The
Personal Learning Planner:
Collaboration
through Online Learning and Publication
Bruce Havelock, RMC Research Corporation. Denver,
CO.
havelock@rmcdenver.com
David
Gibson, National Institute for Community Innovations, Montpelier, VT. dgibson@nici-mc2.org
Lorraine
Sherry, RMC Research Corporation, Denver, CO. sherry@rmcdenver.com
Abstract: This
paper discusses the online Personal Learning Planner (PLP) project underway at
the National Institute of Community Innovations (NICI), one of the partners in
the Teacher Education Network (TEN), a 2000 PT3 Catalyst grantee. The Web-based PLP provides a
standards-linked “portfolio space” for both works in progress and demonstration
collections of completed work, combined with structures to support mentorship
and advising centered around the improvement of work. In this paper, we describe the PLP’s
history and rationale, design, and some initial results of its use in pilot
programs, discussing the implications of lessons learned through these pilot
experiences that can inform the PLP’s effective use in teacher education. Early lessons from the field
show the cultural, pedagogical, and technological challenges and potentials of
basing performance reviews on collaboratively generated, standards-linked,
Web-based portfolio processes and products.
The
Personal and Professional Learning Planner and Portfolio (PLP), built by the
National Institute for Community Innovations (NICI), has been available for a
little over a year and piloted in preservice teacher education programs, K-12
schools, regional service centers and other local educational agencies. This tool for collaboratively discussing
and improving student work, linking that work to goals and standards, and
collecting it in a Web-based portfolio format, is uniquely suited to some of the
current challenges surrounding authentic assessment, digital literacy, and
collaborative reflection in teacher education. In this paper, we discuss the utility of
the PLP in teacher education; the PLP’s theoretical framework, design history,
and goals; and some early results of its implementation in a variety of
institutional contexts. Lessons
from these varied contexts serve to illuminate challenges and future goals that
will augment the effectiveness of the PLP in supporting a continuum of teacher
learning from preservice coursework through the duration of the teaching
career.
The
need for a Web-based tool focused on the improvement of preservice teacher work
has two parts. First, learners
benefit from feedback that comes from a diverse audience, yet preservice and
induction programs often have limited resources and structures that result in
scant feedback to aspiring teachers.
In these cases, the work of aspiring teachers frequently evolves in
relative isolation, potentially solidifying patterns of work that do not
naturally include constructive feedback as a natural part of work, leading to
the oft-lamented isolated teaching condition that persists in many schools
today. A Web-based professional
network can both help overcome this isolation, and just as importantly, it can
provide the future teacher with high quality information that might otherwise be
unavailable. The feedback from
multiple perspectives thus enabled can help teachers reflect on multiple
dimensions of their work.
Secondly,
our goals for preservice teacher education are evolving toward sophisticated
understandings of demanding and complex material. In addition to mastering subject matter,
thorough teacher education requires the development of a critical and reflective
stance towards the work of teaching and toward one’s own progress therein. To support this important work,
assessment of preservice and ongoing teacher education must evolve to match. In
small, personalized teacher preparation programs, preservice teachers may
benefit from interviews, observation, and feedback sessions related to their
work, but in many programs that experience is limited to the last few months of
preparation. Too often, assessment
of preservice teacher learning is a one-way interaction that takes place at a
single point in time—usually the end of a course in the preservice
curriculum. Ideally, assessment
should play a meaningful part in the ongoing learning of the person being
assessed, while providing information that helps advisors and mentors to support
the learner’s education. Rather
than an isolated measurement of skills or knowledge, effective assessment should
be dynamic and ongoing, forming an
integral part of the learning process (Shepard, 2000). This kind of effective and authentic
educational assessment should record problems encountered, decisions considered
and made, and the validation of the work produced—not just the final outcome.
The
dynamic online collaboration supported by the PLP performs these functions while
also putting the learner in a position of control of and responsibility for a
dialogue with advisors around his or her own learning. The PLP aims to create a longitudinal
multimedia record of growth and change in an aspiring teacher’s skills and
capabilities. As such, the PLP can
potentially document a future teacher’s progress through the learning/adoption
trajectory (Sherry, Billig, Tavalin, & Gibson, 2000), from learner to
adopter, co-learner, reaffirmer, and leader.
