Recently, we sat down with Ramona Montagnes, Director of the UBC Writing Centre and the instructor of Report and Business Writing, a 12-week online course offered by the UBC Writing Centre. This course is a non-credit course and the students come from a wide range of disciplines, including professionals, technicians, administrators, and freelance writers. There are two major assignments in the course — a final report, which includes a proposal and preliminary writing assignments, and an e-Portfolio. The e-Portfolio pilot project was introduced into the course in February 2010 and, similar to the learning portfolios used in the Doctor of Pharmacy program, this project is still in its preliminary stages. Ramona was excited to share her thoughts about the usefulness of the e-Portfolios and the level of effectiveness it has contributed to her class.
The structure of Report and Business Writing consists of six learning modules, in which students work independently and collaboratively to complete assignments related to report and business conventions. Assignments include writing business letters, working as a team to write a persuasive memo, or working as a team to address a problem in a business-related situation. Every week students work towards their term report and each assignment acts as a supplementary piece that leads to the final project. In addition, all of these assignments can be included into the students’ e-Portfolio. Students are also asked to complete a series of reflection pieces that are specific to the e-Portfolio project. These reflection pieces encourage students to explore the challenges that they face in writing, consider ways of addressing sensitive issues in business communication, and review their weekly team assignments and general teamwork. Overall, students have a wide variety of class experiences to draw upon. Initially, Ramona was sceptical about the benefits and usefulness of e-Portfolios as a learning tool, but was soon convinced and praised the effectiveness it had on students and also herself, as an educator. “It gave the students an opportunity to reflect on their writing…because of the way life is, we don’t have time to sit down and think about our writing strategies … It also gave me greater insight into what was going on in their writing.” Ramona also mentioned that the students seem to enjoy this process as they like to have something tangible to take away at the end of the course.
While Ramona is impressed with the benefits that e-Portfolios have contributed to her class, she also noted the challenges, specifically assessment. Ramona shares that “grading is definitely one of the harder aspects of doing e-Portfolios.” As this is a non-credit course, rather than providing a grade, Ramona developed a rubric system which provides students with feedback that reflect the real world. “If they are in a workplace, that’s the kind of feedback they would receive from supervisors: [the system includes] RR (Reader Ready), MR (Minor Revisions), and ER (Extensive Revisions).”
Currently, the majority of the e-Portfolios are submitted as Microsoft Word documents — which is suitable as the medium reflects the content — and while students have included graphics and PowerPoint presentations in the past, Ramona would like to expand on the number of possible delivery modes and provide students with the choice to engage in other methods of creative expression. Ramona concluded the interview by sharing some valuable advice: “For e-Portfolios to work, it has to be very well integrated into the course. It needs to become an organic part of the course, and it shouldn’t be something extra that the students have to do.” This advice is consistent with what we’ve heard from other e-Portfolio projects. Interestingly, only by practicing “folio thinking”, specifically reflecting on the goals of a course, can we effectively integrate e-Portfolio activities into our teaching.
To learn more about the UBC Writing Centre and non-credit writing courses, please visit:
http://www.writingcentre.ubc.ca/
For an introduction to e-Portfolios at UBC and beyond, please visit:
http://www.slideshare.net/cspaul/introduction-to-eportfolios-at-ubc-and-beyond