September 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Jonathan Murphy, FCA, is Head of the Apprenticeship Department at Griffith College in Ireland and is passionate about portfolios for his degree apprentices but would also take it beyond his own department. In his interview, Jonathan outlines who students at Griffith College use portfolios, demonstrate and track their skills and competencies and how the portfolio helps bridge the apprenticeship with the academic rigour.
Click through to the episode notes for the transcript.
Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn
Resources
- Griffith College case study
- Universal Design for Learning
- Fundamentals of SmartEvidence
- More power to assess competencies with SmartEvidence version 2
- QQI: Quality and Qualifications Ireland
- NFQ: National Framework of Qualifications
Related episodes
- Derrin Kent: Portfolios in degree apprenticeships
- Kathleen Blake Yancey: Heuristics for meaningful portfolios
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.
Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
Mark as Played
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.
(00:28):
I'd like to welcome FellowChartered Accountant Jonathan
Murphy, who is Head of theApprenticeship Department at
Griffith College in Ireland.
It's good to catch up, Jonathan.
Jonathan Murphy (00:39):
Good morning.
Kristina. It's a greatopportunity to catch up and for
you to hear about how we'reusing the ePortfolio in Griffith
College.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:47):
A few weeks ago, we heard from Derrin Kent
at The Development Manager aboutdegree apprenticeships in the
UK. Now we have the chance tolearn more about them from the
perspective of Ireland, and inparticular, also in your case,
of course, the academic providerside of things. Before we do so
though, Jonathan, what does yourrole encompass at Griffith
(01:10):
College?
Jonathan Murphy (01:11):
I'm Head of the Apprenticeship Department, and
I'm responsible for managing theteams of subject matter experts
who develop new nationalapprenticeship programmes for
the College. So to date I havebeen responsible for the
successful management anddevelopment of a two-year
Advanced Healthcare AssistantPractitioner apprenticeship,
which is a NFQ level six highercertificate, and a three-year
(01:35):
Bar Manager apprenticeship,which is NFQ level seven, a
primary degree in barmanagement.
Kristina Hoepp (01:41):
Congratulations.
Jonathan.
Jonathan Murphy (01:43):
Thank you.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:44):
Those are quite different things, nursing
and also bar management. So it'sfantastic to see the breadth
that these degreeapprenticeships can go into.
Jonathan Murphy (01:54):
Yes, it's two different subject matters. So we
had different subject matterexpert teams developing the
actual content and the materialfor the programmes, but I was
overall, sort of the puppeteer,pulling the strings [laughs],
making sure everybody stayed online and putting in all the QA
and writing all the QQIdocuments to have the programmes
validated; also then designinghow it was going to be
(02:16):
delivered, what systems weneeded for the delivery of the
programmes.
The subject matter experts weregreat at writing the learning
outcomes and the indicativecontent, but they weren't great
then when it comes to all thelogistics and the other bits,
which is where I came in, and Imanaged all that of the
programmes and how that wasgoing to work, the number of
semesters a year and the numberof weeks and the number of days
they had to come into theclassroom, and then how we're
(02:38):
going to split the work betweenface-to-face, the learning
management system, and then wecome to it, the ePortfolio, how
that came into the picture.
On the bar management, we have100, and we have 50 on the
healthcare assistant one. Wehave particular problems here in
Ireland with the healthcareassistant one due to the sector
difficulties of being very shorton staff, which is a common
(03:01):
problem across Europe withhealthcare staff. There's a huge
shortage of both nurses andhealthcare assistants. That then
leads to difficulty recruitingnumbers for that programme. If
employers are short staffed,they find it then difficult to
let people off roster to attendthe programme, and also then
when you're looking for mentors,we want the mentors to be nurses
or social care workers, there'sa shortage of those. That makes
(03:23):
it then difficult for that.
Whereas with the bar manager,it's much easier. There's
mentors there. We developed amicro-credential for workplace
mentoring so we could train thepeople in the bars to be
mentors, to give them thosementorship skills because that
sector never had it before. Thatwas one of the things we
identified they would need helpwith. But there are mentors
available, and there's lots ofpeople who want to train up
(03:43):
because once they have thatthree-year bar manager
qualification, they can goanywhere in the world. They can
go to America, Canada, NewZealand, Australia because
they'll be very well qualifiedto run a bar; that includes all
the things like finance,marketing, HR, then obviously
all the bar parts, the food andbeverage, merchandising, event
management, all that kind ofthing. So they're really well
(04:05):
equipped to run the bar at theend of the three years. That was
the idea that we wanted peopleat the end to be able to run a
bar for somebody or be anefficient bar manager in an
organisation or be able to startout on their own.
There was all the area, too, ofintroducing the whole social
cultural changes going on inIreland, hooking into your
community and trying to workwith your community to get
(04:27):
events and get involved, lookingat how your community around you
is changing. You know, do youneed to introduce international
foods because you've got a biginternational community around
you? Because in Ireland, thingsare changing rapidly. People
need to be looking much broaderthan just their little business.
You're no longer staying busywith just pulling pints
[laughs]. Unless you're in avery tourist area, you might get
(04:48):
away with it, but generally youdon't. You generally have to
have the food, you have thecoffees, you have to have non
alcoholic drinks because, ofcourse, there's very strict
regime here about drinking anddriving, as it should be. So you
need to be looking at all thoseareas of how you can generate
business without alcohol,basically (laughs).
Kristina Hoeppner (05:04):
That's quite the range of skills that your
students are learning and alsolots of context and research
they can put into. We aredefinitely going to come back to
that because now that also makesso much more sense to me where
your interest, especially alsoin SmartEvidence comes in. But
Jonathan, how did you actuallyget interested in using
(05:25):
portfolios with your students?
Jonathan Murphy (05:27):
Ah, how did I get interested? Well, when I was
developing these apprenticeshipprogrammes, it's a joint
delivery between an employer andan academic provider, right? And
we're the academic provider asGriffith College, and then you
have the employers on the otherside, and you have the workplace
mentors. Apprenticeships are allabout trying to integrate the
experiential learning and thesocial learning that's available
in the workplace with anacademic programme and trying to
(05:50):
bring the two of those piecestogether. Obviously, your
employer is remote from you, andthe workplace mentor is not a
staff member of the college, andthey're remote from you. You
want the learner to actually dolearning in the workplace.
So we were designing theprogramme, so we said, 'Right,
how are we going to do this?' Weworked out all the learning
(06:10):
outcomes for every module, thenwe divided them between which
learning outcomes we wantedachieved and assessed in the
workplace and which was wewanted achieved and assessed
classroom based. That gave us astructure then. We said, 'Right,
we have all this work we needdone in the workplace. How are
we going to manage that? How arewe going to know that that's
been done? How are we going toask our learners to evidence
(06:32):
what's happened in this remoteworkplace, and how are we going
to integrate the workplacementors into the whole learning
process?' We also had thechallenge that Griffith College
systems are geared forregistered learners, and
workplace mentors are notregistered learners. So how do
you incorporate a non-registeredlearner into the system, and how
(06:53):
do you get to work?
So it was during the COVID erathat we were developing these
and certainly from thehealthcare point of view, you
couldn't have paper movingaround between locations because
of COVID and handling of it. Itherefore needed a paperless
methodology for evidencing thework in the workplace. That was
where I was coming from, and Ineeded a method for getting the
(07:14):
workplace mentors who were notregistered learners of the
College, so I needed to get theminvolved. I went and researched
and researched and researched. Icame across Moodle competencies.
I had a look at those. I decidedthat wasn't going to give me the
functionality I needed. I justkept looking and researching.
I deliver a level nine WorkplaceLearning Module, which is all
(07:34):
about learning organisations,work-based learning, and
work-integrated learning. I hadbeen doing a lot of research for
that as well because I wasdeveloping that module. I came
across ePortfolios. I looked atePortfolios, I read the
documents on it. Itwas reallyinteresting because the pedagogy
of portfolios is really good.
When I looked at it, it wasgiving me the functionality I
needed. It was giving me apaperless solution. It was going
(07:55):
to allow me to create astructured portfolio that I
could give to a learner and say,'Right, you need to do all these
things.' What we were able to dothen was we're able to do a
structured portfolio, and inthat portfolio there's a page
for each learning outcome, andon the page for that learning
outcome is a brief or an ask,and the ask is related to what
(08:16):
they're doing in theirworkplace.
So in the case of healthcare, itmight be 'Write a reflection on
how you dealt with a carerecipient with dementia' or it
might be 'Reflect on a situationwhere you changed a wound
dressing,' all to do with whatthey're doing, but it's related
to the learning outcome. We gavethem choices. That'd be UDL,
that we'd have a choice of threethings they could choose for
(08:37):
each learning outcome that theycould do. Because I was able to
have two different logins. I wasable to have the login from
Moodle for all our students, butI was also able to have an
external login for the mentors,which meant that I could get the
mentors onto the system withoutaffecting the college systems,
which also was really important.
The learners could share theirportfolio with their mentor and
their module leaders - moduleleaders are lecturers - share
(08:59):
their portfolios with them. Iworked out that you could then
use the annotation blocks to getthe feedback system going, and
that both the module leader andthe workplace manager could
leave the feedback with thelearner, which would mean then
the learner would get timelyfeedback if the learner kept
pace and kept doing the learningoutcomes as they were supposed
to. So it was giving me that andthen it also gave me the
(09:21):
submission groups.
If a portfolio is complete, howcan we be sure that's not
changed between the time thelecturer goes to mark it and we
didn't want it changing? So itgave me that functionality as
well that I could get all theportfolios submitted to
submission groups, and they'relocked up, and then they can't
be changed. So now the moduleleader can go in and mark it
with the confidence the thingisn't going to change, and then
(09:41):
you can release it back to them.
Then they can have that evidencethat I thought was really nice
for the learner, that they wouldend up at the end of the
programme with, in the case ofhealthcare, 14 portfolios, which
shows clearly their skill setand their competency and their
abilities.
If they wanted to show that to aprospective employer or to
somebody that it would be veryclear as to how good or bad they
(10:02):
were by showing those. That'swhat we said to all the
learners. I said to them, 'Youreally need to put a lot of
effort in here because this isyour showcase. This is you
demonstrating what you can do.'In the case of healthcare, we're
able to have clinical skillsthat were signed off by their
mentor. So then if somebody wasdisputing whether they were
competent to do a skill, theycould just go to the portfolio
and say, 'Look, there you go.
There's the skill, there's thefeedback I got from my mentor,
(10:23):
and my mentor signed it off, andmy mentor was a nurse, and
there's her PIN number.'It ticked so many boxes that we,
with the apprenticeshipprogrammes, could then manage
the workplace learning. We coulddictate as to what we wanted to
be done in the workplace, andthen the learners can put their
evidence up. They can receivetheir feedback in there, and
then it can be assessed fromthere. It really covered an
(10:44):
awful lot of other bases. It wasa journey.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:48):
It definitely sounds like it, and yes, it
covers lots of bases. So let'smaybe recap a few of those
because we have three differentstakeholders in there. We've got
the students, the apprentices,who are also studying for the
degree. We have you and yourteam from the academic side and
also from the organisation side.
And then we also have theapprenticeship organisations
(11:08):
that are providing the mentors.
Your students create a portfoliofor their apprenticeship, which
they share with the mentor andalso with you, and there they
collect their evidence andreflections over the work that
they are doing in order to gainskills and then have those
(11:32):
skills signed off.
Jonathan Murphy (11:33):
They don't create the portfolio. We create
the portfolio. Students populatethe portfolio. Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:38):
You're working with a template...
Jonathan Murphy (11:40):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:40):
... so that they already get the structure
of the portfolio with all theinstructions in there of what
they are expected to do.
Jonathan Murphy (11:47):
Correct. Yeah, on each page we use the
instructions, and in thoseinstructions, which are locked
and they can't change them, isthe ask or the brief. Then
they're given a block in whichto put their answer. Their
answer can be in the form ofmany different types of form. It
can be a link to a video, it canbe a Word document, it could be
PDF, it could be an image. Itcan be whatever they want to put
in as their response to the ask.
We have one of those for eachmodule on the programme.
(12:09):
Generally have to do two ofthose per semester.
One of the things we found aswell was, they were all leaving
it to the very end to do them,and that's a huge workload for
the mentor at the end. So wethen created timetables, and we
mapped those into how thelecture or the module leader was
delivering the programme. Ifthey delivered X, Y, and Z in
(12:31):
the first two weeks, well thenthe ePortfolio ask would come in
on the third week. They wouldthen be doing the thing based on
knowledge or theory that theywould have got in the previous
couple of weeks. Then we createdthe timetable of when those must
be completed, and we havesomebody who's tracking those
all the time, trying to keepeverybody going. If a mentor
just has to review one or two,they can do it during a coffee
(12:52):
break, five minutes, go in, sitdown, maybe with the apprentice,
talk through it, and give thefeedback and sign it off. But if
you leave it all at the end, youcould end up with, you know,
half a dozen things to look at.
That can be very time consuming.
We're trying to get across themessage to the apprentices that,
'Look you need to be respectfulof your mentor because they're
giving their time free to you tohelp you develop. So you need to
respect that and keep tickingthis along and every week, maybe
(13:15):
spending five minutes with them,you know, going through and
reviewing the work.'
Kristina Hoeppner (13:19):
So how does that scaffolding work for your
students? Have you seen animprovement then in them also
creating the evidence and theirreflections in a timely manner
so that it's not all left to thevery last second?
Jonathan Murphy (13:32):
What we found is that over the programme, it
improves vastly. Our externalexaminer has said it's amazing
the difference in people at thebeginning and the end, both in
the skills and their academicskills, their academic writing,
their referencing, we teach themall of that as well. But in the
beginning, I have to say it is aMount Everest for them to climb
(13:53):
because most of our students arenot IT savvy. They struggle with
the technology. We have to dorepeated trainings with them to
get them to the point where theycan get in and then go into the
block and add their evidence,put the annotation blocks on the
page in the correct place andthat kind of thing. It's not
simple and straightforward fromthat point of view. It needs a
(14:14):
lot of training. And the samefor the workplace mentors, they
need training. And the same forour lecturers, they need the
training as well.
As I said to you, at thebeginning, we didn't have
timetables for the completion ofthose learning outcomes, but we
learned after the first twogroups went through, we learned
[laughs] our lesson the hardway. Basically, I do up a
timetable for each semester asto when those learning outcomes
needs to be completed over the14-week period. The lecturers
(14:37):
are used to delivering anacademic programme in a
traditional way, but to get themto realise that actually the
ePortfolio is an integral partof their delivery, they need to
be looking in at it all thetime, they need to be leaving
comments. What we do is we usethe annotation block for the
workplace mentor feedback, andwe use the comment box for the
module leader feedback, so weknow who's given the feedback,
and we don't have to go trawlingthrough to see who's given the
(14:59):
feedback. We know who's givingthe feedback.
We're trying to get the moduleleaders to go in and give
feedback into the ePortfoliosand for them to bring things
that are in the ePortfolio intothe classroom and discuss them.
Get people to say, 'Oh, I was inlooking at your ePortfolio, and
that was a really good piece youdid on such and such. Do you
mind if we share that with thegroup?' Most people will say,
'Yes.' So then you can get themto put it up on the screen. You
(15:22):
can create a discussion aroundthat. That gives a whole shared
learning part as well. It'sgetting the minds of the module
leaders to change that actually,no, this is not something over
there. This is something I needto bring in and use it as part
of my delivery. I keep onreferring back and forth because
that was the whole idea it wasthe two would come together as a
whole. That way you give themthe theory, they go and practice
(15:44):
it, they get the experientiallearning in the workplace, they
put their evidence up there, andthen it comes back into the
classroom, and they get theshared learning. That was my
thinking of how the cycle shouldwork.
It's hard when people are in amindset, 'Oh, I come in and I
deliver my day's lecture and Igo home.' No, no, no, no. That's
not the way this works [laughs].
You gotta do a lot more. You gotto be going in and looking at
the portfolios, and theportfolios will tell you how
(16:05):
somebody's getting on. If you goin and look at the standard of
what people are putting up inthe portfolios, you very quickly
get a view of how somebody isdoing. If you see that
somebody's struggling whenyou're delivering your lectures,
you need to work with them, oryou need to take them aside and
give them a little bit of extraattention to help them or find
out they got a learningdifficulty and get them into
learning support.
(16:26):
The portfolios are actually avery good way of seeing how a
person's doing. Also, if youlook at the progression, that's
what the external examiner said,'I look at the progression of
people over time,' that standardof what they're putting up on
the portfolio. And she said,'It's amazing how you can
actually see they come in in thebeginning, it's quite weak, not
great, but by the end, it'svastly improved.'
(16:47):
Also, what we found is that anengaged workplace mentor who's
giving good feedback is worththe weight in gold. The
experience that somebody willhave of the programme is much,
much better. Whereas ifsomebody's just saying, 'Oh
yeah, that meets the learningoutcome,' they're not really
giving good feedback. They'renot really engaging. The
experience of that learner,unfortunately, is less. That's a
(17:07):
challenge for us to see how wecan try and improve that. The
mentors are very difficult toget hold of because there tend
to be the nurses in theorganisation. There's always a
crisis or something they have toattend to. Even organising extra
sessions for the mentors, youfind only a couple of them come.
You really see the difference inthe learner. Learner is really
switched on. They're engaged.
Even in their evaluations, theyare much happier with the
(17:29):
programme than other people whoare not. Those are the kind of
little things. The great thingis that the ePortfolio is
bringing all this up to the forethat you can see it. It's all
laid out there in front of you,which is good.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:40):
You mentioned that your external assessor told
you that they can see theprogression of the students.
Have you also checked in withyour students whether they can
see their own progression whenthey look back at the early
portfolios that they have doneversus the ones done much later?
Jonathan Murphy (17:56):
Basically, what we've done is we've checked back
with them about the programme intotal, rather than specifically
the portfolios, and they allhave said they have really grown
and developed. We had torevalidate the programme last
year, and the comments that cameback were, 'The programme's
given me a voice. I'm heard inthe workplace. I am respected in
the workplace now.' That, to me,was amazing. They said that to
(18:18):
the panel. We weren't present atthose. They were saying, you
know, 'We've really got a lotout.' There's a good number of
people who are going to now goon and do further studies in
either nursing or social care.
So obviously, we made animpression. We made a difference
for them. Certainly, when youtalk to them, you can see how
animated they are, how switchedon they are. It's amazing. If
you're just doing informaltalking to them, it's
(18:38):
incredible. And a lot of themhave got new jobs and done well.