Although
not widespread, portfolios have been embraced in some corners of preservice
teacher education (cf. Andrews, Ducharme, & Cox, 2002). Among the purposes relevant to teacher
education that electronic portfolios can serve are Barrett’s (1998) diagnosis of
student learning, grading or proficiency testing, promotion or certification, or
as an aid to the job-seeking process.
Yet while the AAHE currently reports 61 institutions of higher education
that use electronic portfolios in some form, few if any of them at present
integrate all of the functions of meaningful reflection, ongoing dialogue, and a
platform for both ongoing and completed products. The PLP provides a “portfolio space” for works in progress and
demonstration collections of work, and multiple channels for communicating
around their creation,
revision, and assessment. By
flexibly serving these functions, the
PLP
is robust enough to meet the demands of ongoing, dynamic, authentic assessment
of growth in teacher knowledge and skills.
The online PLP allows all media formats, and a multiplicity of linkages
among learning goals or standards of performance, projects, and the evidence of
attainment of those goals and standards.
Distinct from electronic portfolios that concentrate on the presentation
and storage of completed work, the PLP concentrates on the continuous
improvement of work and the documentation of that improvement over
time.
The
Web-based application at the heart of the PLP has been developed over the last 3
years with funding from the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology
(PT3) program, as well as from work funded by the National Science Foundation
and the Technology Innovation Challenge Grant program.
The lineage of the PLP comes from two sources. One source was a bold move by a local
secondary school community in Montpelier, Vermont, which in 1993 placed
“individualized educational plans for every student” into its long-term
strategic plan. In 1995, this led
to the creation and implementation of a school-wide program to place personal
learning at the center of a continuous conversation involving all students,
their parents or guardians, and caring adults in a school. The University of Vermont provided
support and energy to this school-based development through the writings of
researchers and theorists such as Bentley (1999), Moffat (1998), Friedrichs
(2000), and Gibson (1999, 2000).
In
addition, early in its development, the concept of the Montpelier “PLP” was
picked up by the Regional Laboratory at Brown University and combined with
similar movements and interests in Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, and other
New England states. In Maine, for
example, the concept of personal learning took on a primary role in that state’s
new proposal for the reform of secondary schools. In other work of the Lab, the theme of
personalization became a crucial feature of the secondary school reform network
in the region, and was tied to the principles of Breaking Ranks, the reform monograph of
the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Thus, the concept of personalization of
learning as essential to educational reform is well founded in theory as well as
in practice.
The
PLP’s second thread of lineage came from the pioneering work of The WEB Project,
which used Web-based tools and networked communities to share and critique
original student work online. The
WEB Project provided a rich research base with which to explore online dialogue
and design conversations within a virtual community of learners and to define
the path by which teachers progress from learners to leaders with technology
(Sherry, 2000; Sherry, Tavalin, & Billig, 2000; Sherry, Billig, Tavalin,
& Gibson, 2000). The WEB
Project established a system that linked ten participating schools and districts
(including Montpelier High School) and multiple cooperating initiatives in
online discussions of student work.
Art and music students posted works in progress and received constructive
feedback from community practitioners and learners, based on their articulated
intentions for their works-in-progress.
Middle school students from three schools across Vermont conducted book
discussions, facilitated by staff from the Vermont Center for the Book and their
teachers. Teachers discussed
challenges, conducted action research, shared results, and co-developed rubrics
to assess instructional processes, progress, and outcomes. Through these efforts, The WEB Project
contributed substantially to knowledge of effective practice for conducting
online dialogue and design conversations.
Through
The WEB Project, teachers developed connections with and drew on the expertise
of other practitioners in their discipline from participating initiatives
throughout the state. For example,
art teachers and students shared online interactions with traditional artists,
graphic artists, and multimedia designers; and music teachers and students
carried on conversations with resident musicians, music teachers, and
composers. The
mentor-practitioners, in turn, were asked to give students feedback and
essentially became co-instructors in the course. This learning community resembled an
apprenticeship model, but it allowed for many mentors and was not constrained by
time or place.
