Making Connections:
ePortfolios, Integrative Learning & Assessment
CALL FOR PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS
Proposal deadline: December 10th, 2007

Click here to download the Proposal Form.

Electronic Student Portfolios have gained wide popularity in higher education as a way to document, enhance, and assess learning and teaching.  Universities around the world use ePortfolio to help students reflect upon and create digital portraits of their evolving identities as learners.  And as the political debate over assessment and accountability heats up, college educators have found new ways to use ePortfolio to examine the learning/teaching process. 

LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, has emerged as an international ePortfolio leader, with a successful ePortfolio project that not only supports assessment but also helps engage more deeply with learning.  While many colleges have piloted ePortfolio, LaGuardia has achieved broad implementation. (See http://www.eportfolio.lagcc.cuny.edu )Working with thousands of poor and minority students, LaGuardia’s data shows deeper engagement in learning and improved student learning outcomes. 
 
Join LaGuardia faculty, students, and ePortfolio staff on April 11 and 12, 2008, to share your ePortfolio insights and shape this emerging field. LaGuardia invites proposals for presentations, roundtables & workshops. Proposal deadline is Dec. 10, 2007. Key conference themes include:

• ePortfolio and Integrative Pedagogy:  What does it mean to teach with ePortfolio?  What pedagogies help students use ePortfolio to connect their learning across classes and semesters, and build new identities as learners?  How do faculty gain when their students build ePortfolio?
  
  
• ePortfolio Technology, Software and Tech Support:  What makes a good ePortfolio system?  What about Open Source software?  What kinds of tech support are needed?  How can ePortfolio integrate new Web 2.0 and social networking functions?
  
  
• Holistic Assessment with ePortfolio:  What new institutional assessment strategies does ePortfolio support?  What data can it generate?  What are the challenges of such assessment processes?
  
  
• ePortfolio and Student Learning:  How does ePortfolio affect students?  What does your data tell us about the impact of ePortfolio on student learning?  What do students say it means to them?  From a student perspective, what makes ePortfolio interesting?  Fun?  Challenging?  Valuable?
  
  
• Beyond the Classroom:  How can ePortfolio enhance the entire college experience?  How do students use it in co-curricular activities? For transfer and employment?  To connect with families?
  
  
• ePortfolio and Diversity: LaGuardia students are predominantly immigrant, “minority,”and first-generation college goers.  How does ePortfolio function with different students?  How can ePortfolio help us better understand the meaning of diversity in higher education?
  
• Making Reflection Work:  At ePortfolio’s core is a process of reflective learning.  What is meaningful reflection? How does it affect students?  How do faculty help students become more reflective?

Sponsored by LaGuardia’s National Center on Inquiry and Reflection, the Making Connections conference welcomes proposals for presentations, roundtables, and workshops.  Sessions will be 45 and 75 minutes in length including time for discussion.  Proposals for hands-on workshops are welcome, as are proposals that showcase cross-institutional collaborations and/or present student voices. 

For More Information, see attached Proposal Form