CUNY Academic Commons

Hi All,

This came across one of my listservs, and I thought it might be of interest to members of this group. Please see below.

Best,

Matt

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The Centre for Recording Achievement
An Associate Partner of the Higher Education Academy (UK)
in association with:
The Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research
The National Action Research Network (NARN)
The Scottish PDP Forum

The Second International Residential Seminar

‘Researching and Evaluating Personal Development Planning and e-Portfolio.’

National College for School Leadership, Nottingham, UK
26-28th April 2010

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Electronic portfolios are a rapidly developing global phenomenon. In the UK, many Higher Education Institutions have chosen to use e-portfolio systems to support the implementation of Personal Development Planning (PDP). PDP supports students in recording and reviewing achievements, reflecting and planning for personal, educational and career development. This approach is highly congruent with other initiatives across the world, such as the AeP project in Australia, the work of SURF in the Netherlands and the recently-formed Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) in the US. These initiatives use e-portfolio tools to promote self-regulated, personalised or integrative learning, to align assessment with learning and to support transitions.

A recurring theme has been the need for robust evaluation and research evidence to inform decisions about effective e-Portfolio and PDP practices.

Key seminar themes are:
1. Tutoring, mentoring, coaching for e-portfolio and PDP practice.
2. The development of identity and autonomy (inc. self-regulation/personalised learning).
3. Engagement: student, staff and community perspectives (inc. staff/ professional development, employability).
4. Supporting integrative and reflective learning (inc. co/extra-curricular learning, assessment and feedback, work-based/service learning).
5. Institutional change (inc. scaling up, achieving institutional transformation, drivers such as retention, progression, inclusion, achievement).
6. Researching e-portfolios and personal development planning: tools, methods, approaches.

As with the first highly successful international seminar held in Oxford in 2006, this event will bring together international researchers, practitioners and HE managers to further develop a community of practice that will:

• share critically evaluated practice amongst e-Portfolio and PDP practitioners;
• showcase work undertaken by the National Action Research Network for PDP and e-Portfolio and the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research;
• continue to build research capacity by supporting emergent research and researchers;
• encourage a critique of current research, monitoring and evaluation practices;
• facilitate further discussion of appropriate research and evaluation methods;
• contribute a robust evidence-base to underpin the effective implementation and use of e-Portfolios and PDP.

It will be intentionally inclusive: submissions and participation are invited from both established and emergent researchers. Studies employing various methodologies are welcome, from case studies of individual students and cohorts of staff, to large cross-institutional studies linked to retention and graduation data. We aim to provide an environment that is supportive, developmental and scholarly, within a comfortable, purpose-built residential conference centre. See http://tinyurl.com/lccun for further details of the venue.

Conference proposals should take one of the following forms:

1. Trigger Paper – these half-hour sessions will briefly synthesise current research, raise a key research and evaluation question, propose a novel research methodology or present research in progress [10mins] as a trigger for structured discussion [20 mins].
2. Research report – these half-hour sessions will report [20 mins report plus 10mins for questions] on completed PDP and e-Portfolio research and evaluation projects addressing one or a number of the themes listed above.
3. Symposium – these ninety-minute sessions will bring together a number of short inputs on a similar theme to allow more detailed discussion and/or workshop activities. Groups might wish to collaborate to offer symposia; alternatively, the organisers reserve the option of grouping contributions together around a common theme.

‘Researching and EvaluatingPersonal Development Planning and e-Portfolios’ Proposal Form: Call for Contributions

Proposals, in electronic format only, should be submitted to Cath Hewson at the Centre for Recording Achievement (cath@recordingachievement.org) by 25 January 2010.

1. Include the following presenter information. Place an asterisk beside the name of the contact person for a session involving more than one person:
Name(s):
Institution(s):
Address for correspondence:
Post/ZIP Code:
Email:
Tel:

2. List the seminar theme(s) addressed:

3. Indicate the proposal type:

a. trigger paper (30 minutes)

b. research report (30 minutes)

c. symposium (90 minutes)

4. Include in a session description (300 words or less) the following information:
a. Session title

b. Session outline (key points to be made or issues to be discussed)

c. For trigger papers and symposia, how attendees will be engaged (structure and activities)

d. References (key literature or resources important to the session’s content)

5. Identify IT or audio visual requirements (Data projector and laptop as standard. If other equipment is required, please request it here and provide a rationale for why it is necessary to your session’s activities).

Feedback on proposals will be provided in January 2010. Successful proposals will be included in the Seminar Handbook, which will be sent to all participants before the event.