Web-Based Electronic Portfolios in Music Education
Case
Western Reserve University & Ball State University
wbauer@cwru.edu & adothy@email.bsu.edu
The portfolio is a tool that can enable music teacher to document their professional growth and development. Portfolio assessment is also beginning to be used as a means of assessing music teacher education students. This paper provides an overview of a 2 Ð year project to develop and implement a digital portfolio system for pre Ð service music teachers. The philosophical, pedagogical, logistical, and technical considerations that have been part of the process are shared. Suggestions and resources for portfolio development are provided.
Traditionally, teachers have been licensed to teach based upon successful completion of a program of study as evidenced by grades on a transcript. IN recent years, some teacher education programs have begun to make a shift to more authentic forms of assessment. This paper provides an overview of a 2 Ð year project to develop and implement a digital portfolio system for pre Ð service music teachers. The philosophical, pedagogical, logistical and technical considerations that have been part of the process are shared. Suggestions and resources for portfolio development are provided.
While the general purpose of the portfolio is a document growth, there are at least two different types of portfolios. The developmental portfolio is to document growth across time and thus contains a multitude of materials showing various stages of progress in a personÕs development. A showcase portfolio is amassed for the purpose of showing the highest level of attainment as well as the professional competence of a person. This type of portfolio is frequently utilized on job interviews to highlight the strengths of the candidate.
A portfolio is not just a vessel for holding a variety of materials, but rather a highly organized documentation instrument that provides a holistic picture of a person. Most portfolios are structured around a set of goals or standards related to specific proficiencies to be attained. For each goal or standard the student may include samples of work, known as artifacts, that demonstrate the appropriated competency. Artifacts may include reports, projects, tests, video and audio media, creative endeavors such as art work or compositions, computer programs, awards and certificates, case studies, lesson plans, teaching strategies, and much more. An integral part of the portfolio is student reflections on their work. These reflections may include statements indicating the studentÕs understanding of the goals or standards that the portfolio is structured around, discussion of their progress in achieving proficiency, and rationales regarding why specific artifacts were chosen for inclusion in the portfolio. Finally, the portfolio itself needs to be assessed. This may include evaluations by others, but also consists of students assessing their own progress.
There are several advantages to using portfolio assessment. The very personal nature of a portfolio may be adapted to highlight individual strengths of a student that might not be apparent through standardized testing. It also allows a student to show their growth in a variety of ways, providing a more comprehensive view of the whole student. Another advantage is student involvement in the assessment of their work. This may increase the studentÕs sense of ownership of their learning. Finally, the portfolio focuses on studentsÕ strengths and achievements rather than their failures. In identified areas of deficiency, the student can point out growth that has taken place, and present a plan for remediation of the weakness.
While portfolios provide many advantages, they do have some limitation. The compilation of artifacts, organization of those artifacts, and reflective writing process can be quite time intensive. IN addition, because the student is accumulation many works over a long period of time, storage of the items collected can be problematic. Another potential disadvantage may be the emphasis on a studentÕs strengths over weaknesses. If the weaknesses are not acknowledged and addressed with a plan for growth, the student may be missing a key piece of their preparation that could have great impact on their future performance. Finally, the nature of the portfolio lends itself to possible indirect assessment of the learning process rather than focusing on learning outcomes.
Portfolio assessment may involve a variety of stakeholders including the student, multiple teachers in various subject areas, college or university accreditation boards, state certification organizations and others. The student is intimately involved in the assessment of the portfolio through artifact selection and reflection. Teachers will evaluate artifacts produced in their courses as Òassignments,Ó but these artifacts also become part of the global view of a studentÕs work. Because of the number of stakeholders who may need to assess the portfolio at different stages of the studentÕs growth, it becomes necessary to address issues such as what constitutes an acceptable artifact for each goal or standard, the number of artifacts necessary to demonstrate competence, the level of competence that is considered minimally acceptable, methods for assessing student reflections, and how a studentÕs self assessment will be incorporated into a final portfolio evaluation. Other issues like these will need to be addressed as the role of the portfolio expands.
Conventional portfolios have been paper based. More recently, various electronic formats utilizing PowerPoint, HypersStudio, and commercial software products have begun to be utilized. After considering the various possibilities, the World Wide Web was chosen as the medium for the pre Ð service teaching portfolios described in this paper. This was done for a number of reasons.
First, the web is a cross Ð platform environment. Whether a student chooses to use a Wintel of Macintosh computer to develop an/or view their portfolio does not matter. Second, the multimedia capabilities of the web, enabling the use of text, graphics, sound, and video, allow for a richer representation of student competencies. Third, the programming language of the web, html, is not proprietary. It is based on an international standard, with each new version slated to maintain compatibility with the previous versions. Therefore, portfolios created today will be able to be viewed several years from now. Fourth, web files are easily transportable, capable of display on the Internet or through distribution via other media such as CDs or DVDs. Finally, a web Ð based portfolio can be easily accessed for asynchronous assessment by various stakeholders including music education faculty, general education faculty, and in Ð service teachers who work with pre Ð service teachers in the field experience situations.
A driving force behind the decision to move to electronic portfolio assessment was the teacher education reform movement. In Indiana, as in other states, a performance Ð based assessment system is being implemented for pre Ð service teachers. The Indiana Professions Standards Board (IPSB) has mandated that all universities engaged in teacher education have a Unit Assessment System (UAS) in place by June, 2002. Ball State University (where both authors were employed when this project was initiated) has decided that one of the mechanisms used in their USAS will be the digital portfolio.
The conceptual framework for the portfolios was influenced by state requirements. The IPSB standards are based on the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards http://www.ccssso.org/intasct.html. These standards, agreed upon by a group of state education agencies, higher education institutions, and national educational organizations, have been adopted by many states. It was decided to use the INTASC standards as the framework for the eportfolios.
