About the Mini-Grant & Seminar Program
Summary: ePortfolios have emerged as a valuable tool for supporting enriched student learning and new approaches to assessment and accreditation. Nationwide, more than 250 campuses now use ePortfolio. LaGuardia Community College is widely recognized as a leader in this growing field. Building on this momentum and seeking to secure its benefits for students in urban higher education, LaGuardia is pleased to offer Making Connections: An ePortfolio MiniGrant & Seminar Program, designed to help NYCmetropolitan educators to advance their use of ePortfolio for learning, assessment and transfer.

A Tool to Support Learning, Assessment & Transfer:  ePortfolios are a rich educational resource with potential to benefit students and faculty. As students build ePortfolios, they collect classwork and reflect on their learning processes.  Examining their learning and manifesting their growth in rich, web-based presentations, students spotlight their academic progress and personal change. ePortfolio is also a tool for enriched faculty learning.  
As students share longitudinal learning histories, they generate rich evidence that gives educators new ways of understanding, assessing and supporting the learning process, within and across institutional lines.

A National Discourse:  Currently working with more than 8,000 ePortfolio students, LaGuardia is a founding member of the Inter/National Coalition for ePortfolio Research, along with Stanford and Clemson.
For the past three years, this network (now up to 50 universities) has studied the use of ePortfolio
on their campuses. LaGuardia’s findings are highlighted in the Coalition’s collection, Electronic Portfolio 2.0: Emergent Research on Implementation and Impact, Spring 2009.  LaGuardia’s national ePortfolio conference, held in April 2008, drew 600 educators from 30 states and 5 different countries.

Making Connections: ePortfolio Mini-Grant & Seminar Program draws on LaGuardia’s experienceand a growing literature to help colleges and universities in the metropolitan NYC area advance their use of ePortfolio to support enhanced engagement, learning, and assessment. The Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) has provided three years of funding to Making Connections, supporting faculty and programs at higher education institutions (community colleges through research universities) to move forward with ePortfolio implementation, and to explore the possibilities of using ePortfolio for transfer. 

The first two years of Making Connections have been highly successful.  Twenty four college teams benefited from the program’s resources. Now, NYC area colleges are invited to apply to join the third cohort, scheduled to begin meeting in February 2010.

A Year-Long Seminar program: The Making Connections program supports participating colleges in two ways. The first is a year-long seminar that helps schools work together to advance their understanding and use of ePortfolio. Building a dialogue that joins two- and four-year schools, the seminar highlights new ways to enhance student learning and address issues of transfer, articulation, and assessment. Issues to be explored include:

• What is the state of the literature on ePortfolio? What are the key questions? Who leads the field? What do we know from case studies? What findings and evidence have shaped the emerging discourse?

• How can ePortfolio be used to enrich and transform student learning? What kinds of pedagogies are most effective in using ePortfolio as a learning tool? How can ePortfolio support integrative learning strategies? What is the role of reflection? What do we know about the impact of ePortfolio on student engagement? On student learning outcomes?

• How can ePortfolio be used to support new approaches to assessment? Can ePortfolio be an effective tool to help colleges and programs meet the demands of outcomes assessment, accountability, and accreditation? What are the challenges related to this usage? What are examples of good practice in this area?

• How might students use ePortfolio for transfer?  As more and more students move from college to college, how can we help them carry their learning with them?  What could colleges do to recognize and use ePortfolio in the transfer process? How might faculty and staff use ePortfolio to help transfer students succeed?  How could colleges begin to facilitate this usage of ePortfolio?

• What technology tools are available for ePortfolio? What tools and systems are most user friendly?  Most effective for enhanced learning? For assessment? What are the costs involved? What are the possibilities for use of new Open Source technologies?

• How can an institution move forward in implementing ePortfolios? What are the key questions?   What kinds of resources are required? What models and strategies have proven to be effective?

Led by an experienced ePortfolio faculty/staff team from LaGuardia, the Making Connections Seminar engages teams of educators in a collective inquiry process. The program’s third cohort will meet monthly, from February--December 2010, drawing on questions, insights and experiences from participating campuses and the growing national literature. Participants will use their learning to advance the ePortfolio work taking place in their classrooms and campuses: setting their own goals, documenting their innovations, and evaluating progress at year’s end.

Mini Grants: In addition to the collaborative support provided by the seminar process, Making Connections provides each participating college with a mini-grant of $5,000 to be used to advance their work with ePortfolio during the first year of participation. Members of participating faculty/staff teams receive an additional $1,000 individual stipend in the first year to recognize their participation and campus leadership role.  (Limit of three per college.)   Depending on availability of additional funding, teams that successfully complete the first year will be eligible to apply for another 6 months of participation and support.

