November 12, 2024 • 24 mins
Associate Professor Dr Fergus Green from University College London (UCL) talks in this episode about why he started working with portfolios in his political science classes, what he has learned, and how he can better support his students on their learning journey by having incorporated portfolios.
Connect with Fergus
Resources
Related episodes
- Cathy Elliott: Creativity and feedback in assessment portfolios
- Cathy Elliott: Have fun, be flexible, and encourage feedback in your portfolio
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Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
(00:29):
My guest today is AssociateProfessor Dr Fergus Green from
University College London,abbreviated UCL. There he
teaches in the Department ofPolitical Science and School of
Public Policy. Welcome to thepodcast, Fergus.
Fergus Green (00:44):
Thank you for having me.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:46):
If UCL rings a bell with our listeners and
also your name, Fergus, they arenot mistaken. Recently,
Professor Dr Cathy Elliottjoined me on the podcast for a
second time and mentioned thatyou teach a class that some of
her students are taking. Can youplease tell me some more about
yourself and your role at UCL?
Fergus Green (01:06):
I grew up in Australia, and I practised law
in Australia for a few years. Itrained as a lawyer and worked
as an environmental and climatechange and energy lawyer for a
few years. I then moved toLondon about 12 years ago to do
graduate study in politicaltheory. I joined UCL about three
years ago in September 2021, andI'm now an Associate Professor,
(01:29):
as you mentioned. Basically, Iresearch and teach mainly on
areas around climate change andtransition to low carbon
societies. I draw on my trainingin law and policy, as well as in
political theory and politicaleconomy. So I try and tackle
questions from amultidisciplinary perspective.
(01:51):
Some of the things that I workon include the climate motivated
governance of fossil fuels, sothinking about how to transition
away from fossil fuels and alsoabout the idea of a just
transition away from fossilfuels that brings people with
it, that doesn't leave people incommunities behind who work in
the industries that need totransition.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:11):
That is quite important work that you're
doing, and coincidentally, oneof your colleagues, learning
designer, Irina Niculescu, whotold me just the other day that
she was working with you also onthe module for portfolios, she's
going to hold a workshop,actually, also on the same day
that this episode goes live forus in New Zealand on 'Working
together for change (02:32):
Digital education meets the climate and
nature emergencies'. That's alsoquite nice to see that your
topic also encompasses otherareas of the university and that
you're working together on thisvery important topic.
Fergus Green (02:46):
Yeah, absolutely, and I'll talk in a minute about
my module, and that actuallyvery much is about that
intersection of climate andenvironment, bringing in the
digital education with theportfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:56):
Fergus, how did you actually come to work
with portfolios? Did everythingcome back to Cathy?
Fergus Green (03:02):
Pretty much it did. Where it started is that I
started teaching a new module inautumn 2022 called
'Environmental and climatejustice'. This was a module that
I proposed and developed.
Basically about half of themodule is about climate change,
and the other half, the firsthalf, is about a range of
different environmentalchallenges and their impacts on
human beings and communities. Sothinking about environmentally
(03:26):
mediated social injustices ifyou will. So we look at things
like air pollution, consumption,waste, energy production, and
agriculture. So I was teachingthis subject. I was enjoying it.
I think my students were reallyenjoying it, but I had a really
interesting, let's say,experience with the assessment.
I wasn't doing portfolios inthis first year.
(03:49):
I gave the students twoassessments. One was really
successful, the other one lessso. The first assessment, which
was a 1,000-word piece of workthat they had to submit, was
basically a format that Icreated, called an
'Environmental JusticeAnalysis', or EJA. Essentially,
this was quite a structured formof assessment in that it had to
consist of three parts. It hadto consist of a diagnosis of an
(04:12):
environmental injustice,combining empirical analysis
with appeals to normativeprinciples and theories of
justice. The second part had toinvolve an analysis of the
causes of that environmentalinjustice, both the proximate
and the structural causes. Andthen the third part, the
students have to propose asolution or a response strategy
(04:32):
and not just how things ought tobe, but also a realistic
strategy for how to move fromwhere we are to that desirable
solution. So it was a verystructured approach, but the
students had a lot of freedom tochoose the particular topic that
they wrote about and whateverthe case study might be and this
broad topic within theenvironment and climate issues.
(04:53):
That went down really well. Sothe students did really great
work. I really enjoy readingthese pieces of work, and it was
an all round good experience.
This was about halfway throughterm that that was due, and then
fast forward to the end of term,and they had a 2,000-word
traditional format essay. I gavethem a choice of, I think, five
(05:13):
topics, one each from the lastfive weeks of term, essentially.
This was not such a greatexperience. Marking these was a
bit of a burden, I have to say.
And I think the students enjoyedit less. They seemed to engage
with it less, and the quality oftheir work was lower. You know,
this really translated to aseven point lower average score
on the essays compared with theEnvironmental Justice Analysis.
(05:34):
That's a lot. That was oneexperience I had teaching that
module.
And at the same time as I wasdoing that Cathy Elliott was
teaching portfolios for thefirst time on her new module,
'Politics of nature'. I wasreally interested in this
experiment, essentially, thatshe was running, and I would
have frequent conversations withher about that and became quite
(05:55):
interested and curious. And thenI think it was really when we
were marking our, in my case, myessays at the end and in her
case the portfolios that reallysealed the deal. When I was, you
know, trudging through theseessays, and I asked Cathy how it
was going marking herportfolios, she said, 'these
portfolios were a joy to mark.'That was the point at which I
(06:16):
thought, yep, I want what she'shaving. It was at that point
that I decided I was going toswitch to portfolios.