During Summer of 2000, a web Ð based portfolio template was developed. A template approach to portfolio development was chosen to give students a starting point and organizational structure to utilized in developing their portfolio, to assist them with the initial technological challenges of portfolio development, and to provide a common format so that the portfolios cold be more easily assessed. The portfolio work in music education was not conducted in isolation. Development efforts for the use of eporfolios in all areas of teacher education at Ball State have taken place (Mullen, Bauer, & Newbold, 2001).
All freshmen and some juniors pilot tested the eportfolio during the 2000 Ð 2001 academic year. To begin working on their portfolios, students downloaded an archive of files that comprised the template from a web page on the BSU music education web site. Using Netscape Composer, the students altered the template pages as appropriated. The portfolio included a music autobiography (an assignment that previously existed in the introductory music education class which was moved to the web environment), a philosophy of music education page, and separate pages for each of the ten INTASC standards. To view the template, access http://www.homepage.mac.com/mused/tdml/portfolio/.
During class, the INTASC standards were discussed and technical aspects of portfolio development were modeled. Along with this, some classes (at the discretion of individual instructors) received hands Ð on instruction in a computer lab where students learned the basics of web page editing. Various aspects of the development process were also documented in handouts given to students. Students could receive additional help from workers in the computer lab, their professor, and in some cases from peers who were more technically savvy.
Three major findings emerged from the first year of the project. First, the portfolio appeared to aid some students in beginning to synthesize the various parts of their undergraduate curriculum. The portfolio structure and process helped them to begin to understand how all of their course work, including classes outside of music and music education, related to their eventual goal of teaching music to children. Second, it became apparent that many students need help in the reflective process. Their reflective writing was often at a relatively low level, not much more than descriptions of activities and events. Finally, the technical quality of the portfolios varied greatly. Most students had little background in web design, resulting in frequent broken links, poor choices of colors, etc. There was little use of higher level technologies such as sound or video. With these outcomes in mind, a second year of experimentation with the ePortfolios began.
ePortfolios Ð Year 2
In year two of the project additional selections were added to the portfolio. In the past, many music education classes had separate course notebooks. As the eportfolio progressed, it became apparent that many items in the traditional course notebooks could dovetail nicely into the eportfolio. A course materials page as added where students could create a link to items such as reading logs and assignments not specifically related to the teaching portfolio. Another area addressed in the second year was the process used to teach students how to work with web tools and media. In the first year, all students were provided with a lecture/demonstration of how to work with the eportfolio template, but not everyone received hands Ð on instruction. It was felt that having all students take part in classes held in the computer lab would yield better results. The freshmen in the introductory course spent two days in the computer lab. The first session was devoted to learning the template, saving files, inserting images, creating links and publishing using an ftp program. The second day was devoted to creating new pages and a review of linking and publishing. A greater number of students achieved better success with the technical aspects of the portfolio following this process.
In year two, important issues relating to student and teacher technical abilities, reflective practice, and cooperative learning activities became evident. The range of freshmen technical skills was still quite wide, but by the sophomore year studentÕs technical competencies appeared to be more consistently distributed. In addition, the growth in faculty membersÕ technological and pedagogical understanding of the eportfolio, and thus their increased comfort level in explaining the process and addressing student problems, resulted in improved student achievement. In upper level courses, students began incorporating more sophisticated media such as PowerPoint presentations, audio files, and video clips into their portfolios. Also, more students began to personalize the template by changing graphics, backgrounds, fonts and colors to make their portfolio a more accurate
reflection of their individuality.
Helping students to develop skills in reflective practice continued to be a challenge. Many first year studentsÕ reflections were quite superficial, often just restating the standard and providing a minimal rationale for the accompanying artifact. However, it was encouraging to note that the students in the second year were making some progress in this area, developing reflective statements that were more detailed, and stating specific rationales for artifacts. In addition, more students were beginning to make connections among the various parts of their degree program. Finally, the number of students helping each other increased. Because a population of students that were experience with the e Ð portfolio process now existed, they were able to answer many of the basic questions posed by the freshmen. Certain older students, some of who were almost computer phobic as freshmen, had become enthusiastic technology users, demonstrating their confidence and comfort with the computers through their work with higher level technologies such as audio file editing. Their development and excitement did much to sustain and promote the student and faculty commitment to the eportfolio process.
The final portfolio structure used by all of the teacher education programs at BSU is continuing to evolve and will in all likelihood be somewhat different than the eportfolio currently in use by the music education area. At Case Western Reserve University, a template Ð based approach to electronic portfolios was initiated during the Spring, 2002 semester. The CWRU template is based around three sets of standards: INTASC, which are at the core of Ohio state standards; the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Teachers <http://cnets.iste.org/index3.html>, which will form the basis for technology competency requirements for Ohio pre Ð service teacher; and the national Music Standards <http://www.menc.org/publication/books/prek12st.html>, which are the foundation for Ohio PK Ð 12 music content standards. The CWRU eportfolio template can be seen at <http://homepage.mac.com/mused/tdml/eportfolio/>.
Electronic, web Ð based portfolios have the potential to be a useful tool in music teacher education. They can help students to better understand the music education profession. Portfolio development can also assist them as they strive to more fully comprehend their undergraduate music education curriculum, synthesizing and tying together courses, relating them to their goal of becoming a music teacher. Through regular reflection, pre Ð service teachers can gain greater self Ð understanding, documenting their growth over time in areas important to teacher competency, creating a comprehensive profile of their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the eportfolio will allow music education faculty, cooperating teachers, and others involved with each studentÕs education as a teacher to assess them in a more holistic, authentic manner.