Using PebblePad e-portfolios to support PDP, career planning and reflective learning within the law

curriculum – a case study

Learning In Law2010 Annual Conference, Warwick

29-30th January 2010

Sefton Bloxham & Fiona BoyleUniversity of Cumbria

Institutional Context UoC priorities Widening Access Employability Flexible & Distributed Learning Strategy New Law Degree Blending PDP with E-learning

E-portfolios in law Project

CDLT & UKCLE funded

Aims: Pilot the implementation of e-portfolios to

support PDP within the law programme. Develop expertise in personal academic

tutoring to support this innovation. Evaluate the student experience of e-

portfolios (PebblePad). Disseminate research findings, which will be

linked to current UoC and national initiatives.

Personal Development and Learning Portfolio (PDLP)

Record of academic achievement (Progress File) Record of learning skills (Progress File) Record of career management skills Opportunity for reflection (on above) Curriculum Vitae Opportunity for “action planning”

Sources:National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education – TheDearing Report (1997), QAA (2000), Clegg (2004), East (2006)

PDP and Reflective Learning

The “how” and “why” of learning (“notwhats”) Making sense of knowledge Supporting skills development Developing careers awareness

Sources: Gibbs (1995), Moon (1999), Race (2002), Hinett (2002),

Knight & Yorke (2003), Bloxham & Cerevkova (2007)

Why add the “E” to Portfolios? Student expectations of use of ICT Link with institutional VLE Student “ownership” (contrast with VLEs) Personal (private) space for reflection Develops ICT skills Communications tool Portability (through HE LPC/BVC Training

Contract CPD)

Sources:Butler (2006), Maiden & Kinsey (2006), McKellar et al. (2007),Strivens (2007)

Typology of e-portfolios

Greenberg (types) Showcase (presentational) Structured (assessing achievement) Learning (reflective)

Ward & Grant (uses) Presentation Assessment Supporting Learning Personal / Professional / Career Development

What is PebblePad? Private record – activities, skills, experiences,

reflections Store - in one place Import - any file format Export - entire portfolio or an individual asset Share – with an individual, group Collaborate – with other users

12 types of asset Activity (e.g. court visit) Ability (e.g. writing skills) Experience (e.g. work experience) Proforma (year one progress file) Webfolio (submitted for assessment)

PepplePad in action

PepplePad in action

PepplePad in action

PepplePad in action

Embedding PDP & PebblePad Within Legal Skills & Method module (20 out of

40 credits) Linked to VLE Timetabled PAT meetings Communications tool for pre PAT meeting

tutor-tutee dialogue Recording of academic progress, skills

development and assessment outcomes Development of CV

Assessed Webfolio Worth 10 credits Assessed online Evidence of skills development & career

management Link to formative feedback on all modules Reflection on learning in all modules Reflection on specific extra-curricular

activities (Court Visit, Mooting, Law Centre casework) “Action Planning” drawn from evidence of and

reflection on learning (strengths & weaknesses)

Evaluation 1. PDP Portfolios Positives

Facilitated reflection on skills development (92%) Facilitated reflection on academic progress (92%) Provided a useful record of achievements (83%) Was well supported by meetings with PAT (75%) Right number of tasks (67%) which were clearly

explained (75%) Useful in future for learning about self / recording

achievements (83%) Negatives

Perceived as extra work (25%) “I signed up for a degree not an NVQ and I resent the fact I am being

made to participate in a pointless exercise.”

Evaluation 2. e-portfolios Positives

E-portfolio preferable to paper (100%) Not hard to use (100%) Assisted communication with PATs (92%) Online nature more practical (83%) Saves time (75%) Evidence can be linked e.g. coursework, reflections,

marks, seminar work, CV (67%) Convenient to update (50%) Easy to access (34%) Multi-media elements make it more interesting /

enjoyable (25%) Multi-media allows for personalisation (25%)

Evaluation 3. e-portfolios Negatives

Difficulties adapting to completely new software which could be ‘confusing’ (33%)

Login problems (17%) Personal data on an unknown server (8%) Desire for more training (right amount (50%) more

(50%)) Desire for more supervised class time (8%)

Evaluation 4. e-portfolios Advice for next year’s students:

“Start to use Pebblepad as soon as you can and update your portfolio regularly.”

What did you enjoy:“I enjoyed the reflection aspect. It helped my confidence a lot to be able to see improvements over time. I also liked the fact that you could share comments with lecturers, this was useful to let them know how you were feeling about their feedback and the course in general.”“You can basically attach anything you want such as photo’s etc. Makes it more interesting than just written documents.”

Evaluation 5. e-portfolios

What did you not enjoy:“I am not interested in it and find it a pointless, time-consuming exercise. I am not very good with computers and I have no interest in ‘reflection’ or self analysis.”

Evaluation 6. e-portfoliosFocus Groups

“You don’t realise how far – how much you’ve achieved until you kind of start writing it all up because that’s what I was doing last night. We have to submit our final thing on Friday. We had to do an overall reflective part of the whole year and like if you hadn’t already had it written it down I think it would have been quite hard to pick up on all the things we had done so it’s quite good just to have it as an ongoing file really.”

Evaluation 7. e-portfoliosFocus Groups

“I didn’t think it was hard or it takes masses of time or anything it’s just I think due to the fact that we’ve got no deadlines for anything we’ve done so I lacked a lot of motivation towards it because you’ve got deadlines for everything you do. It’s the only thing you haven’t and you just think oh I’ll do it next week.”

“Like we did with the CVs. We were all chatting away and saying oh what are you putting in you know and it worked really well whereas if the lecturer wasn’t there we wouldn’t have done it.”

Tutor Reflection

Extra training sessions at start of year More guidance for specific tasks More “hands on” class sessions Adjust timing of some sessions/tasks

The Future….. is there one???

Progress File (cont….) Career Development Portfolio (cont….)

Reflective Learning Logs Lawyer Skills (Yr 2) – advocacy & negotiation skills

development. Dissertation (Yr 3) - research skills development, linked

to scheduled supervision sessions. Law Clinic (Yr 3) - work-based learning skills.

Reflective Practice???“I think that the only reflection most of us had time for was

when we happened to pass a mirror”

The Full Monty….

For a more detailed discussion of the issues raised by this presentation, see the full article in the Journal of Information Law & Technology.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/2009_3/bloxham