In fall 2012, she created Facebook pages for her classes at both undergraduate and graduate levels, which she invited students to “like”. She made it clear that students did not have to be her Facebook “friend”, and that participation in the page was voluntary. She has now started three different pages for the three classes she teaches, and has reached 462 students. In addition to generating student content and discussion, past and present students can interact on the page. Prof. Godley can post jobs and internships, and include both current and former students. She can also ask questions about articles and generate back-and-forth in the comments. She has also found it “relatively painless” to manage the Facebook pages, compared to many other administrative tasks of teaching.

Today, we’re adding a newly featured portfolio from Winnie Hsieh, created for a CAS Writing Program course. Many courses in the Writing Program use ePortfolios to allow students to view their writing over the course of the semester and reflect on it. Hsieh’s course section involved writing three papers and scaffolding the working process of writing each paper. In her illustrated portfolio you can find her reflecting on the process of becoming a successful writer.

Wolffy, as he is known by colleagues and students, teaches several courses for master’s students in the School of Public Health, all of which have successfully integrated e-portfolios. His first experience with e-portfolio was in IH 790, Leading Organizations to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In this course students reflected on the leadership skills they are acquiring and the e-portfolio was used for both formative and summative evaluations.

In IH 744, Program Design for International Health, taught with Monita Baba-Djara and Cristin Morona, students used e-portfolio to collect and present evidence of the specific program design skills they were learning in the classroom and reflect on the team process in which they were engaged. Subsequently they modeled this type of reflection by providing their own reflections of what is taking place in each class on a class e-portfolio linked to the students own individual e-portfolios.

In IH 887, Developing and Managing Maternal and Child Health Programs, students were not required to keep their own e-portfolios, rather the e-portfolio was used to document course activities and present the work done by student teams. The 2012 e-portfolio for IH 887 currently under development by the 2012 IH 887 class includes a student generated on-line textbook and a student-faculty collaboration on a Facilitators Guide for an MCH Training Program: Planning and Managing Child and Maternal Health Programs in Low Resource Settings.

Most recently, in IH 743 Implementing Health Programs in Developing Countries: Making Programs Work, taught with Associate Professor Malcolm Bryant, students created their own e-portfolios to record bi-weekly reflections. Students link their individual e-portfolios to the course e-portfolio where the professors collect and present their own reflections of the class in multiple formats including texts, photos, and videos. The class e-portfolio is also the home for the four consultant team e-portfolios where the course teams chronicle and display the work that they are doing for their clients.

For Wolffy keys to success have been to introduce e-portfolio on the first day of class, to dedicate time for each student to create their own e-portfolio and to create regular assignments requiring students to reflect on what they are learning in the class. He is careful to provide a structure for student reflections linking assignments to key issues covered in class, but not to be too prescriptive. He has successfully encouraged widespread use of e-portfolio in the International Health Department and its use throughout BUSPH continues to grow.

Students reacted with enthusiasm. 98% of the students “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the online modules were a significant aid to teaching. Their comments included: “Given that I had already taken more advanced epidemiology courses, my main engagement with the course was through the online modules. This provided an excellent way to accommodate people with different levels of experience who could learn at different speeds.” “Did not find I needed to use the textbook. The online modules were more than enough to understand the material.”

Prof. LaMorte developed the online modules using SoftChalk software. SoftChalk is currently being offered to School of Public Health faculty through the Office of Teaching, Learning and Technology. Faculty. Faculty at other schools may be able to take a similar approach using other available technologies such as Echo360, Digication and Blackboard.