As I started this program, I learned that we would be creating an e-portfolio.  This made sense to me, since the EDLD program at Lamar is an online program, and keeping all my work online would make it easier to share and collaborate with others.

My students use e-portfolios to share artwork with their classroom teachers and parents, and that’s been a great addition to my classroom.  I’ve noticed a few things since they started using their e-portfolios:

1.  They do better work.  When my students know that other students, teachers, and parents will be looking at their work, they want it to be the best.  Their work now has purpose beyond just decorating Mom’s fridge.  Just as they want their best work to be chosen for live art exhibits, they now want ALL their work to be the best because it will be seen by others.
2. They think more about their own work.  When students post their work publicly, they think more about WHY their artistic choices matter, rather than just choosing the one that gets the job done faster.  They are more reflective of their choices, and they stick with challenges longer.  They feel more empowered as artists, and they want to make the choices that result in the biggest payoff, rather than just finish their work so they can be “done.”
3. E-Portfolios allow students to not only share their work, but share the learning process.  The iterations of their work are visible, so students get to share not only their finished product, but their entire artistic process.  This is amazing because students can see how other students struggle and problem-solve.  Even the most amazing artists get to share their struggles with the class.
4. Students own their artistic process.  The struggles, the triumphs, the entire evolution of their work — it’s all documented within their portfolios, and it’s all theirs.  The struggles have almost become enviable badges of honor in my classroom.  Students build followings within the school and collect feedback from others within our network.  Getting a “like” from the Principal is a HUGE honor.  It’s so exciting to see not only the finished product in art class, but the entire artistic process in action, and also the points within that process that students choose to document.  And at the end of the school year, my students can carry their portfolios with them to the next year.  Their work isn’t just shoved in a box, somewhere.

I struggle with the disruptive nature of this kind of assessment.  I am fortunate that art class is one of the few places where assessment isn’t defined by criteria linked to standardized testing.  So, I still have some leeway to decide how to assess student progress.  Students really need to be part of that process.  It’s really cool that I can allow them to determine what is and is not “success.”  The tricky part for me is finding a way to properly document so many different types of “success” with nearly a thousand students in three different schools with different ideas of what documentation should look like.  But this is a good problem to have.  I am excited to be in a position to challenge the ideas of assessment and documentation, and I am lucky to have amazing students to hold up as examples of why students need to be part (if not ALL) of this process.

Now that I am again in the role of “student,” I have been asked to create my own e-portfolio.  It’s exciting and empowering to be able to experience this process as a learner, and I’m wondering why I haven’t documented much of my own learning process in a digital, shareable format until now.  I look forward to learning this way, and to the empowering “feed-forward” that I will get (as opposed to unhelpful “feedback” that usually doesn’t result in growth.)  I am excited to begin this e-Portfolio and use it as a tool for growth as I move through the EDLD program.