Introducing ePortfolios into the Bachelor of

Occupational Therapy (OT) Program

Christine Slade & Keith Murfin Centre for Support and Advancement of Learning and Teaching (C-SALT)

Anita Hamilton Program Leader Occupational Therapy/OT ePortfolio Coordinator

University of the Sunshine Coast

Early Adoption 2013

Bachelor of Occupational Therapy (OT) program were early adopters of PebblePad at USC

Initial cohort was 140 first-year students

The PLS was seen as the best place for developing reflective practice, storing evidence of meeting external standards, practitioner registration and career opportunities

Mapping Implementation

Year PersonalStatement

FieldworkReflection

Evidence of

Learning

Graduate Attributes

OTAustCompetencie

sCV CPD Plan

CPD Review

1 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

2 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

3 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

4 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

5 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Reasons for Changing the Curriculum

Previously reflections were seen as one-off assignments and not kept for further use or review

Work was lost and therefore growth & development could not be tracked

When having to prepare a paper portfolio as fourth years, students regretted not keeping evidence towards competencies

The ApproachA collaborative approach was taken in order to embed ePortfolios into the course curriculum

The OT course coordinators worked with the C~SALT team to design the implementation and build teaching staff awareness

The end goal being that the OT teaching staff would be the ones to up skill students

Stakeholder - C~SALT Staff

Timeframe Activities

Semester 1 Planning Session (building ePortfolios into the course)

Introduction to ePortfolios and PebblePad for academic teaching staff

Development of research partnership between C-SALT and course

coordinator

Training session with academic teaching staff

One-to-one support creation of templates with course coordinators

Pre-usage surveys facilitated by C-SALT staff with students

Semester 2 Training session with academic teaching staff

One-to-one support creation of templates and making videos

Online post-usage surveys facilitated by C-SALT staff with students

Debrief session with OT ePortfolio/course coordinator at end of 2013

Stakeholder - OT Portfolio/course coordinator

Timeframe Activities

Semester 1 Attend first year class to present to students what ePortfolios are and why we are introducing them at USC

In consultation with course coordinator select activities that will be included in ePortfolio

Create templates for students to use to upload work to ePortfolio

Arrange training for academic staff on scope of ePortfolio tool

(PebblePad)

One-to-one support creation of templates with course coordinators

Arrange training for students on how to use ePortfolio tool

Semester 2 In consultation with course coordinator select activities that will be included in ePortfolio

Arrange training for academic staff on scope of ePortfolio tool

Check templates and create additional ones for semester 2 ePortfolio tasks

Make instructional videos with C~SALT team members about ePortfolio tool so students can upload information for assessment task.

Stakeholder - Students

Timeframe Activities

Semester 1 Hear about ePortfolios generally in class

Choose to attend optional face-to-face training sessions to learn how to use the ePortfolio

Semester 2 Some students ‘played’ with the PebblePad software to explore how it worked

Watch videos about how to upload work to the ePortfolio

Upload a selection of work to the ePortfolio

Tasks for Students

Student Response (used with permission)‘The Desk’ Template

Tasks for Students

Fieldwork Template - used to guide student reflection of the experience

How did it go?

By the end of the early adopter phase students had been introduced to the main features and had submitted a reflective task to ATLAS.

“At this point I don’t feel that I have many ideas about where to improve what we have done in our first year. I feel that by only taking on a small challenge we were successful. If we had tried to achieve anything more I doubt that it would have gone as smoothly as I think it did.” (OT ePortfolio coordinator)

A similar gentle approach will be used in 2014 however with the addition of an assessment task to the curriculum.

Second-year students (2013 cohort) will regularly add further evidence of learning, graduate attribute attainment and competency development.

The Benefits

Reinforcing the importance of developing critical reflective practice

Students being engaged in self-learning through pedagogical tools

The slow-start approach was easily adopted by both C~SALT and academic teaching staff

Lessons LearnedIt is vital to plan early the embedding of ePortfolios into the course curriculum, particularly assessment tasks

Be mindful that staff and students may struggle initially with learning the software within a context of multiple demands on time, energy and resources

Having training workshops engages some students early. Others will rely on later helps such as the ‘how to’ videos

The importance of all members of the ePortfolio implementation ‘team’ communicating and planning together regularly so support will be available when needed

Anita HamiltonOccupational Therapy ePortfolio Coordinator

(click image to play video)

How is it now?

First and second-year cohorts in Semester 1 2014

Student training sessions built into tutorial time

Assessment using ePortfolios is embedded in the curriculum

Program Mapping

* theory

+ fieldwork

In Summary…

It is difficult to “retrofit” a course with an ePortfolio, it needs to be slowly integrated into the course, the training needs to be part of the learning activities in the course and the students need to be continually reminded why it is being done. [OT ePortfolio coordinator]