Final (?) thoughts on portfolio-as-comp

Monday's oral defense went well. I passed and didn't embarrass anyone - not even myself.

I had a couple of small assignments to wrap up for an "Organization and Administration of Higher Education" class I'm taking. We had to write a reaction to some sort of event. I chose to write a thank you letter to the Ph.D. committee. The Org&Admin professor read it while the class was taking our final. He liked it and thought it was great to work for change. I hadn't intended on actually sending it in, but I think I will. The text follows:

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Dr. Robinson and Ph.D. Committee:

I would like to thank you for permitting me to move forward with my electronic portfolio in lieu of the traditional comprehensive exam. Since this was a one-time pilot, I wanted to share my thoughts on the experience.

Prior to proposing a portfolio-as-comp to the Ph.D. committee, I believed a portfolio was an appropriate comprehensive assessment of my work and my experience has confirmed this. As you know, portfolios are widely used for summative assessment: undergraduate students prepare exit portfolios documenting competence in standards; committees review portfolios to select teaching award recipients; promotion and tenure decisions are based on portfolios; and professors submit portfolios for post-tenure reviews. It makes sense that moving from doctoral student to doctoral candidate would similarly benefit from portfolio assessment.

Preparing a portfolio was most definitely not an easy way out of the comprehensive exams, but summative in a way no traditional written exam could possibly be. In my portfolio, I documented competence in all of the program standards related to professional leadership, reflective practice, teaching, consultative practice, research, and multicultural competence. In addition to those program standards, evaluators examined my communication skills, ability to synthesize information across the field of study, application of theory to practice, and competence in design and use of technology. Oddly, the program standards remained silent on instructional design principles, yet Dr. Hirumi spent the better part of my hour-long oral defense probing my knowledge in that area. As you can see from this list of categories, the examination of my portfolio was exceedingly comprehensive. Not only did the professors evaluating my work expect me to be able to write about these things – they expected to see compelling evidence of work in each category.

I know creating my electronic portfolio was valuable for me. Collecting and reflecting upon my work gave me the opportunity for insights I would not have received preparing for a traditional comprehensive exam. Of course, the oral and written feedback from the evaluating professors offered additional insight. I also believe my portfolio was valuable in terms of program evaluation, offering representative student work from across the program. Finally, and perhaps most important to me, is that the portfolio I developed will serve as the foundation for an interview portfolio I plan to develop before graduation. I know this will be an extremely valuable tool as I return to the job market.

Thank you once again for allowing me to work on this project. I hope it was as valuable to the institution as it was to me.

Sincerely,


Rebecca Fiedler