The
secrets of The WEB Project’s success were many, but it is worth highlighting the
singular focus on creation of original student work, which ensured that online
dialogue remained centered around the learner (Sherry, 2000; Sherry, Tavalin,
& Billig, 2000). In The WEB
Project, “student work” included two important genres:
·
student-created
works
of traditional art, digital art, multimedia, and music, supported by student-initiated design conversations
with teachers, peers, and experts; and
·
student-moderated
dialogue with
reflective, threaded discussions about assigned language arts texts that focused
on controversial issues faced by middle school students.
In
the design conversations, the entire sequence of activity only began if and when
a student shared a work-in-progress and asked for specific feedback. If the work was shared too early, then
the request for feedback and the ensuing online interactions with experts was
too general and superficial. On the
other hand, if the request for feedback came too late, when the work was already
in its final form, the conversation was viewed by the learner as unimportant or
too critical. However, if the
student requested feedback at some optimum point when the work was already
posted on The WEB Project’s Web site in draft form, and if he or she was able to
articulate specific design problems that needed prompt attention, then the
community of experts was able to provide a useful range of practical suggestions
to be filtered, evaluated, and used for revision and refinement of the
work-in-progress. These qualities
of learner-centeredness, creativity, self-initiative, and intellectual focus
were carried forward into the Web-based PLP.
The
PLP is based on a theory of dialogue recently articulated by Gibson and
Friedrichs (Friedrichs, 2000; Friedrichs & Gibson, 2001). Friedrichs (2000) discusses four
distinct dialogue states for which supports were explicitly built into the
PLP:
1.
Sharing
experience
— listening to one’s own and others’ inner speech and natural attitude about a
skill or concept;
2.
Expressing
and examining diverse concepts
— recognizing conflicts; analyzing old and new concepts, models, and beliefs;
working in one’s zone of proximal development;
3.
Articulating
applications and understandings
— practicing new skills; combining old and new concepts; using others’ ideas;
using scaffolds to renegotiate understandings; and
4.
Communicating
new powers and creations
— celebrating effects of critical analysis.
The
premise of collaborative interaction as a basis for learning is consistent with
research focused on authenticity, use of technology to create problem-centered
learning teams, representation of complex dynamics in educational settings, and
e-learning (Carroll, 2000; Gibson, 1999; Gibson & Clarke, 2000; Newmann
& Wehlage, 1995; Sherry & Myers, 1998; Stiggins, 1997; Wiggins, 1989;
NSDC, 2001).
The
learner’s productivity and self-efficacy is the ultimate goal of the online
PLP. Work samples are the critical
source for evidence of learning, the documentation of progress, and the
verification that high standards have been achieved. By placing student work at the center of
the PLP, the learner is pushed to a higher standard of personal accountability
for the publicly visible quality of that work.
In
the PLP, learners pose questions to advisors; they develop, use, and compare the
value of a variety of learning assets — their strengths, interests, aspirations,
and community and personal resources—and they retain ultimate control over the
progress of their work, the integration of feedback they receive, and its
ultimate publication. This
decision-making power enhances learner motivation and develops a sense of
ownership of work products, resulting in final products of higher quality.
With
these concepts of learning in mind, and with funding from the U.S. Department of
Education under the PT3 program, NICI developed the first version of the PLP as
a “critical friends” online space to help future teachers assemble portfolios of
evidence showing that they meet the standards required for a teaching credential
or license. The PLP is designed to
assist aspiring teachers through the processes of:
·
self-assessing
of strengths, interests, and aspirations and their relationship to program
requirements;
·
planning
preservice education learning goals and projects;
·
linking
goals and projects to valued outcome standards;
·
creating
original multimedia work samples and sharing those with others;
·
receiving
high quality feedback from mentors, advisors, or other critical friends for the
consideration of their learning goals, improvement of their work, and
strengthening of their knowledge and skills;
·
documenting
and validating the achievement of learning goals; and
·
selecting
and preparing exhibits of learning.
The
PLP includes tools for online survey building and administration, developing
local standards and rubrics, organizing uploaded work in relation to those
standards and rubrics, forming learners and advisors into various communities,
and creating a completed Web-based portfolio product. The
PLP can be flexibly customized to serve the needs of practically any
outcome-oriented collaborative learning group. While most electronic portfolios
demonstrate either formative or summative learning, the PLP showcases
both.
