Learning Portfolio Supports at McMaster University

Jon Kruithof, McMaster University

A Brief History of the Learning Portfolio

• A response to President Patrick Deane’s letter, Forward With Integrity

• The Learning Portfolio sought to document curricular, co-curricular and community learning

• Helps answer “What did I learn at McMaster?”

What We Built (Part One)

• Standard technical supports put in place• Primarily how-to PDF documents (6-8 pages)• We built 24 of these for faculty/staff and

student use• 2 hour technical training – assumed that

faculty would know what they want to use it for

What We Built (Part Two)

• Student Guide to the Learning Portfolio (PDF)• Tried to be the catch-all for a user who didn’t

know anything about ePortfolios• Turned out to be a technical manual on how

to create your ePortfolio, Learning Goals, without a significant “Why” piece

What We Built (Part Three)

• Learning Portfolio Videos (8) as part of our LMS support videos

• Learning Goal widget in the LMS• Devise a mechanism for sharing public

portfolios

What They Used

What They Preferred