But for the external examiner,who's looking at it, you know,
with a fresh pair of eyes and issaying to you, 'Yes, there's a
big difference in the people inthe beginning and the end,' I
think that's really thevalidation for me that we're
actually getting it right.
We do a lot of work, too. We getthe library to come in because
(18:59):
we have an online library, andthey show them how to search the
library, and they also then givethem the academic writing
skills, the referencing skills,the details about plagiarism and
all of that. That works reallywell. So we try and do that in
year one, year two, and yearthree [laughs]. Do sessions on
that to just build those skillsas well.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:15):
That's wonderfully all encompassing.
When we talked earlier,Jonathan, and you had already
alluded to some of thefunctionalities that you're
using in Mahara, like theannotations and the comments.
For those that are not familiarwith them, the annotations
belong to the SmartEvidencefunctionality of how we can
track competencies within aportfolio and also map portfolio
(19:38):
content that is on the page to aparticular competency. That was
also one functionality that weenhanced for you so that you can
actually set up all of thesetemplates without an additional
step for the students. How welldoes the portfolio based on
those competencies work for youand also for the students and
(19:59):
the mentors? Does it help themto know exactly what
competencies the students havealready gained and which ones
are still outstanding? Or isthere anything missing that
would be good to have in thatcontext?
Jonathan Murphy (20:13):
I don't think there's anything missing. The
way we do it is we give theworkplace mentors the full
programme and all the handbooks,and the handbooks have all the
learning outcomes, all theIndicative content, the
assessments and the markingrubrics. They get all of that.
In the beginning, when wedesigned the programmes, we
split the learning outcomesbetween the workplace and the
ones that need to be achievedthrough the classroom learning.
(20:35):
Then in SmartEvidence, we createa SmartEvidence piece for each
module, and we put thoselearning outcomes into that
structure, the ones that are inthe workplace. So that gives us
the structure of the learningoutcomes for a module that we
want to be achieved in theworkplace.
We create a group, and we thenput all the people that are in a
cohort into that group. We thencreate the portfolio in that
(20:57):
group and attach it to thatSmartEvidence grid. We make a
page for each learning outcome,and on that page we put in the
instructions, we put in a blockfor them to put in their
evidence, and we might put inimage blocks, or we might put in
other types of blocks, dependingon how we want them to respond.
And that all goes into acollection. So now you have the
collection which is attached tothe SmartEvidence, and you have
(21:18):
the grid then comes up on thecollection as the first page,
you've got the links to eachindividual learning outcome
page, and on that page is thewhat they're asked to do.
From that group, that collectiongets pushed to all the learners
that are members of that group.
That's how we get the structuredportfolio template out to each
learner. We build it in thegroup, push it to all the
members of the group, they thenget their own instance of that.
(21:38):
They then have to share thatwith the stakeholders, which is
the module leader, theirworkplace mentor. We have a
thing called Academic SuccessCoach as well. It's a role,
really, that's a bridge betweenthe workplace and the classroom,
and they're chasing to make surethey complete these learning
outcomes. They deal with anydifficulties between the mentor,
the employer, and the apprenticethat might occur, and then the
(21:59):
admin staff, they tend to sharethe portfolio with as well.
Once they put their evidenceonto the page, they go back to
the grid and click on the greydot and put in the annotation
block. In that we just ask themto simply say, 'I have uploaded
my evidence, which I believemeets the learning outcome.' And
they then need to go and talk totheir mentor and say, 'I put my
(22:20):
evidence up for this learningoutcome.' The mentor will be
aware of that because they willhave seen all the portfolios as
well. The mentor then look atthe portfolio, they then leave
their feedback, and then decide,does it need more work or is it
okay? We're only asking them tosay, 'Is it okay in their
opinion,' we're not asking tograde it or mark it or do
anything. We're just asking tosay, 'In your opinion, does that
(22:41):
meet the learning outcome? If itdoesn't, then you need to give
them the feedback and ask themto do more work.'
This is where a really engagedmentor comes in because a really
engaged mentor will tend to askfor more work to be done
[laughs] because they're helpingthe person grow and develop, and
they're pointing them in theright direction. They can do
that as the iteration, as manytimes they like, before they
sign it off. When the wholething is signed off, we have all
the green ticks on the grid, itthen gets pushed through to a
(23:03):
submission group and locked upuntil the module leader goes in
and marks it.
It's a very good system becausefor the purpose of
apprenticeships, we don't wantfreelancing portfolios. You can
use that for something else andit has an application. But for
the apprenticeships, we want tohave a structured portfolio with
a defined set of learningoutcomes that we want them to
(23:24):
put evidence up for. They canput that evidence up whichever
way they want. If somebody's gotdyslexia and they struggle to
get things down on paper, wesay, 'Well, just speak it, put
it in an oral recording up ofyour answer or your response.'
We're quite happy with that.
We're not fixed then on how theperson responds to the ask, but
they must respond to the ask.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:43):
It does help take away some of the load from
the students, too, in your case,where you do want to have a very
structured response and alsoneed certain elements to be
present in the portfolio, togive them that template on hand
in order to make that first stepto enter the portfolio data
easier.
Jonathan Murphy (24:00):
Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:01):
The portfolios seem to be working
also for degree apprenticeshipsin Ireland, not just in the UK.
Jonathan Murphy (24:07):
Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:08):
Could you also already persuade some other
departments at Griffith to startusing portfolios?
Jonathan Murphy (24:15):
We have one other department, which is a
pharmaceutical course. It's amaster's programme. What they
were doing was they've about 200students, and they're breaking
them down into groups of three,and then each semester, they
were giving the group a projectto research and work on. They
have to present that to thewhole group at the end of the
semester, right? So they weredoing this all manually and what
have you. When they heard metalking about ePortfolios
(24:38):
[laughs] and groups andcommunities of practice and all
these things that you can do,wonderful things that are in
this box, and we have it here inGriffith, they said, 'Yeah, this
is a really good idea.'What they've done now is they
set up all their groups inMahara, and then they allow them
to work away, and it'sfreelanced, so there's no
format, but they know what theproject is. But the portfolio
they can do what they like,right? So they can do images,
(24:58):
videos, whatever. That's what Iwould call a freelance
portfolio. They then do theirpiece. Every other group has to
be able to see their piece atthe end. Great thing is in
Mahara, what can you do? Youjust go share, share, share, and
all the things can be shared sotheir peers can leave feedback
on the project, and then theproject gets presented to the
whole group, which meanseverybody's getting this massive
(25:19):
amount of shared learning.
Because you think about it,there's X number of groups, and
they're all doing working on adifferent project, and they're
all coming back and presentingit, you're now getting a huge
learning. You're getting allthat peer interaction within the
group and the peer interactionwith the wider group going on.
One thing they didn't tell methey wanted to do, and they're
doing is, they want to score thepresentations at the end, and
(25:41):
then whoever gets the highestscore gets a prize. So they're
doing that at the moment throughMoodle, but it's something that
is worth thinking about. What Iliked is that the way they're
using the groups in Mahara andthey're really expanding it out.
I'd love to - though resourcesare an issue - but I would love
to expand the use of Mahara inGriffith College to include
structured induction programmesfor different groups of staff,
(26:02):
for faculty administrators, forprogramme directors, for heads
of departments, whereby you putin the standards, you put in all
the training they need to coveror somebody new coming into the
organisation, and you then getthem to put their evidence that
they've actually done that andachieved that into a portfolio.
It would then allow you toensure that people cover all the
things they need to cover ontheir induction programme.
(26:23):
That's another area I'd like toget into.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:26):
The induction is a really, really nice idea
because that also gets themusing some of the tools they
will have. You can make it a funactivity for them and also get
to know them a little bit betterby how they are talking about
themselves, how they are talkingabout their role, with
reflecting on what they havelearned, how they can bring in
themselves.
Jonathan Murphy (26:46):
Yes, and also, too, is if you have those
occupational profiles defined inthe standards, if you have
somebody who is, say, a facultyadministrator and wants to
aspire to become a programmedirector, what you can just say,
'Right, there's the portfoliofor programme director. Those
are the skills you need to nowget. You have X, Y, and Z.
You're missing these ones, A, B,C, so you go off and get A, B,
(27:08):
C, and then we can talk aboutyou getting a role as programme
director.' And the same if yougot a programme director who
wants to become a faculty head,you can do exactly the same,
'Here's the faculty headoccupational profile, and you've
got X. You need to get the otherbits.'
In my workplace learning moduleI teach, that's what I'm saying
to people, in an L&D department,if you want to really become a
learning organisation, youshould be creating occupational
(27:29):
profiles for every role. Andthen you could use the
ePortfolio to manage peopleachieving those and people
evidencing it. So that when theygo to HR, they can say, 'Look,
here's my portfolio. My managerhas signed off on all my bits
and pieces, and I've got allthese skills now, so I'm now
ready for that role. So pleaseconsider me for the next job.'
You could then create within anorganisation really good
(27:50):
succession planning. You couldcreate evidence of what people
can do and not do within theirportfolios, and HR be able to
look in on those. I think thatfor that, it'd be really good.
The other thing, too, was we'renow under pressure from QQI to
ensure that all lecturers do CPDtraining. That's another area I
wanted to look at in Griffithwas actually creating a
(28:10):
portfolio for every lecturerwhere they could record all
their CPD training.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:14):
That's now pretty easy because we do have
the CPD functionality directlyin Mahara where they can start
recording all the hours.
Jonathan Murphy (28:22):
Yes, so it's a matter now getting that up and
running though, and just workingout the logistics now to fit
into the organisation. That'svery much on my radar. The thing
too is if we could get themusing portfolios, then it would
make it easier for them to startunderstanding the benefits of
ePortfolios for their academicprogrammes and how they could
actually use them better intheir academic programmes. That
(28:42):
was also part of my thoughtprocess if your getting them
using the system, I think wouldbe very good. I think a lot of
people are afraid ofePortfolios. They don't really
understand what they can do andthe benefits of them. You can
tell them till the cows comehome, but until they actually
get in there and do some work onit and suddenly realise, 'Oh,
wow, this is really good. I canhave my journal there. I could
do this. I can keep a record.'One of the things I was saying
(29:03):
to the guys in the bar I said,'You know, when you're on
holidays and you see a nice bar,take a photograph, put it up on
a portfolio page of your own sothat you have it there when
you're doing your final project.
You know, you've got bardesigns, you've got cocktail
menus, you've got food menus.
Just take photographs on yourphone, put them up on pages,
stack it up there so you haveall your info, and you can store
it all in there.'The other thing then, which I
haven't been successful in, iscreating a community of
(29:25):
practice. I'd love to be able tocreate a community practice
amongst the mentors. I dobelieve that the ePortfolio can
accommodate that. So that'sanother goal [laughs] I'm trying
to work on.
When you think about all ofthat, the ePortfolio really is
an incredible piece of softwareand a package that meets so many
needs. It is an investment.
There's no doubt about it.
(29:46):
There's investment in time andresources and money and
everything. But I firmlybelieve, going forward with much
more virtual learning to begoing on, an ePortfolio would be
a great way of recordingpeople's achievements that
they're doing through virtuallearning, get them to put stuff
up on an ePortfolio. Noweverybody can see the work
they're doing. So you knowsomebody progressing, even
(30:07):
though you don't necessarilyhave face-to-face contact with
them on a regular basis, but ifthe portfolio is going up and
subject matter experts arereviewing it, it's a really good
additional tool to support thattechnology learning.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:18):
Also what you said earlier, Jonathan, about
encouraging your lecturers tocreate their portfolio so they
have a better understanding ofhow they might want to use it in
their academic programmes, Ithink also goes back to your
ideas of experiential learningand also social constructivist
learning and incorporatingUniversal Design for Learning
(30:39):
principles in order to make thepractice of using portfolios not
this foreign thing that sits tothe side, but that can be fully
integrated because the lecturersunderstand what is involved, how
they should be asking thequestions of their learners, in
order to not just get summariesof the learning evidence, but
also those true reflections andhelping them make connections,
(31:02):
helping them tell the stories oftheir learners, and therefore
then see how they can alsoprogress.
Jonathan Murphy (31:07):
Absolutely.
There's a lot of pressure comingon now for colleges to make sure
that the programmes they'redelivering are actually related
to roles in industry and in theworkplace, and not have these
programmes that are designed foracademics to deliver, but
they're actually targeted at aparticular sector. In order to
do that, you really need yourgraduate to have, they're now
(31:28):
called graduate attributes. Andthe only way you're going to
have that, I believe, is thatyou take on board
work-integrated learning, andyou work with that sector and
employers in the sector and getthem to input to the programme,
and you design a work-integratedpiece as part of their
programme. You either do it overconsistent period of time, where
you do it over a six-month blockor something on the programme,
(31:49):
or you arrange employers thatthe guys can work in the summer
in the organisations, but youthen give them structured
portfolios of standards that you
want (31:59):
Communications, their team working, their interpersonal
relations, all of those skillsthey need for the workplace.
Yes, they get all the academicknowledge and the subject
knowledge, but it's no good ifthey can't interact with other
people, they can't operatewithin a workplace, they can't
compromise, they haven't gotempathy with others. They need
to build all of that. So a goodwork-integrated learning for a
(32:19):
sector can combine all of thoseskills and you could put all of
those into a portfolio and makethat part of your programme that
they need to complete portfolioas well as complete the
programme. Now you've got aperfect marriage, I would have
said made in heaven [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (32:35):
Yeah. That's where the degree apprenticeships
are so nice because they docombine that academic rigour and
the researching and knowledgeacquisition with that very
practical work-integratedlearning in order to also know
well, how can I or how should Iapply what I have learned in
theory and really learn thatearly on so that they can
(32:57):
develop those skills andcompetencies in order to succeed
in their chosen profession thenlater on.
Jonathan Murphy (33:02):
Yes, and it also helps them, I believe, join
up the learning. So, you know,you teach them communications,
but communications comes intoeverything. They want to use
communications when they go todo a clinical skill. So you're
building that in there. You'reasking them when they're doing
the clinical skill, to also dothe communication space, and
that's part of that. Then yougot the understanding the
understanding of the body, whichis your anatomy and physiology.
(33:23):
You're getting them to bringthat into the clinical skill
they're doing, and they'rethinking about the skin, they're
thinking about skin integrity,they are thinking about all
these. By using the portfolioand cleverly making sure that
you're drawing all the learningin together. So every time they
do something, they have to bebringing in the content of maybe
three or four modules. Itdoesn't mean you just do a
module and that's it, you forgetabout it. You're actually
(33:44):
constantly using the knowledgefrom that throughout the
programme, and you're building,building, building as you go
through, and the portfolioallows you to do that, which is
brilliant.
Having that work-integrated bit,make sure that that does happen.
When you ask them to doreflection, you're expecting
them to reflect on theircommunication skills, their
personality skills when theywere doing it, and their actual
skill of doing the skill. It'sreally good from that point of
(34:06):
view.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:07):
It's very holistic learning that is
contextualised, telling thestories, and also allows for
that transfer of knowledge fromone area into another, so that
we are not compartmentalising somuch.
Jonathan Murphy (34:19):
Yes. The challenge for us now is - now
we've got that under our belt -is to work out what I would call
integrated assessments. We'veblocked it out module by module,
but actually we now realise thatSmartEvidence and everything can
work differently. So we couldmaybe give them a case study and
the case study in a semestercould cover both modules in that
(34:40):
semester, and it would be betterbecause it might be, you know,
in the case of looking aftersomebody, might encompass a load
of things, but it wouldn't bemeeting a load of different
standards in there, which youcan have set up. That's our next
challenge, because we believethat would be a better way to go
than we're doing at the minute.
Get them to write up the decentcase which covers a good number
of standards.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:59):
You now pretty much need your holiday
break to re-energise and then beable to tackle all of those
projects in the next academicyear to make progress on them
and see what you could report onnext year to us.
Jonathan Murphy (35:13):
Absolutely. I mean, there's never a dull
moment [laughs]. There's alwayssomething to be doing. I found
it an exciting challenge. Ireally enjoyed working on this
particular project and workingon Mahara and the ePortfolio.
I'd be the college champion.
It's really, really interesting.
And what you can continue tokeep adding to it and improving
how you use it, as I say, allthe other alternative uses that
(35:35):
the college could benefit from,I think, is really important.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:39):
Jonathan, you've given us so much to think
about and had so many ideasalso, where portfolios can be
used differently at the collegelevel, at the university and
higher education level ingeneral. So I'd like to ask you
three last questions if you arestill up for them.
Jonathan Murphy (35:56):
Yeah. Go for it [laughs]
Kristina Hoeppner (35:58):
Yeah? What words or short phrases do you
use to describe portfolio work?
Jonathan Murphy (36:03):
I would have said creating reflective
learners, creating yourcommunity of practice, and
showcasing your skill set.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:09):
Awesome. I can see those.
Jonathan Murphy (36:11):
Yeah [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (36:12):
In all what you have said today, those are
very present there. Thank youfor them. You've already given
us a lot of ideas, but do youhave one tip for learning
designers or other educators whocreate portfolio activities that
you'd like to share as one ofyour final tips for them?
Jonathan Murphy (36:30):
I think that one would be design activities
for learners that are directlyrelated to the standard or
learning outcome that you desireto have them, and that these
activities must be related towhat the learners are doing in
the workplace because that way,you'll get engagement from the
learner because they're nothaving to do something
particularly new. They're doingit in the workplace. They're
(36:51):
recording or evidencing thatactivity in the workplace.
People then will do it.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:56):
Now on the other side, what tip do you have
for your learners, students, andapprentices?
Jonathan Murphy (37:03):
What I would say to all our learners is put
the effort in, develop yourePortfolio to showcase and
evidence what you can do becauseI really think that's absolutely
key, and then work closely withyour workplace mentor. Take
control of your own learning isthe other one we keep pushing.
You need to take control of yourown learning. Actively seek
feedback from all thestakeholders who you're sharing
(37:24):
your portfolio with, and that'llhelp you grow and develop your
skill set and then developyourself as a reflective
practitioner and learner becausethat will then allow you to
carry your learning on waybeyond the end of the programme,
and you become a lifelonglearner. If you keep on using
reflection, you can keep onlearning. It's an easy way of
continuing your learning.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:45):
That's a very nice summary tip. So thank you
so much, Jonathan, for sharingall your thinking - well, not
even all your thinking, just asmall part of your thinking and
enthusiasm for portfolios,helping your students
participate in activities, beengaged in their learning,
reflect on it, and then alsobecome professionals that have
(38:06):
learned how to reflect, how tobe reflective practitioners, and
then can succeed in theircareers. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Murphy (38:13):
No problem at all [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (38:15):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with JonathanMurphy. Head to our website
podcast.mahara.org where you canfind resources and the
transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
(38:36):
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.
(00:28):
I'd like to welcome FellowChartered Accountant Jonathan
Murphy, who is Head of theApprenticeship Department at
Griffith College in Ireland.
It's good to catch up, Jonathan.
Jonathan Murphy (00:39):
Good morning.
Kristina. It's a greatopportunity to catch up and for
you to hear about how we'reusing the ePortfolio in Griffith
College.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:47):
A few weeks ago, we heard from Derrin Kent
at The Development Manager aboutdegree apprenticeships in the
UK. Now we have the chance tolearn more about them from the
perspective of Ireland, and inparticular, also in your case,
of course, the academic providerside of things. Before we do so
though, Jonathan, what does yourrole encompass at Griffith
(01:10):
College?
Jonathan Murphy (01:11):
I'm Head of the Apprenticeship Department, and
I'm responsible for managing theteams of subject matter experts
who develop new nationalapprenticeship programmes for
the College. So to date I havebeen responsible for the
successful management anddevelopment of a two-year
Advanced Healthcare AssistantPractitioner apprenticeship,
which is a NFQ level six highercertificate, and a three-year
(01:35):
Bar Manager apprenticeship,which is NFQ level seven, a
primary degree in barmanagement.
Kristina Hoepp (01:41):
Congratulations.
Jonathan.
Jonathan Murphy (01:43):
Thank you.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:44):
Those are quite different things, nursing
and also bar management. So it'sfantastic to see the breadth
that these degreeapprenticeships can go into.
Jonathan Murphy (01:54):
Yes, it's two different subject matters. So we
had different subject matterexpert teams developing the
actual content and the materialfor the programmes, but I was
overall, sort of the puppeteer,pulling the strings [laughs],
making sure everybody stayed online and putting in all the QA
and writing all the QQIdocuments to have the programmes
validated; also then designinghow it was going to be
(02:16):
delivered, what systems weneeded for the delivery of the
programmes.
The subject matter experts weregreat at writing the learning
outcomes and the indicativecontent, but they weren't great
then when it comes to all thelogistics and the other bits,
which is where I came in, and Imanaged all that of the
programmes and how that wasgoing to work, the number of
semesters a year and the numberof weeks and the number of days
they had to come into theclassroom, and then how we're
(02:38):
going to split the work betweenface-to-face, the learning
management system, and then wecome to it, the ePortfolio, how
that came into the picture.
On the bar management, we have100, and we have 50 on the
healthcare assistant one. Wehave particular problems here in
Ireland with the healthcareassistant one due to the sector
difficulties of being very shorton staff, which is a common
(03:01):
problem across Europe withhealthcare staff. There's a huge
shortage of both nurses andhealthcare assistants. That then
leads to difficulty recruitingnumbers for that programme. If
employers are short staffed,they find it then difficult to
let people off roster to attendthe programme, and also then
when you're looking for mentors,we want the mentors to be nurses
or social care workers, there'sa shortage of those. That makes
(03:23):
it then difficult for that.
Whereas with the bar manager,it's much easier. There's
mentors there. We developed amicro-credential for workplace
mentoring so we could train thepeople in the bars to be
mentors, to give them thosementorship skills because that
sector never had it before. Thatwas one of the things we
identified they would need helpwith. But there are mentors
available, and there's lots ofpeople who want to train up
(03:43):
because once they have thatthree-year bar manager
qualification, they can goanywhere in the world. They can
go to America, Canada, NewZealand, Australia because
they'll be very well qualifiedto run a bar; that includes all
the things like finance,marketing, HR, then obviously
all the bar parts, the food andbeverage, merchandising, event
management, all that kind ofthing. So they're really well
(04:05):
equipped to run the bar at theend of the three years. That was
the idea that we wanted peopleat the end to be able to run a
bar for somebody or be anefficient bar manager in an
organisation or be able to startout on their own.
There was all the area, too, ofintroducing the whole social
cultural changes going on inIreland, hooking into your
community and trying to workwith your community to get
(04:27):
events and get involved, lookingat how your community around you
is changing. You know, do youneed to introduce international
foods because you've got a biginternational community around
you? Because in Ireland, thingsare changing rapidly. People
need to be looking much broaderthan just their little business.
You're no longer staying busywith just pulling pints
[laughs]. Unless you're in avery tourist area, you might get
(04:48):
away with it, but generally youdon't. You generally have to
have the food, you have thecoffees, you have to have non
alcoholic drinks because, ofcourse, there's very strict
regime here about drinking anddriving, as it should be. So you
need to be looking at all thoseareas of how you can generate
business without alcohol,basically (laughs).
Kristina Hoeppner (05:04):
That's quite the range of skills that your
students are learning and alsolots of context and research
they can put into. We aredefinitely going to come back to
that because now that also makesso much more sense to me where
your interest, especially alsoin SmartEvidence comes in. But
Jonathan, how did you actuallyget interested in using
(05:25):
portfolios with your students?
Jonathan Murphy (05:27):
Ah, how did I get interested? Well, when I was
developing these apprenticeshipprogrammes, it's a joint
delivery between an employer andan academic provider, right? And
we're the academic provider asGriffith College, and then you
have the employers on the otherside, and you have the workplace
mentors. Apprenticeships are allabout trying to integrate the
experiential learning and thesocial learning that's available
in the workplace with anacademic programme and trying to
(05:50):
bring the two of those piecestogether. Obviously, your
employer is remote from you, andthe workplace mentor is not a
staff member of the college, andthey're remote from you. You
want the learner to actually dolearning in the workplace.
So we were designing theprogramme, so we said, 'Right,
how are we going to do this?' Weworked out all the learning
(06:10):
outcomes for every module, thenwe divided them between which
learning outcomes we wantedachieved and assessed in the
workplace and which was wewanted achieved and assessed
classroom based. That gave us astructure then. We said, 'Right,
we have all this work we needdone in the workplace. How are
we going to manage that? How arewe going to know that that's
been done? How are we going toask our learners to evidence
(06:32):
what's happened in this remoteworkplace, and how are we going
to integrate the workplacementors into the whole learning
process?' We also had thechallenge that Griffith College
systems are geared forregistered learners, and
workplace mentors are notregistered learners. So how do
you incorporate a non-registeredlearner into the system, and how
(06:53):
do you get to work?
So it was during the COVID erathat we were developing these
and certainly from thehealthcare point of view, you
couldn't have paper movingaround between locations because
of COVID and handling of it. Itherefore needed a paperless
methodology for evidencing thework in the workplace. That was
where I was coming from, and Ineeded a method for getting the
(07:14):
workplace mentors who were notregistered learners of the
College, so I needed to get theminvolved. I went and researched
and researched and researched. Icame across Moodle competencies.
I had a look at those. I decidedthat wasn't going to give me the
functionality I needed. I justkept looking and researching.
I deliver a level nine WorkplaceLearning Module, which is all
(07:34):
about learning organisations,work-based learning, and
work-integrated learning. I hadbeen doing a lot of research for
that as well because I wasdeveloping that module. I came
across ePortfolios. I looked atePortfolios, I read the
documents on it. Itwas reallyinteresting because the pedagogy
of portfolios is really good.
When I looked at it, it wasgiving me the functionality I
needed. It was giving me apaperless solution. It was going
(07:55):
to allow me to create astructured portfolio that I
could give to a learner and say,'Right, you need to do all these
things.' What we were able to dothen was we're able to do a
structured portfolio, and inthat portfolio there's a page
for each learning outcome, andon the page for that learning
outcome is a brief or an ask,and the ask is related to what
(08:16):
they're doing in theirworkplace.
So in the case of healthcare, itmight be 'Write a reflection on
how you dealt with a carerecipient with dementia' or it
might be 'Reflect on a situationwhere you changed a wound
dressing,' all to do with whatthey're doing, but it's related
to the learning outcome. We gavethem choices. That'd be UDL,
that we'd have a choice of threethings they could choose for
(08:37):
each learning outcome that theycould do. Because I was able to
have two different logins. I wasable to have the login from
Moodle for all our students, butI was also able to have an
external login for the mentors,which meant that I could get the
mentors onto the system withoutaffecting the college systems,
which also was really important.
The learners could share theirportfolio with their mentor and
their module leaders - moduleleaders are lecturers - share
(08:59):
their portfolios with them. Iworked out that you could then
use the annotation blocks to getthe feedback system going, and
that both the module leader andthe workplace manager could
leave the feedback with thelearner, which would mean then
the learner would get timelyfeedback if the learner kept
pace and kept doing the learningoutcomes as they were supposed
to. So it was giving me that andthen it also gave me the
(09:21):
submission groups.
If a portfolio is complete, howcan we be sure that's not
changed between the time thelecturer goes to mark it and we
didn't want it changing? So itgave me that functionality as
well that I could get all theportfolios submitted to
submission groups, and they'relocked up, and then they can't
be changed. So now the moduleleader can go in and mark it
with the confidence the thingisn't going to change, and then
(09:41):
you can release it back to them.
Then they can have that evidencethat I thought was really nice
for the learner, that they wouldend up at the end of the
programme with, in the case ofhealthcare, 14 portfolios, which
shows clearly their skill setand their competency and their
abilities.