Applications:  Please use the attached form to prepare an application for the 2010 Making Connections program.  For questions and assistance, please contact LaGuardia’s Making Connections coordinator, Dr. Judit Torok, jtorok@lagcc.cuny.edu or call (718) 482-5499.

 

Eligibility:
Teams from two- and four-year colleges and universities from the New York metropolitan area interested in or already actively using ePortfolio. The thematic focus for Cohort C of Making Connections is broad.  We are looking for teams from campuses focused on the use of ePortfolio in General Education; or campus focused on the use of ePortfolio in professional programs, where students’ portfolios could be presented to potential employers (i.e. Engineering, Fine Arts, Design and Fashion, Digital Media Studies, Teacher Education, Nursing Education, Environmental Studies and Communication). Teams must include two or three representatives, who can be either faculty or staff; at least one person on each team must be faculty.  We welcome teams from campuses where ePortfolio is still in the planning stage as well as campuses where ePortfolio is well established.  

NOTE:  Colleges with teams participating as Cohort A or Cohort B of Making Connections are NOT eligible to apply as part of Cohort C.  [Colleges participating in Cohort A are: Bronx Community College, City College of New York, College of St. Rose, CUNY Online BA, LaGuardia Community College, Lehman College, Norwalk Community College, Queens College, Queensborough Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Molloy College, and St. John’s University; Colleges participating in Cohort B are: Brooklyn College, College of Staten Island, Empire State College, Hunter College, Long Island University, Montclair State University, Queensborough Community College, Rutgers University, Three Rivers Community College, Tunxis Community College and Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Engineering.]

Spring 2010 Seminar Schedule	Fall 2010 Seminar Schedule
Fridays 9 am – 1 pm	Fridays 9 am – 1 pm
February 5, 2010 March 12, 2010 April 23, 2010 May 7, 2010	September 10, 2010 October 15,  2010 November 12, 2010 December 10, 2010
Summer Institute 9 am to 4 pm June 22-25,  2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Application Process:
Teams complete application and return to Dr. Judit Torok (jtorok@lagcc.cuny.edu) by 5:00 pm on November 19, 2009. For more information, contact: Making Connections coordinator Dr. Torok (jtorok@lagcc.cuny.edu ).  Dean Bret Eynon (beynon@lagcc.cuny.edu) and Prof. Max Rodriguez (rodriguez@lagcc.cuny.edu), and Prof. Clarence Chan (cchan@lagcc.cuny.edu) can also answer questions.  Application review will be conducted by LaGuardia’s Center for Teaching and Learning. 

 

As a part of your application, please provide the following information:

1. College/ University
2. Focus Department or Program
3. Participating Faculty/Staff: name, title, and contact information (mailing address, telephone, and email).
4. Application Essay (See below)
5. Budget and Budget Narrative (Please detail your proposed usage of the $8,000 mini-grant ($5000 + $3000 stipends), using the attached budget form.
6. Commitment to seminar participation.  (“We have checked seminar dates listed above and we can commit to attendance and participation in program-related learning, collaboration and documentation.”)
7. Signatures of Participating Faculty/Staff
8. Signature of Supervising Administrator (Chair, Dean, or Vice President, as appropriate)

Application Narrative: no more than 1,000 words addressing the following questions:

1. Briefly describe your campus’ work with ePortfolio. How is ePortfolio currently used? What evidence suggests the degree of institutional interest in ePortfolio?   
2. Please discuss your teams’ goals for using ePortfolio, in terms of learning, assessment and transfer.  What do you hope to accomplish, in terms of learning?  Does (or will) ePortfolio play a role in outcomes assessment?  What possibilities can you envision for using ePortfolio to support students as they transfer across institutions?  How could your participation in Making Connections help your campus address these goals?
3. What experiences and qualifications do the individuals on the team bring to the seminar? What roles do you play on campus that would help you advance the use of ePortfolio? What in your background will help you contribute to the seminar and the program?  
4. Why do you, as members of this team, want to participate in this seminar? What are your goals?  What aspects of ePortfolio most interest you? What do you hope to learn?

 

Making Connections Mini-Grants Budget Information
Please detail your proposed use of the $8,000 mini-grant, using a form based upon the Sample Budget Form, below. Please include a Budget Narrative to provide necessary information that does not fit easily into the budget itself.

 

Please identify the fiscal agent or office for the grant, including contact information: