May 2022 update: Portfolium will be undergoing changes that will change how you experience and interact with Portfolium in 2023. Stay tuned to find out how these changes will help you make the most of your time at UTS. Meanwhile, you can continue to build your personal digital portfolios with Portfolium.
“Why do I need to do this? I don’t understand the relevance of it.” That was what my students said to me, the first time I introduced the concept of a portfolio to them. I realised that students did not understand the benefits that curating a portfolio provides.
Portfolios promote deeper learning, helps make connections within the curriculum, gain insights for improvements leading to ownership of their learning, and supports the development of professional identities. We may know these benefits, but how well do we communicate them to students?
Here are 3 reasons you can use to communicate the value of portfolios.
1. Portfolios help with deeper learning
A key feature of portfolios is the reflection process. Students are often asked to reflect on their learning process or reflect on why they have chosen a specific artefact to showcase in their portfolio. If this process is extended over several subjects, rather than a single subject, this can help students make deeper connections. Deeper learning promotes better performance; it may even help them get better marks.
2. Portfolios make the invisible, visible
How do you know what you know? How do you communicate this to others? Why is it important to communicate this to others?
Documenting this knowledge – often invisible even to the students themselves – helps students articulate and demonstrate what they know and how they know, to themselves and to their teachers, peers and to potential employers. Doing this in a portfolio gives students a context and platform to demonstrate mastery of their field of study.
3. You own your portfolio in Portfolium
When portfolios are owned by students, they have agency. Student agency paves the way for students to be active agents in their learning. When students take an active part in their learning, they succeed.
Portfolium, our online portfolio platform, is student-focused. When a student creates a Portfolium profile, they choose what to include to represent themselves. While a framework may be provided on how they could develop or curate their portfolio in Portfolium, allowing students to choose what and how they evidence their learning provides them agency.
Making the benefits and value of portfolios explicit to students are key aspects of getting them to take more agency, showcase their learning and document their approach to working towards their goals at UTS and beyond. It might also help you as instructors to put the theory into practice and create a portfolio in Portfolium. This way, you’ll get a better grasp of the platform’s capabilities and maybe even create your own examples to share with your students.