If they wanted to show that to aprospective employer or to
somebody that it would be veryclear as to how good or bad they
(10:02):
were by showing those. That'swhat we said to all the
learners. I said to them, 'Youreally need to put a lot of
effort in here because this isyour showcase. This is you
demonstrating what you can do.'In the case of healthcare, we're
able to have clinical skillsthat were signed off by their
mentor. So then if somebody wasdisputing whether they were
competent to do a skill, theycould just go to the portfolio
and say, 'Look, there you go.
There's the skill, there's thefeedback I got from my mentor,
(10:23):
and my mentor signed it off, andmy mentor was a nurse, and
there's her PIN number.'It ticked so many boxes that we,
with the apprenticeshipprogrammes, could then manage
the workplace learning. We coulddictate as to what we wanted to
be done in the workplace, andthen the learners can put their
evidence up. They can receivetheir feedback in there, and
then it can be assessed fromthere. It really covered an
(10:44):
awful lot of other bases. It wasa journey.
Kristina Hoeppner (10:48):
It definitely sounds like it, and yes, it
covers lots of bases. So let'smaybe recap a few of those
because we have three differentstakeholders in there. We've got
the students, the apprentices,who are also studying for the
degree. We have you and yourteam from the academic side and
also from the organisation side.
And then we also have theapprenticeship organisations
(11:08):
that are providing the mentors.
Your students create a portfoliofor their apprenticeship, which
they share with the mentor andalso with you, and there they
collect their evidence andreflections over the work that
they are doing in order to gainskills and then have those
(11:32):
skills signed off.
Jonathan Murphy (11:33):
They don't create the portfolio. We create
the portfolio. Students populatethe portfolio. Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:38):
You're working with a template...
Jonathan Murphy (11:40):
That's right.
Kristina Hoeppner (11:40):
... so that they already get the structure
of the portfolio with all theinstructions in there of what
they are expected to do.
Jonathan Murphy (11:47):
Correct. Yeah, on each page we use the
instructions, and in thoseinstructions, which are locked
and they can't change them, isthe ask or the brief. Then
they're given a block in whichto put their answer. Their
answer can be in the form ofmany different types of form. It
can be a link to a video, it canbe a Word document, it could be
PDF, it could be an image. Itcan be whatever they want to put
in as their response to the ask.
We have one of those for eachmodule on the programme.
(12:09):
Generally have to do two ofthose per semester.
One of the things we found aswell was, they were all leaving
it to the very end to do them,and that's a huge workload for
the mentor at the end. So wethen created timetables, and we
mapped those into how thelecture or the module leader was
delivering the programme. Ifthey delivered X, Y, and Z in
(12:31):
the first two weeks, well thenthe ePortfolio ask would come in
on the third week. They wouldthen be doing the thing based on
knowledge or theory that theywould have got in the previous
couple of weeks. Then we createdthe timetable of when those must
be completed, and we havesomebody who's tracking those
all the time, trying to keepeverybody going. If a mentor
just has to review one or two,they can do it during a coffee
(12:52):
break, five minutes, go in, sitdown, maybe with the apprentice,
talk through it, and give thefeedback and sign it off. But if
you leave it all at the end, youcould end up with, you know,
half a dozen things to look at.
That can be very time consuming.
We're trying to get across themessage to the apprentices that,
'Look you need to be respectfulof your mentor because they're
giving their time free to you tohelp you develop. So you need to
respect that and keep tickingthis along and every week, maybe
(13:15):
spending five minutes with them,you know, going through and
reviewing the work.'
Kristina Hoeppner (13:19):
So how does that scaffolding work for your
students? Have you seen animprovement then in them also
creating the evidence and theirreflections in a timely manner
so that it's not all left to thevery last second?
Jonathan Murphy (13:32):
What we found is that over the programme, it
improves vastly. Our externalexaminer has said it's amazing
the difference in people at thebeginning and the end, both in
the skills and their academicskills, their academic writing,
their referencing, we teach themall of that as well. But in the
beginning, I have to say it is aMount Everest for them to climb
(13:53):
because most of our students arenot IT savvy. They struggle with
the technology. We have to dorepeated trainings with them to
get them to the point where theycan get in and then go into the
block and add their evidence,put the annotation blocks on the
page in the correct place andthat kind of thing. It's not
simple and straightforward fromthat point of view. It needs a
(14:14):
lot of training. And the samefor the workplace mentors, they
need training. And the same forour lecturers, they need the
training as well.
As I said to you, at thebeginning, we didn't have
timetables for the completion ofthose learning outcomes, but we
learned after the first twogroups went through, we learned
[laughs] our lesson the hardway. Basically, I do up a
timetable for each semester asto when those learning outcomes
needs to be completed over the14-week period. The lecturers
(14:37):
are used to delivering anacademic programme in a
traditional way, but to get themto realise that actually the
ePortfolio is an integral partof their delivery, they need to
be looking in at it all thetime, they need to be leaving
comments. What we do is we usethe annotation block for the
workplace mentor feedback, andwe use the comment box for the
module leader feedback, so weknow who's given the feedback,
and we don't have to go trawlingthrough to see who's given the
(14:59):
feedback. We know who's givingthe feedback.
We're trying to get the moduleleaders to go in and give
feedback into the ePortfoliosand for them to bring things
that are in the ePortfolio intothe classroom and discuss them.
Get people to say, 'Oh, I was inlooking at your ePortfolio, and
that was a really good piece youdid on such and such. Do you
mind if we share that with thegroup?' Most people will say,
'Yes.' So then you can get themto put it up on the screen. You
(15:22):
can create a discussion aroundthat. That gives a whole shared
learning part as well. It'sgetting the minds of the module
leaders to change that actually,no, this is not something over
there. This is something I needto bring in and use it as part
of my delivery. I keep onreferring back and forth because
that was the whole idea it wasthe two would come together as a
whole. That way you give themthe theory, they go and practice
(15:44):
it, they get the experientiallearning in the workplace, they
put their evidence up there, andthen it comes back into the
classroom, and they get theshared learning. That was my
thinking of how the cycle shouldwork.
It's hard when people are in amindset, 'Oh, I come in and I
deliver my day's lecture and Igo home.' No, no, no, no. That's
not the way this works [laughs].
You gotta do a lot more. You gotto be going in and looking at
the portfolios, and theportfolios will tell you how
(16:05):
somebody's getting on. If you goin and look at the standard of
what people are putting up inthe portfolios, you very quickly
get a view of how somebody isdoing. If you see that
somebody's struggling whenyou're delivering your lectures,
you need to work with them, oryou need to take them aside and
give them a little bit of extraattention to help them or find
out they got a learningdifficulty and get them into
learning support.
(16:26):
The portfolios are actually avery good way of seeing how a
person's doing. Also, if youlook at the progression, that's
what the external examiner said,'I look at the progression of
people over time,' that standardof what they're putting up on
the portfolio. And she said,'It's amazing how you can
actually see they come in in thebeginning, it's quite weak, not
great, but by the end, it'svastly improved.'
(16:47):
Also, what we found is that anengaged workplace mentor who's
giving good feedback is worththe weight in gold. The
experience that somebody willhave of the programme is much,
much better. Whereas ifsomebody's just saying, 'Oh
yeah, that meets the learningoutcome,' they're not really
giving good feedback. They'renot really engaging. The
experience of that learner,unfortunately, is less. That's a
(17:07):
challenge for us to see how wecan try and improve that. The
mentors are very difficult toget hold of because there tend
to be the nurses in theorganisation. There's always a
crisis or something they have toattend to. Even organising extra
sessions for the mentors, youfind only a couple of them come.
You really see the difference inthe learner. Learner is really
switched on. They're engaged.
Even in their evaluations, theyare much happier with the
(17:29):
programme than other people whoare not. Those are the kind of
little things. The great thingis that the ePortfolio is
bringing all this up to the forethat you can see it. It's all
laid out there in front of you,which is good.
Kristina Hoeppner (17:40):
You mentioned that your external assessor told
you that they can see theprogression of the students.
Have you also checked in withyour students whether they can
see their own progression whenthey look back at the early
portfolios that they have doneversus the ones done much later?
Jonathan Murphy (17:56):
Basically, what we've done is we've checked back
with them about the programme intotal, rather than specifically
the portfolios, and they allhave said they have really grown
and developed. We had torevalidate the programme last
year, and the comments that cameback were, 'The programme's
given me a voice. I'm heard inthe workplace. I am respected in
the workplace now.' That, to me,was amazing. They said that to
(18:18):
the panel. We weren't present atthose. They were saying, you
know, 'We've really got a lotout.' There's a good number of
people who are going to now goon and do further studies in
either nursing or social care.
So obviously, we made animpression. We made a difference
for them. Certainly, when youtalk to them, you can see how
animated they are, how switchedon they are. It's amazing. If
you're just doing informaltalking to them, it's
(18:38):
incredible. And a lot of themhave got new jobs and done well.
But for the external examiner,who's looking at it, you know,
with a fresh pair of eyes and issaying to you, 'Yes, there's a
big difference in the people inthe beginning and the end,' I
think that's really thevalidation for me that we're
actually getting it right.
We do a lot of work, too. We getthe library to come in because
(18:59):
we have an online library, andthey show them how to search the
library, and they also then givethem the academic writing
skills, the referencing skills,the details about plagiarism and
all of that. That works reallywell. So we try and do that in
year one, year two, and yearthree [laughs]. Do sessions on
that to just build those skillsas well.