The one other thing I'll justmention as to how the portfolios
came about was that I designedthe portfolio - I mean, I drew a
lot on Cathy's own materials andher mentorship, really
throughout this. And I alsoworked with three of my
students. We did somethingcalled a ChangeMakers project,
(06:39):
which is basically a programmethat UCL runs where staff work
with students on an initiativeto improve some aspect of their
educational experience. In mycase, it was the assessment of
my module, and we basically ranus through a series of
workshops. I would give themthings to read and think about,
and then we would come togetherand work together on designing
the portfolio assessment task.
You know, the assessmentcriteria, the approach to
(07:01):
feedback, and so on, andcrucially, something we also did
was we developed a series ofprompts, like ideas, basically,
that students could use to gettheir imagination going for all
10 weeks of the module. Thesewere sort of the main things we
developed together in thisChangeMakers project. By the end
of that, I was ready to roll itout, and so I changed my
(07:21):
assessment for the autumn 2023session, and that was the first
time I used portfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:29):
That is absolutely fantastic that you
also involved your students intothe portfolio creation process
so that they had more of a stakein it and also could help make
the experience better for futurestudents that are taking the
course.
Fergus Green (07:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:46):
Fergus, could you figure out what the
difference was between the firstassessment that you had and the
second assessment that didn't goso well? Did you take some of
those elements then also intoyour portfolio work?
Fergus Green (07:58):
Yeah, that's right. What I took away from the
experience about what workedwell with the Environmental
Justice Analysis is that thestudents had quite a bit of
freedom to pursue the topicsthat they were interested in.
That, I think, is really theessence of the portfolio. That
was the first and most importantlesson. I think the second
lesson, and something that Iwould really emphasise, is that
the Environmental JusticeAnalysis, as I explained, was
(08:19):
quite a structured piece ofwork. It's a bit like jazz,
right? Freedom with constraints.
I took very seriously the needto have some constraints or at
least some scaffolding,particularly for students who
are perhaps a bit shyer aboutfully embracing the creativity
and the potential of portfolios.
I continued to teach theEnvironmental Justice Analysis
(08:40):
as a core framework for engagingwith each of the topics, and I
would encourage the students ifthey were a bit stuck in
thinking about their portfolioto do an Environmental Justice
Analysis or a part of one aspart of their final assessment.
Just to explain how it worked, Iwould set an expectation that
students would work, on average,on their portfolio, doing about
300 to 400 words a week, but Iwouldn't police that.
(09:02):
Ultimately, what they had tosubmit was 2,500 words of their
best work plus a response ofabout 500 words to a covering
questionnaire where I asked themabout their experience on the
module and make the case for thework that they were submitting.
They were given quite a lot offreedom, but again, I would
encourage students to submit asa default something of at least
(09:22):
1,000 words so that they had alittle bit more space that you
need a slightly longer format tofulfil some of the criteria. And
I also mentioned the sort ofdefault option of doing an
Environmental Justice Analysisfor at least part of the
assessment. A number of studentsdid that. They actually did an
Environmental Justice Analysis,but certainly not everyone. I
come back to that freedom, butwith some structures there,
(09:45):
particularly for those who needit.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:47):
I love the analogy that you gave us
a little bit like jazz' becauseyou're right thinking about that
music, there is a lot ofstructure, but then you also
have these wonderfulimprovisations included that
really bring it together and tomake it the piece that it then
turns out and every time it isvery different. Every single
performance is so different,
Fergus Green (10:08):
Exactly right?
I've always admired jazzmusicians. It's not my favourite
genre, I'm more of a classicalmusician myself, but I have some
friends who are jazz musicians.
I'm always in awe of thatability to bring something new
every time, yet you can't justdo anything, right? You've got
to work within theseconstraints, and so I'm always
really in awe of great jazzmusicians.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:28):
If we're staying with that analogy then,
you already told us a bit aboutwhat your students include in
their portfolio, that they areessentially writing something
every single week, but theycould also do a bigger piece
with the Environmental JusticeAnalysis, what are some other
components of the portfolio? Dothey also and here comes the
jazz analogy, play off eachother? Does somebody start and
(10:50):
then another person goes intothe portfolio and provides a
comment or feedback and then thestudents take that learning
further.
Fergus Green (10:57):
I very much encourage students to seek
feedback from each other, aswell as from me. There are a few
ways in which I do that. Ischeduled every three or four
weeks a portfolio check in whereI just give them a few minutes
at the start of a seminar inpairs or groups of three to just
talk with others about whatthey're doing in their
portfolio. I've had some of mystudents say to me that they
(11:18):
found that really interestingand useful and got ideas from
each other. That I think alsolowers the barriers to them
seeking slightly more formalfeedback, and we have a
mechanism for that where you cango into the other students'
portfolio if they givepermission and read that and
provide peer feedback. As anadditional incentive, and this
is another technique I learnedfrom Cathy, which is to
(11:39):
incentivise that by saying thatanyone who provides thoughtful
feedback to another student canthen seek an additional feedback
from me. Everyone's entitled toseek feedback once, but then
they can seek an additional oneif they also provide feedback to
others. It does encourage that,but each student ultimately
retains authority over who theygive access to over their
(12:00):
portfolios.
We did see at least one jointperformance last year, and this
was actually a podcast. So twoof my students decided that they
wanted to explore one of thethemes from the module through a
podcast and basicallyinterviewed each other and had a
discussion about the topic overa podcast, and then we
discussed, okay, well, then howdoes that count within the word
limits and things like that?
That was an interestingexperience and a good example of
(12:21):
where the students did reallybounce off one another.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:26):
What rule did you then find how to deal with
that multimedia content of thestudents? Because that was my
next (12:32):
if they are doing a lot of writing, what about the media
elements? Do they also putimages in or videos? And now
that you've mentioned thepodcast, how did you deal with
that? Is there something thatothers might also interested in
knowing how you've been able tobring that into the regular word
limit or find a good equivalentfor?
Fergus Green (12:51):
I guess there's two issues there. One is the
technical incorporation of themultimedia into the portfolio
program and then the second isthe word limit, departmental,
administrative constraints. Withregard to the first issue,
that's their problem, becausethe Mahara program that we use
allows for multimedia content,so students can upload sound
(13:12):
recordings, like the podcast,video recordings, as well as of
course images and of coursetext. So that really allows for
that multimedia usage andcreativity, and that's very
easy.
In terms of the word limit, I'mtrying to remember exactly what
we decided, but I thinkbasically the thought was it
wouldn't be fair to them,really, to count the number of
words in the podcast becauseobviously they're going to be
(13:33):
more words in a podcast. You'dexpress yourself more concisely
if you're writing an essay,right? I think what I got them
to do was to write anaccompanying reflective piece on
the podcast, and we counted theoverall package in a way that to
me seemed reasonable andproportionate to the amount of
work that they did. So there wasno rigid rule. We came to an
agreement on how many words thiswould count for.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:56):
Fantastic. So Fergus, now that you've used
portfolios for a whole academicyear and prior to that, have
seen them with Cathy, did youthen notice anything different
in your students' learning ortheir interaction or the
assessments overall?
Fergus Green (14:14):
The difference was marked. The difference between
particularly the essays in thestudents' engagement and the
quality of their work andultimately their grades was
really different from thetraditional format essay to the
portfolios. Really on all thosedimensions, it was quite a
different experience for themand for me marking them.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:33):
It's good to hear also that you're enjoying
that experience. Fergus, yourstudents pretty much write or
add to their portfolio on aweekly basis, but they don't
necessarily share all of thoseentries with other students.
Fergus Green (14:49):
That's right. They do have quite a lot of freedom,
and some of my students told me,you know, a couple told me that
they didn't really do much inthe portfolio for most of the
year, and they reflected on thatin their assessment. And one or
two said to me that they wouldprefer it if they were kind of
held to account a little bitmore regularly, as it were. So
I've been thinking about whetherI would do that, and I think,
the answer I've come up with isno, I won't [laughs] because the
(15:11):
whole point of portfolios is togive students that freedom. I
mean, I certainly wouldn'tconsider asking them to turn
something in every week or evenevery fortnight because then you
take away that freedom. Onething that could work is maybe
making the submission andfeedback of some formative work
compulsory by, say, week six orsomething like that. I think
some of those students who maybewere skiving off a little bit
(15:34):
would, perhaps, in hindsight,have benefited from that
discipline. You know, on theother hand, some students are
not ready to submit formativework in week five or six, but
they're working away on theirportfolios on a larger piece of
work. You know, ultimately, I'vedecided to leave it, but perhaps
try and encourage submission abit earlier for feedback and use
(15:54):
a sort of more of a nudgeapproach, rather than mandating
that intermediate check-in.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:59):
It's good to see that you're actually also
wanting to create those selfdirected learners.
Fergus Green (16:03):
That's right, and that's ultimately what it comes
down to. And most studentsembrace that. And you know,
might take them two or threeweeks to get going, but then
they get into the hang of it andreally value that. What I come
back to is that I'm reluctant tomess with that aspect, and I
think that's really important.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:19):
What are your plans for this academic year?
Because we are recording thissession right before you're
starting your term, and ofcourse, by the time the
interview goes live, you willhave already been teaching for,
I think, a little over a month?
Are you going to make anychanges, or are you pretty much
keeping everything as it is?
Fergus Green (16:38):
Yeah, pretty much keeping everything as it is. I
mean, there was no real reasonto change anything. I'm keeping
it the same.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:44):
Fergus, how many students are actually,
typically, in your class?
Fergus Green (16:48):
About 30 last year. I'm expecting the same
again this year.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:52):
That's also a good size number for them to
really get to know each other,engage with each other, and then
have that confidence that theyknow who is going to give them
feedback from their peer side.
Fergus Green (17:03):
That's right, yeah. So that ends up being a
lecture and then two seminars.
So two seminars, about 15students each, so it's a good
size.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:10):
Fergus, what would you like to be able to do
with portfolios that youcurrently can't?
Fergus Green (17:15):
I thought about this, and I don't think there is
really anything that I wouldwant to be able to do with a
bit, but I think probably it's abetter question for my students.
So it made me think that this isa question I should ask them.
You know, what do they wish thatthey could do with portfolios
that they can't? It's somethingthat I'll ask them this year.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:32):
That would be interesting to do your co-design
again now that you've done theportfolios for one year, invite
your students back in for theChangeMaker project that they
liked best about it or someaspects that they might want to
change.
Fergus Green (17:45):
The ChangeMakers project is quite a big
undertaking, but certainly, thespirit of that is something I
very much try to collect. So wehave ongoing surveys about early
in the term, mid term, and atthe end of the term where I
collect that information using aMenti survey. And obviously
informally, I'm very muchencouraging students to come to
office hours at least once inthe first half of term, and
(18:06):
ideally more. I'm getting thatfeedback from them informally as
well.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:10):
Yes, it does not always have to be a formal
project, just a chat in thehallway might be sufficient.
