Digital portfolios are something I have occasionally explored in my music teaching and a concept that I have tried to implement during my current employment. I have met with resistance from various colleagues regarding this move, mainly due to network instability and privacy issues. Prior to taking this class I dabbled with the use of school accounts to create portfolios within the sites of NuMu and SoundCloud, using these to highlight effective work and for students to give informal peer feedback. I currently share outstanding work through social media (Twitter/YouTube/SoundCloud/Instagram), release a termly digital magazine and write a department blog. I have not, however, fully utilized digital portfolios to include digital assessment or feedback, or given students control of their own portfolio. I began this class initially as a way to explore the options available in this area, with the intention of implementing digital portfolios in the next academic year, or as soon as realistically possible. As a side consideration I also wanted to be able to justify to colleagues the decision to move the assessment process online. Throughout this class, I have had my own notion of assessment challenged and found new ideas to incorporate into my proposed portfolios.
My long-term goals for digital portfolios:
- Every student taught will have access to their own portfolio
- Students will have a private portfolio which can be viewed by myself and the student, and a public portfolio in which they can share projects to their community (class), others in school and the general public in a safe environment
- All practical work will be stored in the private portfolio and will follow them for their entire music curriculum
- All practical work will be assessed with quality feedback and graded with national curriculum guidelines within the private portfolio
- Students will develop a reflective blog within their private portfolio to record their understanding and development of creative work as well as acting as a self-reflection tool and a form of self assessment
- Students will use the public portfolio to showcase their best work and create a lasting record of their music education, whether this finishes at age 14, 16 or 18
- Students will be encouraged or required to upload completed and in-progress pieces of work
- Students will give peer feedback to those within their class and year through the portfolio
- Feedback (teacher and peer) will be encouraged for both completed end of topic summative assessments in order to inform students for their next assessment and in-progress pieces of work to guide and refine their creativity
- Students can add to their portfolio with work created outside the classroom, giving recognition and value to extra-curricular commitments and outside study
- Homework and classwork will become embedded within the portfolio to act as an ongoing and continuous curriculum, e.g. practical work completed and uploaded during class time, reflections, feedback and management of the portfolio as home work and class work.
The key development in my use of digital portfolios is the inclusion of feedback at all levels. Feedback is so often given verbally throughout the lesson, especially in music, with written feedback only given after summative assessments. Students are rarely given the opportunity to record verbal feedback, reflect personally and, most worryingly, keep all feedback and work together. Many researchers have identified quality feedback as one of the most important ways in which to improve learning. However, feedback must be specific, include both strengths and weaknesses and be specific to each individual (Black & Wiliam, 1998). In addition to this, students must be able to reflect upon their own learning and be given the opportunity to improve based on quality feedback. My long-term goal, therefore, is to have the portfolio fully integrated into the daily running of the classroom and to encourage a complete crossover between the digital world and the practical creative and rehearsal process. In this way the portfolio will become not only a showcase for work, but also a powerful tool for ongoing assessments while contributing to the professional growth and learning of my students.
In order to successfully implement digital portfolios it is not possible to start at once with a fully integrated approach, especially for students that are in higher grades. The portfolio must be designed, and implemented, in such a way that it is accessible for all students.
At this stage I am still unsure of how this will work in progress. As noted in an earlier blog post, my school is in the process of implementing a new VLE, and the launch of digital portfolios could be introduced effectively alongside the school wide launch, provided that Frog meets the needs that I have already identified. At present, my aim is to work with the younger students in order to develop a basic digital portfolio with which they can showcase their work and receive feedback, alongside a separate reflection journal. This can then, at a later date, be trialed as a fully integrated portfolio.
B Jones 