committee and the ePortfolio program oversee the beginning of wide-spread depositing of student artifacts from programs and majors across the college.

Supported by a third Title V for Project RISE (Re-Invigorating the Second Year Experience), the college begins to explore ePortfolios as a capstone experience at the college.

A faculty-led capstone research team examines best practices in capstone experiences and prepares a white paper for consideration by the Academic Dean and the Departmental Chairs.

The Rethinking the Capstone Experience seminar, including ePortfolio as a central, integrative component of capstone education, is launched.

Mini-Grants Focus on PPRs
The ePortfolio Mini-Grant program is established, offering programs and departments financial support to implement innovations and changes based on their Periodic Program Reviews. 7 mini-grants to programs throughout the college developing and improving assignments for assessing student work and utilizing ePortfolios.

2010: Migration to Digication as the main ePortfolio and Assessment platform

pcavila — 2021-08-30 16:35:21 UTC

In the fall of 2010, LaGuardia moved to a new platform to host student ePortfolios and assessment artifacts. Since its implementation, the Digication platform has allowed students to create more visually powerful portfolios using a more user-friendly and web-optimized platform. The classic version of the Digication platform was in used until the Fall of 2017 when we began migrating to the new Digication interface.

2013: Shift towards Digital Communication and new Core Competencies

pcavila — 2021-08-31 19:20:04 UTC

After completing the Middle States work and following the recommendations that emerged from it, the college moved to adopt a new set of Core Competencies. These opened opportunities to strengthen our ePortfolio practice using Digital Communication as a lens to help students build powerful ePortfolios.

Here's an example of an ePortfolio that speaks to multi-modal composition and digital communication.

2017: Moving towards our Next Generation ePortfolio Practice

pcavila — 2021-08-31 19:20:50 UTC

In the fall of 2017, the college migrated to using the new ePortfolio interface of Digication. This new interface, as seen in the video introduction above, the new interface empowered students with more ways to customized their ePortfolios and to make it theirs.

2020: Our ePortfolio practice during the pandemic

pcavila — 2021-08-31 19:21:21 UTC

On March 2020, the college moved to distance learning as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. Many faculty turned to their ePortfolio practice to build sites and post course content, engage students in collaborative projects, and ultimately used these ePortfolios as a medium to get to know their students.

Here's the link to a Faculty Showcase in the Fall of 2020 that surfaced the many ways in which faculty used ePortfolio during pandemic times to connect and engage students remotely.

2002-2003: Pilot Year

pcavila — 2023-05-12 03:42:30 UTC

Using a provisional system, twenty-two faculty members from across the college take part in a year-long process of development and classroom testing of ePortfolio processes.

Faculty tested the use of ePortfolios in key areas identified by the college's assessment plan.

Just over 800 ePortfolios created.

2003-2004: First Year Academies Launched

pcavila — 2023-05-12 03:44:36 UTC

The ePortfolio project is piloted as part of the College’s First Year Academy program, designed to create learning communities that connect basic skills courses.

Faculty are supported in curriculum design and ePortfolio in the First Year Academies through a year-long professional development seminar.

A non-credit Studio Hour, facilitated by student ePortfolio Consultants and LaGuardia graduates,was added to provide tutorial support for students as they learned how to build their ePortfolios.

The college moved from a provisional ePortfolio system to its first commercial vendor.

The Assessment Sub-Committee begins to design rubrics for the college’s core competencies.

LaGuardia is a founding member of the International Coalition For Electronic Portfolio Research.

An additional 360 student ePortfolios are created.

2023: Current initiatives and efforts

pcavila — 2023-05-12 03:50:57 UTC

The ePortfolio Leadership Team group continues to coordinate efforts and support key efforts across programs to advance our ePortfolio practice.

We've embarked on providing ePortfolio Studio Design Sessions to help students share their ePortfolios with industry professionals.

A Redesigned First Year Seminar Course

pcavila — 2023-06-07 21:13:15 UTC

In the Fall of 2014, the College launched a redesigned First Year Seminar course taught by faculty in the discipline and supported by peer mentors. The three pillars of the course are to introduce students to the discipline, provide an understanding of the academic requirements, and introduce students to their ePortfolios which they will use during their time at LaGuardia.

2024: Focus on Career Readiness

pcavila — 2025-03-29 19:17:49 UTC

We're now actively working with students on how to prepare and use their ePortfolios to enter the workforce. Our Studio Design initiative has been the focus on our work since the last year. We are working with students in Capstone courses and we're helping them polish their ePortfolios. For more information, visit this webpage.