Eportfolio Implementation in a Multiple Campus University Environment 6 – Academic Teacher Continuous Improvement

Abstract

At the Australian Catholic University (ACU) an ePortfolio may be used as a product, to display parts of one's Personal Learning Environment (PLE), or as a process, referred to as a Personal Learning Network (PLN). This is challenging to institutions and their Executive, as academics can use it both as an assessment 'of' learning and as a vehicle 'for' learning. It promotes metacognitive awareness of learning (awareness of one's own thinking and problem solving) providing opportunities for self-directed learning by exploiting its digital affordances, enabling users (teachers or students) to reflect upon, profile, and transform learning, teaching, and engagement with peers in one's profession using a Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (SoLT) approach [1]. Reflection is an essential part of academic learning and continuous improvement. In Teacher Education courses, community reflective practice [2] helps profile evidence used to show continuing achievement against professional teaching standards in an evolving lifelong learning journey.