Electronic Personal Development Collections should be planned around the essential features of meaningful learning.

Of course, the definition of "essential learning" is open to interpretation, and especially in the modern political climate, educators and education leaders are likely to have different and contradictory expectations from different stakeholders in their community. For the purposes of this page, readers are encouraged to define essential learning in terms most meaningful to himself or herself, but definitions that allow portfolio authors to see themselves as emerging learners have been most effective in the schools of southwestern Vermont.

Ideally, learning will be characterized by growth in areas that have these characteristics:

• The skills are or the knowledge is transferable; the learning must be useful in many contexts and learners must be confident applying their learning in many situations.

• Students must be able to self-assess their growth and development in the skills and knowledge gathered in ePDC’s; learners must be able to understand how they are growing more competent and confident in the areas documented in the ePDC.
  

• Growth in the areas used to organize ePDC’s should be characterized by progress not achievement. Learning goals that can be accomplished with finality, or checked off on a checklist, are generally not well-documented in ePDC's.
  

• The skills and knowledge used to organize the ePDC should be chosen such that learners can demonstrate progress in many areas of study; students should have a choice of the contexts within which they demonstrate progress.

The Parable of the Big Rocks has been an effective way for educators to understand the nature of the areas that should be used to plan electronic personal development collections. In addition, there is advice on defining your own "Big Rocks" on this presentation and also on this presentation.

In Vermont, the Vital Results have proven useful for organizing ePDC's as have some other documents such as the National Educational Technology Standards for Students and the Habits of Mind (also here) and Dimensions of Learning.

last updated: June 30, 2003

© 2003 Gary L. Ackerman

ackerman@taconic-learning.net

http://www.taconic-learning.net