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Tips for using Portfolio Development for Learning
The process of portfolio development requires learners to be continually involved in their own learning. It also requires active involvement of a coach or mentor. Portfolio development is a flexible approach to learning because it can be tailored to course objectives, and to the learning styles and preferences of individual learners. Many learners have reported that portfolio development helped them to reflect on their experiences and abilities, and increased their interest in learning.
- Faculty support helps to enhance the credibility and subsequently the implementation of portfolios. It is, therefore, important that involved faculty support the use of portfolios for resident learning. This may be facilitated by including faculty in the planning process, providing faculty with evidence of successful portfolio use in education, and nurturing faculty roles as mentors and coaches.
- Effective use of portfolios requires a structure for integrating them into interactions between residents and their mentors or coaches. Such structure can be created by scheduling time to discuss portfolio content and by making such interactions part of the curriculum.
- Many residents may perceive portfolio development as busy-work and as a time-consuming activity. This perception may be mitigated by linking portfolio development to important positive consequences for residents. For example, showcase portfolios (i.e., portfolios that display examples of best work) may help residents to provide tangible evidence of their accomplishments to credentialing organizations or fellowship directors.
- Portfolio development will be easier to implement when it blends with existing resident activities or expectations. For example, if residents have to keep procedure logs for certification purposes, then such information could provide the basis for portfolio entries if residents were asked to use the logs to create a learning plan.
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