In
practice, learners
in the PLP system articulate their goals for learning, reference those goals to
standards for work or knowledge introduced into the PLP by program
administrators, and upload computer files to the PLP server that exhibit their
progress toward meeting these goals and standards. Through a process of collaborative
reflection, assessment, and several iterations of multiple work products,
learners develop an electronic portfolio showing their growth and abilities;
this portfolio is then available to them as an exhibit of their growth and an
aid to their future career progression.
“Advisors”
and “Learners” exhibit specific technical characteristics in the context of the
PLP. Through the management
interface, Advisors are associated with one or more Learners. When a Learner’s goal or work is being
shared for critique and feedback, the Advisor can discuss, offer direct edits,
or validate the goal or work as adequate for its purpose. For example, an Advisor might validate a
goal as appropriate for completion of a secondary teaching license in science,
and validate a piece of work as evidence of achieving a standard of performance
linked to one or more goals. The
validation process can be formalized with rubrics or entered as narrative. Any rubric can be linked with any piece
of work as evidence. When a group
of Advisors scores work using a common rubric, a summative rubric can then be
built upon completion of their work.
As
the PLP evolves, so do its potential applications. While it is difficult to argue that any
technology is entirely value-free, the flexibility of the PLP allows for its
customization to fit the values of the groups that use it. In this section, we explore five such
applications in very different contexts, aiming to draw from this range of
experiences lessons that can inform the PLP’s continuing design and enhancement
to support preservice teacher education.
In
summer 2002, 31 sites were using the online PLP in support of an extensive range
of educational programs and networks.
Five of these sites were selected to explore initial reception of and
reactions to the PLP. To explore
the boundaries of the PLP’s flexibility, the sites were selected to illustrate
the issues involved with customizing the PLP to meet the distinct needs of five
very different learning communities.
Fourteen
participating program administrators completed surveys and were interviewed
about their experience with the PLP.
From the PLP environment itself, we examined (from six programs) the
uploaded program standards, the list of rubrics for evaluating learner work, the
surveys that had been created and administered within the PLP sites, and a
number of individual learners’ PLP pages that contained the work of individuals
and the commentaries of their mentors or advisors. Initial analysis of these data led to
the generation of several hypotheses about the critical tends in PLP
implementation. The data were then
re-examined to extract trends and potential lessons to guide the PLP’s future
development and implementation.
Initial
results affirmed that the PLP can effectively meet the needs of a wide range of
users. All five program
administrators felt that the purpose and functions of the PLP were appropriate,
useful, effective, powerful, and well suited to their intended audiences. After getting past the initial hurdles
of training and basic system familiarity, users found that the PLP resonated
with their ideas about cognitive coaching, peer mentoring, standards-based
instruction, and social learning.
Pilot users also found the design and management approach adopted by the
PLP design team to be very effective.
All five pilot users described a high level of support, responsiveness,
and personal attention from the design team.
By
the end of 2002, several more institutions had begun to use the PLP. At two of these sites, potentially
richer data were generated than had been available for two of the initial five
sites explored; the summaries below include two new sites and three that were
already using the PLP by summer 2002.
For each group of learners, distinctive features of the pilot experience
(as described by program administrators and research staff) are
summarized.
·
8th grade students in a public middle
school. A primary goal in this program was to
“boost student engagement… By
working through the goal setting and reflection process, [students] will be able
to articulate what they want to get out of school.” Supported by a dedicated program leader
(who is also the technical administrator), students in this group seemed
undaunted by the technical challenges, and posted more work than any other
single group in this sample, often proceeding through several drafts. Comments from teachers, while initially
somewhat superficial, began to show more substance as the process of providing
online comments on student work became more familiar to
them.
·
Attendees at an intensive two-day professional
conference session. The goal in this case was to extend
professional learning that had been initiated at a regional conference; however,
the PLP was also used here to prepare for a more effective conference-based
learning experience. The session
leader was able to review individual learning goals for nearly all of the
session participants before the conference took place, and alter her
instructional plan for the conference to accommodate those needs. After the conference, the attendees
continued to serve as a community of learners, providing input and advice on
each other’s work and extending the learning afforded by the
conference.
