Category: Liberal Studies BA

The Fall term is now in full swing. Line ups at Good Earth. A busy Library courtyard on these sunny crisp autumn days. And increasing traffic in the Writing Centre (Fir 402). This term, there new faces in the Writing Centre.

The Writing Centre instructors and peer mentors have been joined by the Portfolio Project Peer Mentors.

Drop-In Hours

Monday 11 am – 2 pm
Tuesday 11 am – 2 pm
Wednesday 11 am – 2 pm
Thursday 11:30 am – 2:30 pm
Friday 11 am – 2 pm

The peer mentors are there to assist students and faculty alike with building out digital portfolios. This year, we have a growing mix of course- and program-based ePortfolio initiatives with participation from faculty and students in North Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast.

In my own teaching, we are using portfolios and WordPress sites in all three of my Fall term courses: English 109 – Contemporary Issues in Literature and Culture, LBST 200 – Refocusing Knowledge, and LBST 330 – Methods of Inquiry. In the first year literature course, students will be posting their book reviews of selected course texts.

In LBST 200 and 330, the Liberal Studies students will be returning to their sites, which they first begin working on in LBST 100. As students enrolled in an individualized majors program, the portfolio sites are particularly valuable as a means of capturing their emerging areas of expertise as they build their own degrees.

The Liberal Studies BA launched its program-based portfolio initiative in Fall 2015.

This week over at Capilano University, we are wrapping up our Learning and Teaching Symposium, which began on May 8 with a keynote presentation from Dr. Linda Shadiow,  author of What Our Stories Teach Us, on “Using Sightlines to Strengthen to the Learning Environment”.  Her keynote presentation in combination an afternoon workshop encouraged us as educators to reflect on how our stories as learners in our respective disciplines in turn informs who we are as educators.

This invitation to explore the role of reflection and metacognition in learning was returned to this morning in a series of three linked presentations that I had the pleasure of hosting with my colleagues from the Spring 2017 ePortfolio Development Community.

The opening session – What We Talk About When We Talk About Portfolios (.pdf) – opened with an overview of past portfolio initiatives at the university before moving onto a summary of what was been taking place on campus this past academic, including the English 100 Portfolio Pilot and Liberal Studies Portfolio Project.  In particular, this session pivoted on the ideas shared by Cyri Jones (Business), Maureen Bracewell (Anthropology and Women’s and Gender Studies), and Alison Hale (Education and Employment Access) who were invited to reflect on the promise of ePortfolios for students, faculties, and the university as a whole.

Our second session – Folio Thinking / Rethinking Teaching (.pdf) – focused on the process adopted by the Development Community in the redesign process with examples provided by Sheila Ross and Vicky Ross (ENGL 100), Jules Smith (HCA 102), Maureen Bracewell (WGST 222), and Sandra Seekins (AHIS 430).

The final presentation – Portfolios in Action (.pdf) – was my favourite of the three sessions. Here we were joined by four students who shared their portfolios with us and provided the room with insights into what they value about course- and program-based invitations to develop professional personal websites.  Megan Amato (Liberal Studies), Faith Dawa (Early Childhood Care and Education), Livleen Pannu (Business) and Radovan Marek (Communications) were poised, thoughtful, and inspiring.

Thank you for spending the morning with us.