Fergus, is there anything elsethat you would like to mention
that we haven't covered off yet?
Fergus Green (18:22):
The only other thing I'll mention is how those
of us who use portfolios canhelp other staff who might be
curious or interested in usingportfolios. I mean, I very much
benefited from having Cathy'sexpertise and support when I
went down this path, and thenbetween the two of us, we
encouraged another group ofpeople, and this year, we're
(18:42):
really pleased that of whatwe're aware at least three of
our colleagues are going to beteaching ePortfolios using
Mahara for the first time. Sothat'll be five of us now in the
department and a number ofothers in our faculty as well,
the Faculty of Social andHistorical Sciences, and the
other departments are alsotaking out ePortfolios. I would
encourage lecturers who use itto think about how they can
(19:03):
support others to do it. And Ithink sort of two things there.
One is kind of highlighting thebenefits for the lecturers, so
coming back to what I was sayingearlier about just how much more
pleasurable it is to mark workthat the students have put a lot
of effort into and reallythought about. That's a much
better experience for them.
I think also just kind of makingit easy for them. So one of the
(19:23):
aspects of this ChangeMakersproject that I didn't mention is
that we also produced thematerials for the assessment for
my module, you know, theinstructions for the students,
the feedback, pro forma form,the marking criteria, the
questionnaire. But we also thenmake generic versions of those,
deleted some of the details, andI've read an additional memo for
(19:44):
staff. We put that on our staffSharePoint, and it's now become
part of a larger project calledthe assessment library, but
basically just reduces thestart-up costs for people who
want to adopt ePortfolios. We'vegiven them all those resources
and then people have adaptedthem, obviously, and then we've
got some technical support aswell to help people with an
induction kind of session andother kind of supportive
(20:06):
resources to start. So if youencourage them, get them
interested, and then lower thebarriers to them switching their
assessment mode, we've certainlyfound that that's been really
helpful in encouraging others totake up portfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:18):
I think we can employ your analogy here as
well because with the resources,you're providing a structure,
you're providing ideas of whatcan be done. But then because
every course is different,everybody has the freedom to
then change it. But in general,you have the structure
available, and therefore, as yousay, nobody has to start from
scratch trying to figure it out,but benefit from the learning
(20:39):
that you and Cathy and nextyear, many others will have had.
Fergus Green (20:43):
Yeah, that's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:44):
That already, Fergus, takes us to our last
three questions. Are you readyfor them?
Fergus Green (20:49):
I'm ready.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:50):
Which words or short phrases actually as
well, if you like, do you use todescribe portfolio work?
Fergus Green (20:56):
So I'm going to slightly cheat on this one. I
asked my students...
Kristina Hoeppner (21:00):
Awesome.
Fergus Green (21:00):
... to do one of these word clouds. So I went
back and looked at their wordcloud that they did when I asked
them to describe their portfolioassessment, and the top three
words were creative, different,and flexible.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:14):
Fantastic.
You have the overlap with Cathyin 'flexible'. That was also one
of her words this year. What tipdo you now have for learning
designers or lecturers whocreate portfolio activities?
Fergus Green (21:31):
I come back to this combination of freedom and
scaffolding. So obviously theapproach inherently allows a lot
of freedom, but I think it'sreally important to have some of
that scaffolding. So that'sthings like the peer-to-peer
regular check-ins, options forpeer-to-peer feedback, feedback
from me, encouraging them tocome to office hours, the weekly
prompts for each topic, just toget their ideas flowing and then
have some default assignments,in my case, it was the
(21:52):
Environmental Justice Analysis.
I think this kind of scaffoldinghelps to bring out the
creativity, ultimately, that thestudents value.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:59):
Thank you.
Now, last question for you, whatadvice do you have for portfolio
authors, for your students?
Fergus Green (22:06):
Two pieces of advice
feedback from your peers and thelecturer. So I think that the
portfolio approach really allowsyou to the freedom to push
yourself, take a risk, pursuesomething that you wouldn't have
otherwise pursued or in a waythat you wouldn't have
otherwise, do it using a mediumthat you otherwise wouldn't have
used, but that you may becurious about. Just try it and
(22:27):
give it a go, and then use thefact that there are
opportunities for feedback tothen check-in with the lecturer.
All of the students who soughtfeedback from me did
significantly better on theirfinal submission in terms of
their grade than what theyinitially provided. I would just
encourage them to be bold andtake risks, but do seek that
(22:48):
feedback from the lecturer, andI think that's a really powerful
combination in terms of gettingthe most out of the experience
and getting a grade that they'resatisfied with.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:57):
It definitely sounds like one. And thank you
so much for sharing that finaltip with us. I really
appreciate, Fergus, that you'vetaken the time to chat with me
so that I could learn how yourinitial curiosity by seeing what
a lecturer next to you in thesame department does and how
much more they enjoy theirassessments, how that spark of
(23:19):
curiosity resulted in yourethinking your own assessments,
rethinking your own course, andbringing that flexibility and
also creativity in for yourstudents, at the same time also
supporting them in becominglearners that direct their own
work and that hopefully willcontinue in that vein, also in
other courses now that there'smore and more at UCL that are
(23:43):
going to work with portfolios.
Thank you for your time.
Fergus Green (23:47):
My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:50):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with AssociateProfessor Dr Fergus Green. Head
to our website,podcast.mahara.org, where you
can find resources and thetranscript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host.
(24:13):
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you'll listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then, create,
share, and engage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
(00:29):
My guest today is AssociateProfessor Dr Fergus Green from
University College London,abbreviated UCL. There he
teaches in the Department ofPolitical Science and School of
Public Policy. Welcome to thepodcast, Fergus.
Fergus Green (00:44):
Thank you for having me.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:46):
If UCL rings a bell with our listeners and
also your name, Fergus, they arenot mistaken. Recently,
Professor Dr Cathy Elliottjoined me on the podcast for a
second time and mentioned thatyou teach a class that some of
her students are taking. Can youplease tell me some more about
yourself and your role at UCL?
Fergus Green (01:06):
I grew up in Australia, and I practised law
in Australia for a few years. Itrained as a lawyer and worked
as an environmental and climatechange and energy lawyer for a
few years. I then moved toLondon about 12 years ago to do
graduate study in politicaltheory. I joined UCL about three
years ago in September 2021, andI'm now an Associate Professor,
(01:29):
as you mentioned. Basically, Iresearch and teach mainly on
areas around climate change andtransition to low carbon
societies. I draw on my trainingin law and policy, as well as in
political theory and politicaleconomy. So I try and tackle
questions from amultidisciplinary perspective.
(01:51):
Some of the things that I workon include the climate motivated
governance of fossil fuels, sothinking about how to transition
away from fossil fuels and alsoabout the idea of a just
transition away from fossilfuels that brings people with
it, that doesn't leave people incommunities behind who work in
the industries that need totransition.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:11):
That is quite important work that you're
doing, and coincidentally, oneof your colleagues, learning
designer, Irina Niculescu, whotold me just the other day that
she was working with you also onthe module for portfolios, she's
going to hold a workshop,actually, also on the same day
that this episode goes live forus in New Zealand on 'Working
together for change (02:32):
Digital education meets the climate and
nature emergencies'. That's alsoquite nice to see that your
topic also encompasses otherareas of the university and that
you're working together on thisvery important topic.
Fergus Green (02:46):
Yeah, absolutely, and I'll talk in a minute about
my module, and that actuallyvery much is about that
intersection of climate andenvironment, bringing in the
digital education with theportfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:56):
Fergus, how did you actually come to work
with portfolios? Did everythingcome back to Cathy?
Fergus Green (03:02):
Pretty much it did. Where it started is that I
started teaching a new module inautumn 2022 called
'Environmental and climatejustice'. This was a module that
I proposed and developed.
Basically about half of themodule is about climate change,
and the other half, the firsthalf, is about a range of
different environmentalchallenges and their impacts on
human beings and communities. Sothinking about environmentally
(03:26):
mediated social injustices ifyou will. So we look at things
like air pollution, consumption,waste, energy production, and
agriculture. So I was teachingthis subject. I was enjoying it.
I think my students were reallyenjoying it, but I had a really
interesting, let's say,experience with the assessment.
I wasn't doing portfolios inthis first year.
(03:49):
I gave the students twoassessments. One was really
successful, the other one lessso. The first assessment, which
was a 1,000-word piece of workthat they had to submit, was
basically a format that Icreated, called an
'Environmental JusticeAnalysis', or EJA. Essentially,
this was quite a structured formof assessment in that it had to
consist of three parts. It hadto consist of a diagnosis of an
(04:12):
environmental injustice,combining empirical analysis
with appeals to normativeprinciples and theories of
justice. The second part had toinvolve an analysis of the
causes of that environmentalinjustice, both the proximate
and the structural causes. Andthen the third part, the
students have to propose asolution or a response strategy
(04:32):
and not just how things ought tobe, but also a realistic
strategy for how to move fromwhere we are to that desirable
solution. So it was a verystructured approach, but the
students had a lot of freedom tochoose the particular topic that
they wrote about and whateverthe case study might be and this
broad topic within theenvironment and climate issues.
(04:53):
That went down really well. Sothe students did really great
work. I really enjoy readingthese pieces of work, and it was
an all round good experience.
This was about halfway throughterm that that was due, and then
fast forward to the end of term,and they had a 2,000-word
traditional format essay. I gavethem a choice of, I think, five
(05:13):
topics, one each from the lastfive weeks of term, essentially.
This was not such a greatexperience. Marking these was a
bit of a burden, I have to say.
And I think the students enjoyedit less. They seemed to engage
with it less, and the quality oftheir work was lower. You know,
this really translated to aseven point lower average score
on the essays compared with theEnvironmental Justice Analysis.
(05:34):
That's a lot. That was oneexperience I had teaching that
module.
And at the same time as I wasdoing that Cathy Elliott was
teaching portfolios for thefirst time on her new module,
'Politics of nature'. I wasreally interested in this
experiment, essentially, thatshe was running, and I would
have frequent conversations withher about that and became quite
(05:55):
interested and curious. And thenI think it was really when we
were marking our, in my case, myessays at the end and in her
case the portfolios that reallysealed the deal. When I was, you
know, trudging through theseessays, and I asked Cathy how it
was going marking herportfolios, she said, 'these
portfolios were a joy to mark.'That was the point at which I
(06:16):
thought, yep, I want what she'shaving. It was at that point
that I decided I was going toswitch to portfolios.