·
School administrators working with a regional service
organization. Though this group uploaded no work in
their early stages of PLP use, they completed a large number of surveys. The program administrator attributed
this to the fact that the surveys were analogous to an exit interview protocol
that was part of the existing program.
Similarly, this administrator focused on the “4-step work cycle” of the
PLP because it nicely matched the “4-step learning cycle” that was an existing
component of her program. The PLP
was set up for teams of administrators to function together as “Learner”
units. As these administrators in
general communicated infrequently and were geographically dispersed, the PLP
provided for “greater continuity between sessions and a sense of measurable
progress.”
·
Ph.D. students in an educational leadership
program. While no state standards existed for
doctoral students in this field, students developed their own goals and
standards for graduation (4 mandatory areas and 3 chosen by students) with input
from their advisory committees, and made early steps toward organizing their
works around those goals through the PLP.
Students in this program requested to be able to give each other
feedback, so all were given system rights as both Learners and Advisors. Some students started the process by
giving each other “fake” feedback to test the system, but comments tended to
develop more substance over time.
Learners also started to personalize their PLP portal pages and requested
more flexibility in doing so.
Participants in the program felt that the program as a whole had an
attitude that encouraged getting feedback for revision, which increased
receptivity to the PLP.
·
Preservice teachers in a preparation program for urban
teachers. In this program, candidates posted their
inquiries and their action research projects while building a profile that was
provided to hiring school systems as evidence of their competence. While initially, prospective teachers in
this program were not overtly enthusiastic about improving works in progress for
portfolio inclusion, the program administrator exerted considerable to effort to
make it clear that learners’ PLP work could play a crucial role in getting a
job, and that school systems were very interested in seeing documentation of
learner growth. It became clear in
the job market that participants who did develop portfolios through the PLP had
a distinct advantage over those who did not. The administrator then began lobbying
locally to have official program credit awarded for PLP portfolio development,
feeling strongly that the PLP enhanced both accountability and leadership among
participants.
While it is still too early to see the full potential of an evolutionary record of learner progress, signs are abundant in the pilot sites that the design goals of the PLP were meeting with some success. Several of the issues that emerged through examination of these particular sites are discussed below.
Implementation in a number of varied sites and contexts confirmed that the structures of the PLP are flexible enough to meet the needs of every permutation of learning community yet encountered. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with several aspects of the PLP’s flexible design, including the easy customization of roles and groups; the ability to develop different sets of standards, goals, rubrics, and surveys for those groups; and the natural affordance of technology to transcend traditional boundaries of distance or time.
The nature of PLP-embedded
information about student progress and growth over time provided many learners
and advisors with a strong sense of the power of diagnostic assessment of their
works in progress. They also began
to comprehend and value the linkage of their work to personal goals and
institutional standards, and the importance of a record of continuity and growth
in their learning experiences. In
many settings, learning was both supported and extended through the ongoing
reflection and dialogue supported by the PLP’s structure. However, this complex vision of learning
and assessment also accounted for difficulties as well: many
challenges in implementation stemmed from the observed fact that the vision of
learning and assessment as a process in addition to a product was difficult for
participants at various institutions to incorporate into their practice.
In each of the explored pilot sites, effective program ownership and advocacy to build interest, enthusiasm, and commitment around use of the PLP was perceived as a critical factor supporting implementation. Some sites experienced difficulty stemming from different personnel being responsible for the technical and the conceptual ownership of the PLP at their site. Where these functions were consolidated in one person, that program tended to be successful. In several settings, both users and advisors were less active in their engagement with the PLP until advocates insured that it either became part of their programmatic requirements, or explicitly demonstrated its utility in helping meet their larger personal and professional goals. The presence, commitment, and informed outreach efforts is likely to play a key role in the PLP’s future sustainability among existing and new learner communities.
Perhaps the most powerful and challenging process
observed at each of the PLP sites was the intersection of existing cultural
norms with some of the changes in thinking and practices implied by the approach
to learning, assessment, standards, and mentorship embedded in the PLP. On one level, the importance of
considering participants’ experience with portfolio systems prior to using the
PLP was very evident among the pilot users (cf. Barrett, 1998). In a deeper sense, the cultural or
institutional practices and prior experiences of different pilot groups strongly
influenced their initial engagements with the PLP. Beyond their experience with paper
portfolios, different groups had varying types of norms in place surrounding
many aspects of their work with the PLP.
