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What to Include in Your Learning Portfolio

What to Include in Your Learning Portfolio

A learning portfolio is a professional representation of your academic career that you can use to exhibit evidence of your academic accomplishments.  You will want to represent yourself to the best of your ability and provide accurate and relevant information.  This page will help you create the best learning portfolio possible.

Basic Learning Portfolios:

Basic learning portfolios are mainly descriptive.  This is a great place to start creating your own portfolio:

  • "About Me" :  This might include a picture of you, a brief description of you (who you are, what you do, where you have gone to school, etc.), and contact information
  • Goals:  This will help you illustrate your academic and professional development goals
  • Academics/education:  This is the most important portion of your learning portfolio!  It is critical to keep this section organized and include relevant evidence of your academic achievement (artifacts, etc.)

Indicators of a basic learning portfolio:

  • Simplistic, provides few details, and includes a limited number of artifacts
  • Goals are generally broad (i.e. 'graduate within four years')

High-Quality Learning Portfolios:

Once you have created a basic portfolio, you can begin to add in more meaningful components. In addition to the components of a basic learning portfolio, high-quality learning portfolios may also include:

  • Expanded academics:  As you take more classes, you can begin to expand upon your academic achievements.  You might begin to look at your general education experience as a whole, begin to consider goals for coursework in your major, or discuss how a learning community such as LEAP or Honors has inspired you, for example.
  • Extracurricular and co-curricular learning:  These activities may include participation in internships, clubs, student government, study abroad, community service, etc.  They may be included within your academic achievements or within a separate section of your portfolio.  Similar to the rest of your academic achievements, these activities should be organized in a coherent way and include relevant artifacts.  They should also be relevant to your academic and career goals.
  • Reflection:  Reflection is a tool that you can use to provide personal insight about yourself, or why you believe certain artifacts are relevant.  Reflective thinking also helps you to begin making connections between your courses and other experiences.  Reflection may be included throughout your portfolio (such as individual artifacts, periods of time, or long-term experiences).
  • Resume:  Uploading your resume (or creating a Web version) can help summarize and clarify relevant experiences outside of the classroom that you may be reflecting upon in your portfolio.

Indicators of a high-quality learning portfolio:

  • Comprehensive, yet intuitive
  • Up-to-date with relevant information and artifacts
  • Includes reflection that allows insight into your character and ability
  • Contains a number of artifacts
  • Goals are specific and varied

Optimal Learning Portfolios:

As you progress through your college career, you can add these elements to make your portfolio even more comprehensive:

  • MUSE experiences:  These are "signature" experiences that define your college career.  They can be included among your academics pages or as a separate entity.
  • Capstones:  Many departments and programs offer a "capstone", or final culminating course that brings everything together.  Your learning portfolio is a great place for you to discuss your capstone experience.
  • Best works:  This component allows you to display your best/most defining college work for outside parties to view.

Indicators of an optimal learning portfolio:

  • Generally for students who are near the end of their academic programs
  • Visually clean yet comprehensive
  • Shows a marked progression throughout your time at the U.
  • Provides interested parties with a clear, professional definition of you as a student

Other Relevant Information:

Other things to keep in mind while working on your portfolio:

  • Organization:  Make sure your portfolio is easy for others to navigate and understand.  You might want to have a classmate or an advisor explore your portfolio to help you with this.
  • Keeping your portfolio up-to-date:  Update your portfolio regularly.  This will help you start making connections among various courses and concepts as well as make sure that any outside parties have a current snapshot of your progress.
  • Formatting:  Make sure your pages and documents are formatted correctly, double-check links to make sure they are functioning, and watch for spelling and grammar mistakes.
  • Progression:  Your portfolio should ultimately show the progress you have made as a student.  You might want to include similar artifacts that demonstrate that progress (such as a yearly essay or a paper on similar subjects over the course of time).
  • Goals:  Having a clear, defined set of goals will help you structure your learning portfolio -- not to mention your academic career!  Goals can be career-oriented (i.e., becoming an orthopedic doctor), academically-oriented (i.e., getting into graduate school or a professional program), or personal (i.e., understanding how various disciplines fit into sustainability).  Don't be afraid to draw upon a number of different goals, but make sure they are genuine.  You might also want to provide a timeline for achieving your goals and create a separate section for those you have reached so far.