The one other thing I'll justmention as to how the portfolios
came about was that I designedthe portfolio - I mean, I drew a
lot on Cathy's own materials andher mentorship, really
throughout this. And I alsoworked with three of my
students. We did somethingcalled a ChangeMakers project,
(06:39):
which is basically a programmethat UCL runs where staff work
with students on an initiativeto improve some aspect of their
educational experience. In mycase, it was the assessment of
my module, and we basically ranus through a series of
workshops. I would give themthings to read and think about,
and then we would come togetherand work together on designing
the portfolio assessment task.
You know, the assessmentcriteria, the approach to
(07:01):
feedback, and so on, andcrucially, something we also did
was we developed a series ofprompts, like ideas, basically,
that students could use to gettheir imagination going for all
10 weeks of the module. Thesewere sort of the main things we
developed together in thisChangeMakers project. By the end
of that, I was ready to roll itout, and so I changed my
(07:21):
assessment for the autumn 2023session, and that was the first
time I used portfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:29):
That is absolutely fantastic that you
also involved your students intothe portfolio creation process
so that they had more of a stakein it and also could help make
the experience better for futurestudents that are taking the
course.
Fergus Green (07:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:46):
Fergus, could you figure out what the
difference was between the firstassessment that you had and the
second assessment that didn't goso well? Did you take some of
those elements then also intoyour portfolio work?
Fergus Green (07:58):
Yeah, that's right. What I took away from the
experience about what workedwell with the Environmental
Justice Analysis is that thestudents had quite a bit of
freedom to pursue the topicsthat they were interested in.
That, I think, is really theessence of the portfolio. That
was the first and most importantlesson. I think the second
lesson, and something that Iwould really emphasise, is that
the Environmental JusticeAnalysis, as I explained, was
(08:19):
quite a structured piece ofwork. It's a bit like jazz,
right? Freedom with constraints.
I took very seriously the needto have some constraints or at
least some scaffolding,particularly for students who
are perhaps a bit shyer aboutfully embracing the creativity
and the potential of portfolios.
I continued to teach theEnvironmental Justice Analysis
(08:40):
as a core framework for engagingwith each of the topics, and I
would encourage the students ifthey were a bit stuck in
thinking about their portfolioto do an Environmental Justice
Analysis or a part of one aspart of their final assessment.
Just to explain how it worked, Iwould set an expectation that
students would work, on average,on their portfolio, doing about
300 to 400 words a week, but Iwouldn't police that.
(09:02):
Ultimately, what they had tosubmit was 2,500 words of their
best work plus a response ofabout 500 words to a covering
questionnaire where I asked themabout their experience on the
module and make the case for thework that they were submitting.
They were given quite a lot offreedom, but again, I would
encourage students to submit asa default something of at least
(09:22):
1,000 words so that they had alittle bit more space that you
need a slightly longer format tofulfil some of the criteria. And
I also mentioned the sort ofdefault option of doing an
Environmental Justice Analysisfor at least part of the
assessment. A number of studentsdid that. They actually did an
Environmental Justice Analysis,but certainly not everyone. I
come back to that freedom, butwith some structures there,
(09:45):
particularly for those who needit.
Kristina Hoeppner (09:47):
I love the analogy that you gave us
a little bit like jazz' becauseyou're right thinking about that
music, there is a lot ofstructure, but then you also
have these wonderfulimprovisations included that
really bring it together and tomake it the piece that it then
turns out and every time it isvery different. Every single
performance is so different,
Fergus Green (10:08):
Exactly right?
I've always admired jazzmusicians. It's not my favourite
genre, I'm more of a classicalmusician myself, but I have some
friends who are jazz musicians.
I'm always in awe of thatability to bring something new
every time, yet you can't justdo anything, right? You've got
to work within theseconstraints, and so I'm always
really in awe of great jazzmusicians.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:28):
If we're staying with that analogy then,
you already told us a bit aboutwhat your students include in
their portfolio, that they areessentially writing something
every single week, but theycould also do a bigger piece
with the Environmental JusticeAnalysis, what are some other
components of the portfolio? Dothey also and here comes the
jazz analogy, play off eachother? Does somebody start and
(10:50):
then another person goes intothe portfolio and provides a
comment or feedback and then thestudents take that learning
further.
Fergus Green (10:57):
I very much encourage students to seek
feedback from each other, aswell as from me. There are a few
ways in which I do that. Ischeduled every three or four
weeks a portfolio check in whereI just give them a few minutes
at the start of a seminar inpairs or groups of three to just
talk with others about whatthey're doing in their
portfolio. I've had some of mystudents say to me that they
(11:18):
found that really interestingand useful and got ideas from
each other. That I think alsolowers the barriers to them
seeking slightly more formalfeedback, and we have a
mechanism for that where you cango into the other students'
portfolio if they givepermission and read that and
provide peer feedback. As anadditional incentive, and this
is another technique I learnedfrom Cathy, which is to
(11:39):
incentivise that by saying thatanyone who provides thoughtful
feedback to another student canthen seek an additional feedback
from me. Everyone's entitled toseek feedback once, but then
they can seek an additional oneif they also provide feedback to
others. It does encourage that,but each student ultimately
retains authority over who theygive access to over their
(12:00):
portfolios.
We did see at least one jointperformance last year, and this
was actually a podcast. So twoof my students decided that they
wanted to explore one of thethemes from the module through a
podcast and basicallyinterviewed each other and had a
discussion about the topic overa podcast, and then we
discussed, okay, well, then howdoes that count within the word
limits and things like that?
That was an interestingexperience and a good example of
(12:21):
where the students did reallybounce off one another.
