Cathy Elliott: Have fun, be flexible, and encourage feedback in your portfolio

10/01/24 • 36 min

Professor Dr Cathy Elliott is Vice Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences at University College London (UCL), UK. She teaches a political science class on nature and supports over 1,000 faculty and 7,000 students in the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences at UCL.
In this episode she gives an update on what she has achieved since her first episode in May 2023 and what she's excited about in regards to portfolios. She shares how the Geography Department is going to use portfolios in a programmatic approach, starting in an overhauled first year and making the work in the portfolio the centre of the assessment strategy.
Connect with Cathy

Resources

Associate Professor Dr Fergus Green
Professor Dr Jan Axmacher
Campaign of the National Union of Students 'Mark my words, not my name'
Pitt, Edd, & Winstone, Naomi (2018). The impact of anonymous marking on students’ perceptions of fairness, feedback and relationships with lecturers. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(7), 1183–1193.

Related episodes

Prof Dr Cathy Elliott: Creativity and feedback in assessment portfolios
Kate Mitchell, MEd: Deliberate and programmatic design
Dr Mark Glynn, PFHEA: Take a programmatic approach to assessment with portfolios

Click through to the episode notes for the transcript.

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Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Resources

Associate Professor Dr Fergus Green
Professor Dr Jan Axmacher
Campaign of the National Union of Students 'Mark my words, not my name'
Pitt, Edd, & Winstone, Naomi (2018). The impact of anonymous marking on students’ perceptions of fairness, feedback and relationships with lecturers. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(7), 1183–1193.

Related episodes

Prof Dr Cathy Elliott: Creativity and feedback in assessment portfolios
Kate Mitchell, MEd: Deliberate and programmatic design
Dr Mark Glynn, PFHEA: Take a programmatic approach to assessment with portfolios

Click through to the episode notes for the transcript.

Previous Episode

Jonathan Murphy: Demonstrate skills and competencies

Jonathan Murphy, FCA, is Head of the Apprenticeship Department at Griffith College in Ireland and is passionate about portfolios for his degree apprentices but would also take it beyond his own department. In his interview, Jonathan outlines who students at Griffith College use portfolios, demonstrate and track their skills and competencies and how the portfolio helps bridge the apprenticeship with the academic rigour.
Click through to the episode notes for the transcript.
Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn
Resources

Griffith College case study
Universal Design for Learning
Fundamentals of SmartEvidence
More power to assess competencies with SmartEvidence version 2
QQI: Quality and Qualifications Ireland
NFQ: National Framework of Qualifications

Related episodes

Derrin Kent: Portfolios in degree apprenticeships
Kathleen Blake Yancey: Heuristics for meaningful portfolios

Next Episode

Tom Worthington: Teach portfolios without the lingo

Honorary Senior Lecturer Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP, from The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia, teaches computer science students. He uses authentic learning tasks, in particular around the topic of job applications to engage his students in portfolio practice.
In this interview, Tom shares his own journey from a design portfolio to one for his Master's in Education and what he has learned along the way that is helping him support his students in their own reflective practice without employing portfolio language, but rather using language that has more meaning to his students.
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn
Resources

Tom's blog posts on his portfolio course ideas
Presentation 'A job application as the capstone for work integrated learning'
Professor Dr Stephen Dann
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
Professor Dr Charles Gretton
ANU TechLauncher
Awasthy, R., Flint, S., & Sankaranarayana, R. (2017). Lifting the constraints—Closing the skills gap with authentic student projects. 2017 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 955–960.
Worthington, T. (2019). Blend and flip for teaching communication skills to final year international computer science students. 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE), 1–5.

Related episodes
The Master in Education at Athabasca University:

Mike Joiner-Hill: Represent yourself through a portfolio

Click through to the episode notes for the full transcript.

Create. Share. Engage. - Cathy Elliott: Have fun, be flexible, and encourage feedback in your portfolio

Transcript

Kristina Hoeppner00:00:05.160

Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner. Today, I'm speaking with recently minted Professor Dr Cathy Elliott, who was on the podcast last Ma