This included at various times participant conceptions of mentorship,
reflection, the purpose of a portfolio-like collection of work, the relevance of
such a portfolio to their jobs and careers, the idea of assessment as entailing
a fixed-point evaluation of a finished product, and familiarity with and ideas
about content standards. As users
became more familiar with the PLP, some tentative reconsideration of norms of
teaching and learning—visible through more reflective comments, active
engagement with PLP work, and descriptions of such changes by program
administrators—were evident as risk-taking and experimentation with the PLP was
supported and encouraged.
Participants’ most effective initial engagements with
the PLP—those that led to increased buy-in and participation—centered on aspects
of its design that were analogous to structures and practices with which
participants were already familiar. Expectations and rewards for participation
also tended to be closely tied to existing program structures. All
potential users of an innovation need to be persuaded of the viability and
relevance of a new way of doing things (cf. Rogers, 1995). In these cases of PLP implementation,
those “selling points” were exploited from various angles by the above-mentioned
program advocates who recognized a match between these points of leverage and
existing institutional values and conditions. In some
cases, this constituted the 4-step work cycle or the survey component; for a
group that had more extensive experience linking work to standards, creating
standards-linked individual goals was a logical first step.
In
each case, the approach to learning, assessment, and collaboration embodied in
the PLP and embodied in each institution intersected to create a unique PLP site
reflecting those aspects of the PLP approach that most fit the given context for
implementation. This is likely to
be equally true in other programs with their differences in size, scope, and
institutional history.
Understanding the relative important of these contextual factors in other
programs may help potential adopters consider the relevance of the PLP to their
settings, while also helping to identify areas where leaders may wish to
instigate or catalyze cultural and institutional change. In all cases, the PLP fostered
conditions of increased accountability for both learners and advisors, to each
other as well as to the institutional standards that they were charged with
meeting. Through this lens, it will
be helpful for new adapters to conceptualize the PLP as a way to reify, enhance
and reflect on institutional norms rather than replace them.
We have described the design rationale and early stages of execution of the PLP, or Personal Learning Planner, a Web-based application system designed to provide a flexible environment for standards-based work and mentorship. We have also seen that effective use of the PLP will imply cultural changes for many institutions as they rethink the demanding nature of in student-mentor relationships, standards-linked performance, and ongoing documentation of professional learning. As use of the PLP scales to wider audiences, it may be worthwhile to develop tools and protocols to help understand the dimensions that will influence the cultural fit of the PLP with candidate groups of learners.
Initial forays into the PLP medium provided participants
with opportunities for rehearsal of new norms and conventions for working,
interacting, reflecting, and providing feedback in this environment. Each of these forays that we have seen
resulted in a feedback loop of positive reinforcement that added momentum to
leaner participation. In a paradox
that is common to many such innovations, to fully achieve maximal learning
benefits through the PLP requires an up-front period of investment in which
those benefits may not be readily apparent. To date, several sites that have
attempted to use the PLP have been able to develop their work for a long enough
period and in such a way as to foster a self-sustaining critical mass of
interest and participation. Part of
this success at sustaining early engagements is attributable to the high level
of personal support provided to pilot sites by the development team. As
use of the PLP expands to a wider audience of learning communities, the team
will continue to explore structures and roles that can provide this high level
of personalized support and customization on a larger scale. Addressing these issues, and further
understanding other keys to achieving that level of interest and participation,
will be a critical part of sustaining the PLP beyond the duration of its initial
funding period.
While high standards for education are mandated by
accountability legislation, few educators are at present adequately familiar
with the standards relevant to their practice to implement them fully. One of the outcomes that PLP
participants valued was increased familiarity with these standards—both on the
part of learners and their administrators.
The linking and goal-setting features of the PLP provide an unprecedented
dimension of interactivity to standards, and force consideration of their
relevance to one’s actual work. As the climate around standards becomes more
imperative, the PLP is likely to find new audiences that will further contribute
to its sustainability. As a
component in preservice teacher education, the PLP can help future and existing
teachers arrive in the workforce well-versed in thinking through the complex
interaction of standards with their work, prepared to collaboratively reflect on
their importance and attainment, and able to powerfully demonstrate their
results.
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