III. Methodology
III. Methodology |
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The creative writing course that I have designed for my project in the Master’s
program at California State University, Hayward utilizes the principles of constructivism
which dictate that the students learn through reflecting on their experiences
and construct their own understanding of the world. It is this same self-reflective
element that I have found in portfolios. Also, in following the principles of
constructivism, it is a student-centered class that promotes community. Nearly
all of the creative writing classes that I have looked at online use portfolios
in some way but they do not all use them as a primary assessment tool. It is
my goal to create a writing class that uses the portfolio assessment with clear
rubrics throughout for assessment.
At first, these goals may seem to conflict. My definition of portfolios seemed
to limit their use to records of individual effort. Portfolios address the tension
between these two seemingly conflicting goals by asking the students to participate
in the creation of the portfolios at all levels as individuals and as a class.
The class itself has a portfolio in the form of an online journal that represents
the best work of each student.
Structure of the course
The course is a ten-week, consisting of 10 units (weekly assignments). The course
is an intermediate fiction writing class. Each unit is broken up into four modules;
a writing assignment, reading assignment, critiquing, and group discussion.
Each week the students respond to the writing prompt, critique the writing of
two other students, read a short fiction piece (that the instructor posts).
Every two weeks, the student is asked to meet in their assigned small groups
and discuss and evaluate one another’s writing.
The course website links to the syllabus, rubrics for critiques and discussions,
the writing assignments, the weekly reading, discussion groups, and online journals.
It has been created initially for Blackboard, but its modular construction allows
it to be up-loaded to any learning management system.
Each week the course includes:
They are asked to select one piece every two weeks that represents their best
work and present it to their small groups for consideration for the portfolios.
Each one of these assignments has an accompanying rubric to help the student
evaluate their work and the work of others. It is important that clear rubrics
are in place to guide the students in responding to a particular piece of writing.
The students are asked to critique a piece of writing according to the rubrics
provided and are encouraged, outside of the rubric, to give some useful constructive
criticism.
Group assignments and the portfolio
The students are asked to form small groups in the first week of class. This
small group is meant to meet once a week to discuss the writing process, evaluate
one another’s work (according to rubrics), and to help one another choose
material for the individual portfolios. The group will also create a group portfolio
that will be presented to the class as part of the online journal (a course
anthology of student writing edited by the group leaders).
Throughout the course the students are constantly asked and challenged about
the evaluation process. They are asked to comment upon and revise the rubrics
for the discussion topics, the evaluation of writing, and for journal entries.
They are asked to participate in the creation of the means by which they will
assess themselves, others, and the course. The purpose of this is to teach the
students the critical thinking and active learning skills needed to succeed
in school, in the workplace, and, most importantly, as writers.
Design of the portfolio
Each item that goes into the portfolio is evaluated by a rubric. An electronic
copy of the completed rubric is placed into the portfolio along with a copy
of the work. For the purposes of the portfolio, a rubric is “a scoring
guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a full
range of criteria rather than a single numerical score” (Assessment, 2003).
The rubric lets the student know that the instructor evaluates work on a wide
range of skills in any given assignment rather than on subjective criteria.
“Authentic assessment is used to evaluate students' work by measuring the
product according to real-life criteria. The same criteria used to judge a published
author would be used to evaluate students' writing” (Assessment, 2003).
Often, a portfolio is used merely as storage area for student work. Rubrics
that provide clear guidelines and expectations take portfolios to the next level.
The student should be able to know exactly why a piece of work should go into
a portfolio based on the rubric. The student can self-evaluate using the rubric
as well as make revisions to a piece of work based on how others apply it to
his or her work.
Implementation of the portfolio
Rubrics in my online course are tailored to the needs and goals of the student
as well as for the objectives for the course. Student input in the first few
weeks allows me to do this. Each assignment has an accompanying rubric and the
scores on the rubric help the students decide what to put into their portfolio
as the best examples of their writing. The students are asked to evaluate one
another’s work. These evaluations, along with the instructor’s, and
self-evaluations, are all averaged together to assess the students’ performance
in the course. Each rubric that the student turns in is accompanied by reflective
comments that discuss what the student learned from the work being assessed.
Testing the portfolio and rubrics
In further testing of the portfolio it will be important to make sure that evaluative
criteria are task specific, not excessively general, nor overly detailed, and
that they match the desired out-come of the assignment (Popham, 1997). This
will require the posting of example of short stories that score high according
to the rubric, and a close monitoring of how the students use the rubric. There
will also need to be a model portfolio that will show the student what the portfolio
will look like.
The goal is to have rubrics that aid the students in the writing process as
well as show them what should go into their portfolio. It is my feeling that
portfolios, together with rubrics can, and should be, a teaching tool. To further
research this and to aide in the ongoing development of my course I will contact
possible interviewees, create and send questionnaires to portfolio experts,
conduct interviews, gather interview and questionnaire data, and revise course
to reflect the findings of the data. My research will not only discuss pedagogical
concerns with interviewees, but will explore preferable technology options for
creating the e-portfolio.