Kristina Hoeppner (19:15):
That's wonderfully all encompassing.
When we talked earlier,Jonathan, and you had already
alluded to some of thefunctionalities that you're
using in Mahara, like theannotations and the comments.
For those that are not familiarwith them, the annotations
belong to the SmartEvidencefunctionality of how we can
track competencies within aportfolio and also map portfolio
(19:38):
content that is on the page to aparticular competency. That was
also one functionality that weenhanced for you so that you can
actually set up all of thesetemplates without an additional
step for the students. How welldoes the portfolio based on
those competencies work for youand also for the students and
(19:59):
the mentors? Does it help themto know exactly what
competencies the students havealready gained and which ones
are still outstanding? Or isthere anything missing that
would be good to have in thatcontext?
Jonathan Murphy (20:13):
I don't think there's anything missing. The
way we do it is we give theworkplace mentors the full
programme and all the handbooks,and the handbooks have all the
learning outcomes, all theIndicative content, the
assessments and the markingrubrics. They get all of that.
In the beginning, when wedesigned the programmes, we
split the learning outcomesbetween the workplace and the
ones that need to be achievedthrough the classroom learning.
(20:35):
Then in SmartEvidence, we createa SmartEvidence piece for each
module, and we put thoselearning outcomes into that
structure, the ones that are inthe workplace. So that gives us
the structure of the learningoutcomes for a module that we
want to be achieved in theworkplace.
We create a group, and we thenput all the people that are in a
cohort into that group. We thencreate the portfolio in that
(20:57):
group and attach it to thatSmartEvidence grid. We make a
page for each learning outcome,and on that page we put in the
instructions, we put in a blockfor them to put in their
evidence, and we might put inimage blocks, or we might put in
other types of blocks, dependingon how we want them to respond.
And that all goes into acollection. So now you have the
collection which is attached tothe SmartEvidence, and you have
(21:18):
the grid then comes up on thecollection as the first page,
you've got the links to eachindividual learning outcome
page, and on that page is thewhat they're asked to do.
From that group, that collectiongets pushed to all the learners
that are members of that group.
That's how we get the structuredportfolio template out to each
learner. We build it in thegroup, push it to all the
members of the group, they thenget their own instance of that.
(21:38):
They then have to share thatwith the stakeholders, which is
the module leader, theirworkplace mentor. We have a
thing called Academic SuccessCoach as well. It's a role,
really, that's a bridge betweenthe workplace and the classroom,
and they're chasing to make surethey complete these learning
outcomes. They deal with anydifficulties between the mentor,
the employer, and the apprenticethat might occur, and then the
(21:59):
admin staff, they tend to sharethe portfolio with as well.
Once they put their evidenceonto the page, they go back to
the grid and click on the greydot and put in the annotation
block. In that we just ask themto simply say, 'I have uploaded
my evidence, which I believemeets the learning outcome.' And
they then need to go and talk totheir mentor and say, 'I put my
(22:20):
evidence up for this learningoutcome.' The mentor will be
aware of that because they willhave seen all the portfolios as
well. The mentor then look atthe portfolio, they then leave
their feedback, and then decide,does it need more work or is it
okay? We're only asking them tosay, 'Is it okay in their
opinion,' we're not asking tograde it or mark it or do
anything. We're just asking tosay, 'In your opinion, does that
(22:41):
meet the learning outcome? If itdoesn't, then you need to give
them the feedback and ask themto do more work.'
This is where a really engagedmentor comes in because a really
engaged mentor will tend to askfor more work to be done
[laughs] because they're helpingthe person grow and develop, and
they're pointing them in theright direction. They can do
that as the iteration, as manytimes they like, before they
sign it off. When the wholething is signed off, we have all
the green ticks on the grid, itthen gets pushed through to a
(23:03):
submission group and locked upuntil the module leader goes in
and marks it.
It's a very good system becausefor the purpose of
apprenticeships, we don't wantfreelancing portfolios. You can
use that for something else andit has an application. But for
the apprenticeships, we want tohave a structured portfolio with
a defined set of learningoutcomes that we want them to
(23:24):
put evidence up for. They canput that evidence up whichever
way they want. If somebody's gotdyslexia and they struggle to
get things down on paper, wesay, 'Well, just speak it, put
it in an oral recording up ofyour answer or your response.'
We're quite happy with that.
We're not fixed then on how theperson responds to the ask, but
they must respond to the ask.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:43):
It does help take away some of the load from
the students, too, in your case,where you do want to have a very
structured response and alsoneed certain elements to be
present in the portfolio, togive them that template on hand
in order to make that first stepto enter the portfolio data
easier.
Jonathan Murphy (24:00):
Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:01):
The portfolios seem to be working
also for degree apprenticeshipsin Ireland, not just in the UK.
Jonathan Murphy (24:07):
Yes.
Kristina Hoeppner (24:08):
Could you also already persuade some other
departments at Griffith to startusing portfolios?
Jonathan Murphy (24:15):
We have one other department, which is a
pharmaceutical course. It's amaster's programme. What they
were doing was they've about 200students, and they're breaking
them down into groups of three,and then each semester, they
were giving the group a projectto research and work on. They
have to present that to thewhole group at the end of the
semester, right? So they weredoing this all manually and what
have you. When they heard metalking about ePortfolios
(24:38):
[laughs] and groups andcommunities of practice and all
these things that you can do,wonderful things that are in
this box, and we have it here inGriffith, they said, 'Yeah, this
is a really good idea.'What they've done now is they
set up all their groups inMahara, and then they allow them
to work away, and it'sfreelanced, so there's no
format, but they know what theproject is. But the portfolio
they can do what they like,right? So they can do images,
(24:58):
videos, whatever. That's what Iwould call a freelance
portfolio. They then do theirpiece. Every other group has to
be able to see their piece atthe end. Great thing is in
Mahara, what can you do? Youjust go share, share, share, and
all the things can be shared sotheir peers can leave feedback
on the project, and then theproject gets presented to the
whole group, which meanseverybody's getting this massive
(25:19):
amount of shared learning.
Because you think about it,there's X number of groups, and
they're all doing working on adifferent project, and they're
all coming back and presentingit, you're now getting a huge
learning. You're getting allthat peer interaction within the
group and the peer interactionwith the wider group going on.
One thing they didn't tell methey wanted to do, and they're
doing is, they want to score thepresentations at the end, and
(25:41):
then whoever gets the highestscore gets a prize. So they're
doing that at the moment throughMoodle, but it's something that
is worth thinking about. What Iliked is that the way they're
using the groups in Mahara andthey're really expanding it out.
I'd love to - though resourcesare an issue - but I would love
to expand the use of Mahara inGriffith College to include
structured induction programmesfor different groups of staff,
(26:02):
for faculty administrators, forprogramme directors, for heads
of departments, whereby you putin the standards, you put in all
the training they need to coveror somebody new coming into the
organisation, and you then getthem to put their evidence that
they've actually done that andachieved that into a portfolio.
It would then allow you toensure that people cover all the
things they need to cover ontheir induction programme.
(26:23):
That's another area I'd like toget into.
Kristina Hoeppner (26:26):
The induction is a really, really nice idea
because that also gets themusing some of the tools they
will have. You can make it a funactivity for them and also get
to know them a little bit betterby how they are talking about
themselves, how they are talkingabout their role, with
reflecting on what they havelearned, how they can bring in
themselves.
Jonathan Murphy (26:46):
Yes, and also, too, is if you have those
occupational profiles defined inthe standards, if you have
somebody who is, say, a facultyadministrator and wants to
aspire to become a programmedirector, what you can just say,
'Right, there's the portfoliofor programme director. Those
are the skills you need to nowget. You have X, Y, and Z.
You're missing these ones, A, B,C, so you go off and get A, B,
(27:08):
C, and then we can talk aboutyou getting a role as programme
director.' And the same if yougot a programme director who
wants to become a faculty head,you can do exactly the same,
'Here's the faculty headoccupational profile, and you've
got X. You need to get the otherbits.'
In my workplace learning moduleI teach, that's what I'm saying
to people, in an L&D department,if you want to really become a
learning organisation, youshould be creating occupational
(27:29):
profiles for every role. Andthen you could use the
ePortfolio to manage peopleachieving those and people
evidencing it. So that when theygo to HR, they can say, 'Look,
here's my portfolio. My managerhas signed off on all my bits
and pieces, and I've got allthese skills now, so I'm now
ready for that role. So pleaseconsider me for the next job.'
You could then create within anorganisation really good
(27:50):
succession planning. You couldcreate evidence of what people
can do and not do within theirportfolios, and HR be able to
look in on those. I think thatfor that, it'd be really good.
The other thing, too, was we'renow under pressure from QQI to
ensure that all lecturers do CPDtraining. That's another area I
wanted to look at in Griffithwas actually creating a
(28:10):
portfolio for every lecturerwhere they could record all
their CPD training.
Kristina Hoeppner (28:14):
That's now pretty easy because we do have
the CPD functionality directlyin Mahara where they can start
recording all the hours.
