Create a Skills Portfolio
> 1 hour
How to use the tool?
Have students track the development of a particular skill or competency through guided reflection.
Student experience
“Finally, a nice and relaxed way to work on skills teachers assume we have!”
Although all curricula have learning goals for complex skills such as team work, public speaking, or global citizenship, students often struggle to consistently work on these skills across their different courses. To facilitate cumulative and deliberate skill development, this tool provides easy-to-do guided reflection exercises focused on breaking down and working with such complex skills, alongside a tracker that helps students see their own learning trajectory.
What to Do?
Invite students to work through one of the many guided reflection learning journals designed to explore and develop skills through the following steps:
Step 1: Tracking - What are your specific skills goals and how do you engage with them?
Step 2: Envisioning - What do you want to achieve and why?
Step 3: Goal setting - What specific goals can you work on to get there?
Step 4: Practicing - What strategies can you try to accomplish these goals?
Step 5: Feedback - What do you learn from these efforts and how do you move on from there?
Example:
"In one of my undergraduate courses students spend the whole semester working in a team. They find this a huge challenge, much harder than the learning content of the course. Most of them have never explicitly been trained in how to be a good teammate. I struggle to find enough time in-class to teach them this. It is super helpful to give them these guided reflection exercises. To make sure that they actually do it, I not only spend a little time discussing in class how the training is going and I make it count. They submit their skills portfolios at the end of the course for marks towards participation. I don’t look at content, only that they actually did it seriously. I can see this working in how they deal with the inevitable challenges that arise throughout the course when working in teams. They are far more mature and thoughtful in how they approach teamwork dilemmas.
