CUNY Academic Commons

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

I’m pleased to share significant news with the Making Connections
network. As some of you have heard, our new national project, “Connect to Learning: ePortfolio, Engagement, and Student Success,” has finalized the selection of participating campuses. Funded by FIPSE, the US Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, Connect to Learning will bring together ePortfolio leadership teams from campuses nationwide, selected through a competitive application process, to explore and strengthen best practices in ePortfolio pedagogy.

Connect to Learning will be coordinated by LaGuardia’s Making
Connections National Resource Center, working with the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-based Learning (AAEEBL), an emerging international professional association focused on ePortfolio practice. Dr. Randy Bass of Georgetown University and Dr. Helen Chen of Stanford University will serve as the project’s senior research scholars. A Call for Proposals issued this fall by Making Connections and AAEEBL attracted applications from wide range of colleges and universities, including national leaders in ePortfolio pedagogy. We received nearly twice as many applications as there were FIPSE-funded slots. In the end, 22 campuses were selected:

Boston University
U. of Delaware
Hunter College, CUNY
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Johnson & Wales University
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Lehman College, CUNY
Long Island University
Manhattanville College
Northwest Connecticut Community College
Norwalk Community College
Pace University
Queensborough Community College, CUNY
Rutgers University
Salt Lake Community College
San Francisco State University
School of Professional Studies, CUNY
St. John’s University
SUNY Empire State
Three Rivers Community College
Tunxis Community College
Virginia Tech

Building a nationwide network that links community colleges, private
colleges and research universities, the Connect to Learning project will kick off at a January national ePortfolio Forum, held in San Francisco and sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Over the next three years, participating campuses will use a structured matrix model of ePortfolio development to plan and implement campus-based innovations and evaluate the impact of ePortfolio implementation on student learning. Over the course of the three year project, Connect to Learning will advance the practice of hundreds of faculty, benefit 20-25,000 students, and generate evidence-based national models of ePortfolio implementation.

This project builds on the work of the past three years with the Making Connections seminars, and will develop models and resources designed to be shared with all Making Connections campuses. We plan to invite all Making Connections campuses to a range of open call activities taking place in Spring 2011 and beyond — details will be shared at our December seminars. Thanks to everyone who has worked together, sharing insights and making this project possible.

PS: Don’t forget our Friday 12/10 Student ePortfolio Showcase,
featuring students from 6 Making Connections campuses, as well as
LaGuardia. See our forwarded note, below, for details.

Best regards and happy holidays to all,

Bret

Bret Eynon, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Teaching & Learning
Executive Director, Making Connections National Resource Center
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
31-10 Thompson Ave., Suite M-414
Long Island City, NY 11101
p) 718-482-5478 f) 718-482-5443
BEynon@lagcc.cuny.edu
http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/ctl
http://www.laguardia.edu/connections/

Dear Colleagues,
We would like to invite you to attend our first Making Connections
Network-Wide Student ePortfolio Showcase. Please see Bret’s note to the LaGuardia community below and our poster for the showcase attached. If your time allows, we hope you can come and celebrate the students’ successes with us.
Judit
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Friends,

I’m writing to invite you an Student ePortfolio Showcase on Friday Dec. 10, 1:00 -3:00 pm, in the E Building Pool side Cafe.

Our student ePortfolio Showcase has always a fantastic event, a great chance to see our students demonstrate and reflect on their learning and growth, using the work they’ve collected in their ePortfolios. This year we’re doing something significantly different:

* Tour the Gallery. In the past students presented to a large group, one by one. This fall, the showcase will be more like a Gallery. Students will be at stations with their ePortfolios on a monitor, making short presentations. You’ll have more of a chance to talk with them and ask questions. We’re excited to try this new approach, which will make the process more personal and interactive.

* Students from 7 Different Colleges: For the first time at a
Showcase, we’ll have not only LaGuardia students, but also students from other colleges. Through the Making Connections program, LaGuardia is working with a wide range of colleges in the NYC area who are doing ePortfolio. Our Fall Showcase will feature 6 LaGuardia students and 6 students from Making Connections campuses, including SUNY Stony Brook, Manhattanville College, Northwestern Connecticut Community College, Molloy College, Medgar Evers College and York College.

Our students do great work with ePortfolio — but ePortfolio is
increasingly common at colleges nationwide. This is a great chance to see the work students (and faculty) are doing at colleges around the metropolitan region. And, of course, it’s also a chance to see whatstudents are doing in Digication, our new ePortfolio system.

As they share their ePortfolios, students will showcase work from
courses taught by faculty in English, Mathematics. Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, Health Science, and Cooperative Education. Poetry, artwork, biology research papers, engineering projects, chemistry labs and a wide selection of other coursework will represent learning guided by more than 50 faculty, including Lenore Beaky, Xiao Ping Yen, Dionne Miller, Kimberly Ramirez, Abigail Schoneboom, Bruce W. Brooks, Clarence Chan, C. Jason Smith, Jon Neiman, Thomas Onorato, Kathleen Karsten, Stacy Perry, Debra MacMillan-Coddington, John Landers, Marie Hanlon, Rafael Tokarz, Debra Engel, Philip Gimber, Lydia Gardner, Max Rodriguez, David Bimbi, Alberta Arnold, John Nutakor, and Burl Yearwood.

I strongly encourage you to come by the Poolside Cafe on Friday 12/10 for this exciting event. Best to all!

Bret