CTLT has been thinking about portfolios for learning and their relationship to institutionally supported learning tools and course designs. This thinking has us moving away from the traditional LMS.  In a February 2008 Campus Technology interview, Gary Brown introduced the term “harvesting gradebook” to describe the gradebook that  faculty need to work in these decentralized environments. As originally articulated by Gary, the gradebook “harvested” student work, storing copies of the work within itself where it was assessed.

On further discussion, the concept became inverted, what was “harvested” were assessments, from work that remained in-situ.

This inversion of the idea allowed the widening of the community that could be involved in the assessment. There are ways that the instructor, as well as the program can learn from this transformed idea about a gradebook that are responsive to course and program improvements, as well as useful in accreditation.

A pilot course using these ideas earned the NUTN 2009 Best Resaerch Paper award. Here is the video made for the award ceremony.

At the AAC&U conference in Seattle, Jan 22-24, we presented these ideas at a round table on ePortfolios Friday morning. In February 2009, a Campus Technology article summarized a pilot offering of a course that used this latter harvesting of assessments model beginning to demonstrate how a community could effectively participate in the process.

This post serves as a table of contents to materials from our “Authentic assessment of learning in global contexts” AAC&U presentation and background to the story in Campus Technology.

• Abstract submitted to AAC&U for the session
• The 10 point self-assessment chart handed out at AAC&U
• The booklet that was handed out (below are topics in the booklet)
  
  • Nature of the community feedback
  • WSU 2007-08 ePortfolio Contest (call to contestants)
  • ePortfolio Contest Results (where important lessons were learned)
    
  • Harvesting (Transformative) Gradebook
    • Assumptions behind the idea
      
    • Overview (synthesis and reflection at end of summer 08)
      
    • Inception of idea
    • Demonstration of Feasibility of Implementation (using SharePoint and Google Docs)
      
    • Radar graphs for multidimensional data (description)
    • Scaling up the Implementation (design)
    • Pilot course (Fall 08)
  • Getting the assessment embedded
  • What the gradebook looks like
  • The conversation among the community
  • Results of the pilot course (impact on learners)