Kristina Hoeppner (12:26):
What rule did you then find how to deal with
that multimedia content of thestudents? Because that was my
next (12:32):
if they are doing a lot of writing, what about the media
elements? Do they also putimages in or videos? And now
that you've mentioned thepodcast, how did you deal with
that? Is there something thatothers might also interested in
knowing how you've been able tobring that into the regular word
limit or find a good equivalentfor?
Fergus Green (12:51):
I guess there's two issues there. One is the
technical incorporation of themultimedia into the portfolio
program and then the second isthe word limit, departmental,
administrative constraints. Withregard to the first issue,
that's their problem, becausethe Mahara program that we use
allows for multimedia content,so students can upload sound
(13:12):
recordings, like the podcast,video recordings, as well as of
course images and of coursetext. So that really allows for
that multimedia usage andcreativity, and that's very
easy.
In terms of the word limit, I'mtrying to remember exactly what
we decided, but I thinkbasically the thought was it
wouldn't be fair to them,really, to count the number of
words in the podcast becauseobviously they're going to be
(13:33):
more words in a podcast. You'dexpress yourself more concisely
if you're writing an essay,right? I think what I got them
to do was to write anaccompanying reflective piece on
the podcast, and we counted theoverall package in a way that to
me seemed reasonable andproportionate to the amount of
work that they did. So there wasno rigid rule. We came to an
agreement on how many words thiswould count for.
Kristina Hoeppner (13:56):
Fantastic. So Fergus, now that you've used
portfolios for a whole academicyear and prior to that, have
seen them with Cathy, did youthen notice anything different
in your students' learning ortheir interaction or the
assessments overall?
Fergus Green (14:14):
The difference was marked. The difference between
particularly the essays in thestudents' engagement and the
quality of their work andultimately their grades was
really different from thetraditional format essay to the
portfolios. Really on all thosedimensions, it was quite a
different experience for themand for me marking them.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:33):
It's good to hear also that you're enjoying
that experience. Fergus, yourstudents pretty much write or
add to their portfolio on aweekly basis, but they don't
necessarily share all of thoseentries with other students.
Fergus Green (14:49):
That's right. They do have quite a lot of freedom,
and some of my students told me,you know, a couple told me that
they didn't really do much inthe portfolio for most of the
year, and they reflected on thatin their assessment. And one or
two said to me that they wouldprefer it if they were kind of
held to account a little bitmore regularly, as it were. So
I've been thinking about whetherI would do that, and I think,
the answer I've come up with isno, I won't [laughs] because the
(15:11):
whole point of portfolios is togive students that freedom. I
mean, I certainly wouldn'tconsider asking them to turn
something in every week or evenevery fortnight because then you
take away that freedom. Onething that could work is maybe
making the submission andfeedback of some formative work
compulsory by, say, week six orsomething like that. I think
some of those students who maybewere skiving off a little bit
(15:34):
would, perhaps, in hindsight,have benefited from that
discipline. You know, on theother hand, some students are
not ready to submit formativework in week five or six, but
they're working away on theirportfolios on a larger piece of
work. You know, ultimately, I'vedecided to leave it, but perhaps
try and encourage submission abit earlier for feedback and use
(15:54):
a sort of more of a nudgeapproach, rather than mandating
that intermediate check-in.
Kristina Hoeppner (15:59):
It's good to see that you're actually also
wanting to create those selfdirected learners.
Fergus Green (16:03):
That's right, and that's ultimately what it comes
down to. And most studentsembrace that. And you know,
might take them two or threeweeks to get going, but then
they get into the hang of it andreally value that. What I come
back to is that I'm reluctant tomess with that aspect, and I
think that's really important.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:19):
What are your plans for this academic year?
Because we are recording thissession right before you're
starting your term, and ofcourse, by the time the
interview goes live, you willhave already been teaching for,
I think, a little over a month?
Are you going to make anychanges, or are you pretty much
keeping everything as it is?
Fergus Green (16:38):
Yeah, pretty much keeping everything as it is. I
mean, there was no real reasonto change anything. I'm keeping
it the same.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:44):
Fergus, how many students are actually,
typically, in your class?
Fergus Green (16:48):
About 30 last year. I'm expecting the same
again this year.
Kristina Hoeppner (16:52):
That's also a good size number for them to
really get to know each other,engage with each other, and then
have that confidence that theyknow who is going to give them
feedback from their peer side.
Fergus Green (17:03):
That's right, yeah. So that ends up being a
lecture and then two seminars.
So two seminars, about 15students each, so it's a good
size.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:10):
Fergus, what would you like to be able to do
with portfolios that youcurrently can't?
Fergus Green (17:15):
I thought about this, and I don't think there is
really anything that I wouldwant to be able to do with a
bit, but I think probably it's abetter question for my students.
So it made me think that this isa question I should ask them.
You know, what do they wish thatthey could do with portfolios
that they can't? It's somethingthat I'll ask them this year.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:32):
That would be interesting to do your co-design
again now that you've done theportfolios for one year, invite
your students back in for theChangeMaker project that they
liked best about it or someaspects that they might want to
change.
Fergus Green (17:45):
The ChangeMakers project is quite a big
undertaking, but certainly, thespirit of that is something I
very much try to collect. So wehave ongoing surveys about early
in the term, mid term, and atthe end of the term where I
collect that information using aMenti survey. And obviously
informally, I'm very muchencouraging students to come to
office hours at least once inthe first half of term, and
(18:06):
ideally more. I'm getting thatfeedback from them informally as
well.
Kristina Hoeppner (18:10):
Yes, it does not always have to be a formal
project, just a chat in thehallway might be sufficient.
