… open our eyes, our minds, our worlds
we can think, un-think and re-think – and take actions too
through sharing stories, experiences, listening and telling
through exchanging, giving, receiving and mixing
we grow as individuals, as a collective
we no longer feel alone
we are no longer alone!
Neil, Udayangani, Frances, Craig and Becci (19 April 12)
A recent visit to Sheffield Hallam University with the above colleagues who are currently studying towards the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice on cohort 3 and 4, enabled us all to share some of our experiences using social media eporfolios with colleagues at Sheffield Hallam.
The conversations were rich and I gained a deeper insight into how our portfolios are working at the moment for our students and which aspects of the approach need to be refined further. It does help a lot when people ask you questions! Socrates knew that the right questions are super powerful thinking tools!
As a result of this visit and what we discussed there, I decided for example to introduce feedback buddies for our current cohort (I mentioned it briefly during the conversation there that I could do this with the next cohort! But then thought: WHY wait?) which will make peer feedback more manageable, I hope. I had seen that over the past weeks only a few students were commenting on each other’s portfolios. I am sure that many were visiting and reading posts by others, however, without commenting. I had sent reminders to the cohort which made already active peers even more active. There was only very limited increase in peer feedback engagement by the ones who hadn’t done it on a regular basis or only in a very limited capacity. This was problematic and I was unsure how to deal with it.
Now, the submission date is coming closer. We have about a month, so there is still time for this to happen! The in-module assessment, which is the reflective journal captured in the portfolio is tutor and peer assessed. We can’t just say, oh, well students didn’t provide feedback to their peers! It doesn’t matter. No, It has to happen!
Many students have now made good progress with their own portfolios and would benefit from accessing and engaging in the work done by some of their peers, but also commenting and providing feedback to enable ongoing learning conversations to emerge that will not only help their peer but also help them refine their own learning on this module and finalise their portfolio in preparation for submission.
Everybody has a feedback buddy now! Find yours!
I am looking forward to some lively peer feedback conversations over the next few weeks;)
Chrissi Nerantzi 