Presentation by Jan Marston for Webilang's Language Learning Methodology Workshop: eportfolio assessment

1. Seminar on Language and Culture Methodology:
Electronic Portfolios
as Qualitative Assessment
(alternatives to The Big Test)
Omsk Pedagogical University / Webilang
December, 2013
Jan Marston, Ph.D.
Drake University

2. Electronic Portfolios Show Progress Over Time and
Allow Learners to Recognize Their Own Growth and
Progress
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3. A Complete Eportfolio Includes…
Paired Artifacts to Show Progress Over Time
•A Benchmark Audio or Video Recording
(early in the semester)
•A Comparable Audio or Video Recording
(at semester’s end)
•Benchmark Writing Samples
•
(at beginning and at end)
Benchmark Analysis of Cultural Phenomena
(at beginning and at end)
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4. Faculty Assesses Recorded Speaking Artifacts Using Rubrics
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5. Eportfolio Project: Phone Videos Touring Your Home Town (in the target language)
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6. Students Self-Assess By Writing Reflectively About
Each Eportfolio Artifact
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7. Eportfolio Project: In Their Blogs, Students Regularly Make Artifacts & Reflect On
Their Work Across The Semester

8. Eportfolios Complement Traditional Testing
and Encourage Learner Ownership of Their Progress.
So “It’s not what you do one day that counts,
it’s what you do every day.”
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9. Eportfolio Project: Blogging About Russian Politics (with analysis of Russian
language video) - by a first-year student of Russian

10. Model Eportfolio Project: Making Connections on a Theme (Pete Smith)
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11. Students need to...
Think differently.
Search differently.
Integrate differently.
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12. ...and we model how they can
do that in another language and
culture, using tools for native
speakers.
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13. The fifth of the five defining outcomes of a liberal education
as described by the Association of American Colleges and
Universities:
5) Habits of mind that foster integrative thinking and the
ability to transfer skills and knowledge from one setting to
another—achieved and demonstrated through advanced
research and/or creative projects in which students take the
primary responsibility for framing questions, carrying out
an analysis, and producing work of substantial complexity
and quality.