Weekly portfolio

In this course you are required to complete a weekly portfolio. A portfolio provides evidence of previous experience and presents a dynamic record of your growth and professional learning over the duration of this course. Your portfolio provides an account of your learning based on your prior and current learnings and your critical reflection.

A portfolio is increasingly being used in Universities as a means of:

• Being able to tell much more about you than exam results;
• As a means of reflecting your development through the course;
• To reflect your attitude and values as well as your skills and knowledge.

(Race 2010, p. 58)

Timmins states that ‘A portfolio is a cohesive account of work based learning that contains relevant evidence from practice and critical reflection on this evidence. Its primary purpose is to ‘display achievement of professional competence or learning outcomes and knowledge development’ (Timmins 2008: p. 115).

You’ll find much more information about the use and application of portfolios on the Internet.  However, it will require you to take some time to think through how you are going to complete the portfolio on a weekly basis.  It is very easy to trivialise the portfolio and write nearly the same thing each week. But that won’t gain you many marks.  Instead you should try to focus on the topic and learning outcome for the week and your reflections regarding them.

Task

Your task is to write a weekly portfolio reflecting upon your learnings from the prior week. In your portfolio you will identify:

1. The learning outcomes and module/topic of the course;
2. A description of your experience, including reading samples or records;
3. Your learning from your experiences;
4. Any supporting documentation of prior or current learning.

Instructions for completing the portfolio

1. Type your name and student id at the top of the page in the header section.
2. You can then delete this first section, save the file so that it can be used each week, and concentrate on writing your weekly portfolio.
3. Each learning outcome and the topics appropriate for the learning outcome have been included as the first column of portfolio table on the next page. You should review these columns and make changes as the course progresses and you gain more familiarity with the learning outcomes and course content.  You will find that you will progressively elaborate on the content of the second, third and fourth columns as you work through each of the weeks of the course.
4. Please appreciate it takes time to complete the portfolio therefore you must think always of what is required and be taking notes to update your portfolio as you read, study videos, or undertake other course related activities. You are expected to be working 12 to 16 hours each week on this course so you have plenty of time to get the portfolio right!
5. The portfolio will be discussed in the course online videos and tutorials – please listen carefully and you may find the portfolio is easier to complete than it first appears.
6. You may disagree with the allocation of the learning outcomes to the topics in the portfolio table. This is your right and you are free to move things around as you become more familiar with the portfolio and the course material.
7. At the beginning of the course all of the learning outcomes may be not appropriate for the first week, so you should reflect upon what you believe is required from the portfolio for the first week. As the weeks progress then you will find that you will add more learning outcomes.  The content of the first weekly learning portfolio table in this file includes all of the topics and reading samples to save your time in typing.
8. At the end of the course you should review your weekly portfolios and then consolidate them into a single submission. This is the assessment that gets marked.  Since the objective of the portfolio is to show your learning journey as well as your reflections then you should not be surprised to find that your opinions have changed during the course.  You do not have to change your portfolios from prior weeks.

Future directions

In the future you should expect that portfolios will be used increasingly at the academic post graduate level.  Eventually they may even replace exams.  Therefore there are a number of things to note for the future:

1. You will be required to complete more portfolios in other courses as you progress in your academic career;
2. As portfolios begin to replace exams you will need to make your portfolio comprehensive and deeply reflective to gain a good grade;
3. You may find that other course assessments, such as presentations, will be aligned with the content of your portfolio submissions as a means of validating your knowledge.

Acknowledgement and references

This portfolio structure was based on an example (a psychology course) located at Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada

Race P. (2010) A Practical Guide to Assessment, Learning and Teaching. Abingdon, England: Routledge.

Timmins F. (2008) Making Sense of Portfolios: An Introduction to Portfolio use for Nursing Students. Glasgow, Scotland: McGraw-Hill Education.