Jonathan Murphy (28:22):
Yes, so it's a matter now getting that up and
running though, and just workingout the logistics now to fit
into the organisation. That'svery much on my radar. The thing
too is if we could get themusing portfolios, then it would
make it easier for them to startunderstanding the benefits of
ePortfolios for their academicprogrammes and how they could
actually use them better intheir academic programmes. That
(28:42):
was also part of my thoughtprocess if your getting them
using the system, I think wouldbe very good. I think a lot of
people are afraid ofePortfolios. They don't really
understand what they can do andthe benefits of them. You can
tell them till the cows comehome, but until they actually
get in there and do some work onit and suddenly realise, 'Oh,
wow, this is really good. I canhave my journal there. I could
do this. I can keep a record.'One of the things I was saying
(29:03):
to the guys in the bar I said,'You know, when you're on
holidays and you see a nice bar,take a photograph, put it up on
a portfolio page of your own sothat you have it there when
you're doing your final project.
You know, you've got bardesigns, you've got cocktail
menus, you've got food menus.
Just take photographs on yourphone, put them up on pages,
stack it up there so you haveall your info, and you can store
it all in there.'The other thing then, which I
haven't been successful in, iscreating a community of
(29:25):
practice. I'd love to be able tocreate a community practice
amongst the mentors. I dobelieve that the ePortfolio can
accommodate that. So that'sanother goal [laughs] I'm trying
to work on.
When you think about all ofthat, the ePortfolio really is
an incredible piece of softwareand a package that meets so many
needs. It is an investment.
There's no doubt about it.
(29:46):
There's investment in time andresources and money and
everything. But I firmlybelieve, going forward with much
more virtual learning to begoing on, an ePortfolio would be
a great way of recordingpeople's achievements that
they're doing through virtuallearning, get them to put stuff
up on an ePortfolio. Noweverybody can see the work
they're doing. So you knowsomebody progressing, even
(30:07):
though you don't necessarilyhave face-to-face contact with
them on a regular basis, but ifthe portfolio is going up and
subject matter experts arereviewing it, it's a really good
additional tool to support thattechnology learning.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:18):
Also what you said earlier, Jonathan, about
encouraging your lecturers tocreate their portfolio so they
have a better understanding ofhow they might want to use it in
their academic programmes, Ithink also goes back to your
ideas of experiential learningand also social constructivist
learning and incorporatingUniversal Design for Learning
(30:39):
principles in order to make thepractice of using portfolios not
this foreign thing that sits tothe side, but that can be fully
integrated because the lecturersunderstand what is involved, how
they should be asking thequestions of their learners, in
order to not just get summariesof the learning evidence, but
also those true reflections andhelping them make connections,
(31:02):
helping them tell the stories oftheir learners, and therefore
then see how they can alsoprogress.
Jonathan Murphy (31:07):
Absolutely.
There's a lot of pressure comingon now for colleges to make sure
that the programmes they'redelivering are actually related
to roles in industry and in theworkplace, and not have these
programmes that are designed foracademics to deliver, but
they're actually targeted at aparticular sector. In order to
do that, you really need yourgraduate to have, they're now
(31:28):
called graduate attributes. Andthe only way you're going to
have that, I believe, is thatyou take on board
work-integrated learning, andyou work with that sector and
employers in the sector and getthem to input to the programme,
and you design a work-integratedpiece as part of their
programme. You either do it overconsistent period of time, where
you do it over a six-month blockor something on the programme,
(31:49):
or you arrange employers thatthe guys can work in the summer
in the organisations, but youthen give them structured
portfolios of standards that you
want (31:59):
Communications, their team working, their interpersonal
relations, all of those skillsthey need for the workplace.
Yes, they get all the academicknowledge and the subject
knowledge, but it's no good ifthey can't interact with other
people, they can't operatewithin a workplace, they can't
compromise, they haven't gotempathy with others. They need
to build all of that. So a goodwork-integrated learning for a
(32:19):
sector can combine all of thoseskills and you could put all of
those into a portfolio and makethat part of your programme that
they need to complete portfolioas well as complete the
programme. Now you've got aperfect marriage, I would have
said made in heaven [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (32:35):
Yeah. That's where the degree apprenticeships
are so nice because they docombine that academic rigour and
the researching and knowledgeacquisition with that very
practical work-integratedlearning in order to also know
well, how can I or how should Iapply what I have learned in
theory and really learn thatearly on so that they can
(32:57):
develop those skills andcompetencies in order to succeed
in their chosen profession thenlater on.
Jonathan Murphy (33:02):
Yes, and it also helps them, I believe, join
up the learning. So, you know,you teach them communications,
but communications comes intoeverything. They want to use
communications when they go todo a clinical skill. So you're
building that in there. You'reasking them when they're doing
the clinical skill, to also dothe communication space, and
that's part of that. Then yougot the understanding the
understanding of the body, whichis your anatomy and physiology.
(33:23):
You're getting them to bringthat into the clinical skill
they're doing, and they'rethinking about the skin, they're
thinking about skin integrity,they are thinking about all
these. By using the portfolioand cleverly making sure that
you're drawing all the learningin together. So every time they
do something, they have to bebringing in the content of maybe
three or four modules. Itdoesn't mean you just do a
module and that's it, you forgetabout it. You're actually
(33:44):
constantly using the knowledgefrom that throughout the
programme, and you're building,building, building as you go
through, and the portfolioallows you to do that, which is
brilliant.
Having that work-integrated bit,make sure that that does happen.
When you ask them to doreflection, you're expecting
them to reflect on theircommunication skills, their
personality skills when theywere doing it, and their actual
skill of doing the skill. It'sreally good from that point of
(34:06):
view.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:07):
It's very holistic learning that is
contextualised, telling thestories, and also allows for
that transfer of knowledge fromone area into another, so that
we are not compartmentalising somuch.
Jonathan Murphy (34:19):
Yes. The challenge for us now is - now
we've got that under our belt -is to work out what I would call
integrated assessments. We'veblocked it out module by module,
but actually we now realise thatSmartEvidence and everything can
work differently. So we couldmaybe give them a case study and
the case study in a semestercould cover both modules in that
(34:40):
semester, and it would be betterbecause it might be, you know,
in the case of looking aftersomebody, might encompass a load
of things, but it wouldn't bemeeting a load of different
standards in there, which youcan have set up. That's our next
challenge, because we believethat would be a better way to go
than we're doing at the minute.
Get them to write up the decentcase which covers a good number
of standards.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:59):
You now pretty much need your holiday
break to re-energise and then beable to tackle all of those
projects in the next academicyear to make progress on them
and see what you could report onnext year to us.
Jonathan Murphy (35:13):
Absolutely. I mean, there's never a dull
moment [laughs]. There's alwayssomething to be doing. I found
it an exciting challenge. Ireally enjoyed working on this
particular project and workingon Mahara and the ePortfolio.
I'd be the college champion.
It's really, really interesting.
And what you can continue tokeep adding to it and improving
how you use it, as I say, allthe other alternative uses that
(35:35):
the college could benefit from,I think, is really important.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:39):
Jonathan, you've given us so much to think
about and had so many ideasalso, where portfolios can be
used differently at the collegelevel, at the university and
higher education level ingeneral. So I'd like to ask you
three last questions if you arestill up for them.
Jonathan Murphy (35:56):
Yeah. Go for it [laughs]
Kristina Hoeppner (35:58):
Yeah? What words or short phrases do you
use to describe portfolio work?
Jonathan Murphy (36:03):
I would have said creating reflective
learners, creating yourcommunity of practice, and
showcasing your skill set.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:09):
Awesome. I can see those.
Jonathan Murphy (36:11):
Yeah [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (36:12):
In all what you have said today, those are
very present there. Thank youfor them. You've already given
us a lot of ideas, but do youhave one tip for learning
designers or other educators whocreate portfolio activities that
you'd like to share as one ofyour final tips for them?
Jonathan Murphy (36:30):
I think that one would be design activities
for learners that are directlyrelated to the standard or
learning outcome that you desireto have them, and that these
activities must be related towhat the learners are doing in
the workplace because that way,you'll get engagement from the
learner because they're nothaving to do something
particularly new. They're doingit in the workplace. They're
(36:51):
recording or evidencing thatactivity in the workplace.
People then will do it.
Kristina Hoeppner (36:56):
Now on the other side, what tip do you have
for your learners, students, andapprentices?
Jonathan Murphy (37:03):
What I would say to all our learners is put
the effort in, develop yourePortfolio to showcase and
evidence what you can do becauseI really think that's absolutely
key, and then work closely withyour workplace mentor. Take
control of your own learning isthe other one we keep pushing.
You need to take control of yourown learning. Actively seek
feedback from all thestakeholders who you're sharing
(37:24):
your portfolio with, and that'llhelp you grow and develop your
skill set and then developyourself as a reflective
practitioner and learner becausethat will then allow you to
carry your learning on waybeyond the end of the programme,
and you become a lifelonglearner. If you keep on using
reflection, you can keep onlearning. It's an easy way of
continuing your learning.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:45):
That's a very nice summary tip. So thank you
so much, Jonathan, for sharingall your thinking - well, not
even all your thinking, just asmall part of your thinking and
enthusiasm for portfolios,helping your students
participate in activities, beengaged in their learning,
reflect on it, and then alsobecome professionals that have
(38:06):
learned how to reflect, how tobe reflective practitioners, and
then can succeed in theircareers. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Murphy (38:13):
No problem at all [laughs].
Kristina Hoeppner (38:15):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with JonathanMurphy. Head to our website
podcast.mahara.org where you canfind resources and the
transcript for this episode.
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
(38:36):
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.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.