Fergus, is there anything elsethat you would like to mention
that we haven't covered off yet?
Fergus Green (18:22):
The only other thing I'll mention is how those
of us who use portfolios canhelp other staff who might be
curious or interested in usingportfolios. I mean, I very much
benefited from having Cathy'sexpertise and support when I
went down this path, and thenbetween the two of us, we
encouraged another group ofpeople, and this year, we're
(18:42):
really pleased that of whatwe're aware at least three of
our colleagues are going to beteaching ePortfolios using
Mahara for the first time. Sothat'll be five of us now in the
department and a number ofothers in our faculty as well,
the Faculty of Social andHistorical Sciences, and the
other departments are alsotaking out ePortfolios. I would
encourage lecturers who use itto think about how they can
(19:03):
support others to do it. And Ithink sort of two things there.
One is kind of highlighting thebenefits for the lecturers, so
coming back to what I was sayingearlier about just how much more
pleasurable it is to mark workthat the students have put a lot
of effort into and reallythought about. That's a much
better experience for them.
I think also just kind of makingit easy for them. So one of the
(19:23):
aspects of this ChangeMakersproject that I didn't mention is
that we also produced thematerials for the assessment for
my module, you know, theinstructions for the students,
the feedback, pro forma form,the marking criteria, the
questionnaire. But we also thenmake generic versions of those,
deleted some of the details, andI've read an additional memo for
(19:44):
staff. We put that on our staffSharePoint, and it's now become
part of a larger project calledthe assessment library, but
basically just reduces thestart-up costs for people who
want to adopt ePortfolios. We'vegiven them all those resources
and then people have adaptedthem, obviously, and then we've
got some technical support aswell to help people with an
induction kind of session andother kind of supportive
(20:06):
resources to start. So if youencourage them, get them
interested, and then lower thebarriers to them switching their
assessment mode, we've certainlyfound that that's been really
helpful in encouraging others totake up portfolios.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:18):
I think we can employ your analogy here as
well because with the resources,you're providing a structure,
you're providing ideas of whatcan be done. But then because
every course is different,everybody has the freedom to
then change it. But in general,you have the structure
available, and therefore, as yousay, nobody has to start from
scratch trying to figure it out,but benefit from the learning
(20:39):
that you and Cathy and nextyear, many others will have had.
Fergus Green (20:43):
Yeah, that's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:44):
That already, Fergus, takes us to our last
three questions. Are you readyfor them?
Fergus Green (20:49):
I'm ready.
Kristina Hoeppner (20:50):
Which words or short phrases actually as
well, if you like, do you use todescribe portfolio work?
Fergus Green (20:56):
So I'm going to slightly cheat on this one. I
asked my students...
Kristina Hoeppner (21:00):
Awesome.
Fergus Green (21:00):
... to do one of these word clouds. So I went
back and looked at their wordcloud that they did when I asked
them to describe their portfolioassessment, and the top three
words were creative, different,and flexible.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:14):
Fantastic.
You have the overlap with Cathyin 'flexible'. That was also one
of her words this year. What tipdo you now have for learning
designers or lecturers whocreate portfolio activities?
Fergus Green (21:31):
I come back to this combination of freedom and
scaffolding. So obviously theapproach inherently allows a lot
of freedom, but I think it'sreally important to have some of
that scaffolding. So that'sthings like the peer-to-peer
regular check-ins, options forpeer-to-peer feedback, feedback
from me, encouraging them tocome to office hours, the weekly
prompts for each topic, just toget their ideas flowing and then
have some default assignments,in my case, it was the
(21:52):
Environmental Justice Analysis.
I think this kind of scaffoldinghelps to bring out the
creativity, ultimately, that thestudents value.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:59):
Thank you.
Now, last question for you, whatadvice do you have for portfolio
authors, for your students?
Fergus Green (22:06):
Two pieces of advice
feedback from your peers and thelecturer. So I think that the
portfolio approach really allowsyou to the freedom to push
yourself, take a risk, pursuesomething that you wouldn't have
otherwise pursued or in a waythat you wouldn't have
otherwise, do it using a mediumthat you otherwise wouldn't have
used, but that you may becurious about. Just try it and
(22:27):
give it a go, and then use thefact that there are
opportunities for feedback tothen check-in with the lecturer.
All of the students who soughtfeedback from me did
significantly better on theirfinal submission in terms of
their grade than what theyinitially provided. I would just
encourage them to be bold andtake risks, but do seek that
(22:48):
feedback from the lecturer, andI think that's a really powerful
combination in terms of gettingthe most out of the experience
and getting a grade that they'resatisfied with.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:57):
It definitely sounds like one. And thank you
so much for sharing that finaltip with us. I really
appreciate, Fergus, that you'vetaken the time to chat with me
so that I could learn how yourinitial curiosity by seeing what
a lecturer next to you in thesame department does and how
much more they enjoy theirassessments, how that spark of
(23:19):
curiosity resulted in yourethinking your own assessments,
rethinking your own course, andbringing that flexibility and
also creativity in for yourstudents, at the same time also
supporting them in becominglearners that direct their own
work and that hopefully willcontinue in that vein, also in
other courses now that there'smore and more at UCL that are
(23:43):
going to work with portfolios.
Thank you for your time.
Fergus Green (23:47):
My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:50):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with AssociateProfessor Dr Fergus Green. Head
to our website,podcast.mahara.org, where you
can find resources and thetranscript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host.
(24:13):
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you'll listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then, create,
share, and engage.
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