{"id":9989,"date":"2020-04-06T14:54:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T12:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/?p=9989"},"modified":"2021-05-11T13:37:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T11:37:55","slug":"working-with-eportfolios-the-tool-for-self-directed-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/working-with-eportfolios-the-tool-for-self-directed-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Working with ePortfolios – the Tool for Self-directed Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is generally agreed that changes to systems of education at all levels are inevitable. Teaching and learning need to be adapted to conditions of the new globalised world. Without any doubt, education\u202fhas reached a transformational phase.\u202fOne of its primary aims has always been training for certain jobs, but this is no longer sufficient for the conditions we are living in. Our\u202fsociety has gone\u202fthrough\u202fan evolutionary process\u202ftaking us from\u202fthe\u202findustrial\u202fage\u202fto the knowledge era\u202faffecting also\u202fthe\u202feducational process\u202fitself.\u202fNowadays, a\u202fparadigm shift\u202fcan be observed\u202fin education:\u202fthe focus is being gradually shifted\u202ffrom the teacher to the learner,\u202ffrom lecturing to guidance,\u202ffrom instruction to coaching, from teaching to learning\u202falong\u202fwith the omnipresent\u202fand rapidly progressing technology having impact on human behaviour.<\/strong>

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An illustration of the contemporary era is the report by Dell Technologies on research led by the Institute for the Future, according to which “85% of the jobs that today\u2019s learners will be doing in 2030 haven\u2019t been invented yet”. Consequently, lifelong learning, training and skill retraining will be required from all labour market subjects. How can education respond to this trend? One of the possible ways could be\u202fshifting the emphasis from the content to the exploration of how to learn efficiently and constantly. Obviously, there are countless ways to do this. The facilitator of this workshop would like to present one that seems to have yielded positive outcomes for her in her own educational context. Namely, she would like to share her experience with the use of ePortfolio as an electronic tool that creates potential for the internalization of the concept of life-long learning for her learners and represents a less traditional approach to teaching, learning and assessment in a traditional and sometimes conservative higher-education setting.

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Higher education institutions bear a big portion of responsibility for the preparation of future professionals who will be ready to adopt leadership roles on the rapidly changing globalised stage. College and university graduates are expected to possess not only the knowledge in their area of expertise, but also key competences for the 21st century such as creativity, motivation, digital literacy and self-reflection, among others. Moreover, future leaders should also know how to use their own potential and how to work on personal qualities that will help them succeed in their professional as well as personal lives. They can hardly achieve this without being confident and autonomous personalities. Learner autonomy has been one of the key concepts accentuated in learning for the past few decades. Having been initially trained as language teachers, the abstract authors turned first to experts working in the area of language learner autonomy for theoretical support. It was only later that they found out that it hardly takes much effort to see parallels between the key concepts in learner autonomy as defined by Henri Holec or David Little and principles of coaching laid by Timothy Galway and John Whitmore (see references). Let the following quotes serve as illustrations of such parallels:

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“To take charge of one\u2019s learning is to have, and to hold, the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning.” (Holec 1981, p. 3).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


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“Holec\u00b4s definition entails that autonomous learners can freely apply their knowledge and skills outside the immediate context of learning\u2026.One of the functions of (adult) education is to equip learners to play an active role in participatory democracy.” (Little, n.d., online).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


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“Coaching is unlocking people\u00b4s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” (Whitmore 2009, p. 10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


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These parallels have inspired the workshop facilitator to carry out a study into the use of elements of coaching in the educational process. The results of her study have provided some empirical evidence justifying the transfer of principles and tools from the coaching world to the area of language learning (Hlouskova 2018). Her approach and research included ePortfolio as a tool supporting autonomous learning and authentic assessment. The abstract co-author had then been working with ePortfolio for some time, using it in compliance with its definition describing it as “a collection of self-selected student work and self-reflection organized around specified learning goals.” (Diller & Phelps, 2008). As part of a study, she designed a Learning Cycle consisting of the following stages (Pospisilova 2017):<\/p>\n\n\n\n