ePortfolio Pedagogy: Stimulating a Shift in Mindset

Abstract

As digital pedagogy and instructional strategy, electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) help educators organize instruction, facilitate teaching, and enhance learning. When students develop their ePortfolio projects in online spaces, they build a community where they learn to overcome challenges with the technology and to embrace the pedagogy that promotes learning. Decades-old research shows that the ePortfolio development process enhances knowledge production, makes visible knowledge application, and capacitates knowledge mobilization. ePortfolio technology promotes interaction, fosters reflection, and encourages both analytical thinking and the questioning of assumptions related to learning online. As multipurpose tools (assessment, accountability, collaboration, curriculum), ePortfolios are part of a movement that aims to reimagine the way we teach and learn in internet spaces. ePortfolio pedagogy, undergirded by interaction and reflection, integrates authentic learning episodes in digital spaces and enables practitioners to engage in democratizing and mobilizing knowledge. ePortfolio pedagogy is inclusive, embraces equity, and encourages the sharing of stories, beliefs, and ideas that result in appreciation of self and others. As students engage in idea generation in terms of choice of platform, layout, content, and artefacts, they experience a shift in mindset that capacitates a can-do attitude toward learning potential and project completion in online spaces.