GRANTS |
Innovation and Incubator Grants from the University System of Georgia |
Career Readiness ePortfolios in General Education Courses
Georgia Gwinnett College
2025
Project Lead:
Karen Perell-Gerson
QEP Director & Professor of Exercise Science
Project Overview:
Georgia Gwinnett College’s Quality Enhancement Plan, the Experiential Learning and Critical Thinking (EXACT) Plan, is committed to expanding student access to two high impact practices (HIPs), experiential learning and ePortfolio-based reflection, as means of developing critical thinking. Through intensive training of faculty to develop and integrate EXACT curriculum into courses, the EXACT Plan seeks to embed experiential learning and reflection throughout the Core IMPACTS framework and center its high impact practices within GGC’s academic programs.
Core IMPACTS, the new USG General Education curriculum provides a solid foundation for life, learning, and careers. The IMPACTS Core is structured across seven areas: Institutional Priority; Mathematics and Quantitative Skills; Political Science and U.S. History; Arts, Humanities and Ethics; Communicating in Writing; Technology, Mathematics and Sciences; Social Sciences (https://www.usg.edu/curriculum/core-impacts).
During its first year of implementation, the EXACT Plan focused on integration of EXACT-approved activities into two courses of two separate disciplines in two core IMPACTS domains. Expansion of EXACT-approved activities into an increasing number of core IMPACTS domain courses is planned for the additional four years of the QEP. This contrasts with traditional experiential learning activities which are often limited to upper division courses assuming that students need a certain amount of prerequisite knowledge prior to doing these types of activities. This is problematic for two reasons. The first is that in-depth critical thinking reflection must be taught and practiced. If reflection, a hallmark of experiential learning, is only first introduced in senior level courses, the depth of reflection can not necessarily be expected to demonstrate capstone level critical thinking skills. The second is often students do not see how the general education courses integrate into their major. With the initiation of the new Core IMPACTS General Education program and its focus on career readiness, experiential learning activities should be embedded into these lower division courses to provide a pathway between skills learned in General Education and those necessary to be career ready. Instead of just a sentence on a syllabus explaining how the course is related to career readiness, we propose to embed experiential learning activities related to the course material designed to demonstrate how the material provides career readiness skills for the students. Further, students will practice critical thinking reflection skills from the beginning of their academic journey to prepare them to be stronger at this skill as they progress through their academic career. Critical thinking skills represent skills that employers value and the experiential learning experiences represent opportunities that employers say give job applicants a career advantage. Additionally, the ability to reflect and articulate on one’s accomplishments is considered of benefit by employers (AACU, 2021).
This proposal’s primary objective is to provide a uniform ePortfolio that students can utilize throughout their core IMPACTS domains to showcase their understanding of the career readiness skills that they learned from each course. The ePortfolio will provide a collection device for students’ work and can serve as an assessment tool for the effect of the core IMPACTS courses on career readiness from the student’s perspective.
The primary objectives of this program would be:
• Increase experiential learning activities into General Education core IMPACTS domain courses
• Increase critical thinking skills through increased experiential learning reflection artifact opportunities
• Facilitate reflection of career readiness competencies within core IMPACTS domain courses
The most notable challenge to the successful creation and implementation of an ePortfolio across core IMPACTS domain courses is faculty buy-in. While the software (Watermark Student Learning & Licensure (SL&L)) enables students to maintain an ePortfolio across multiple courses, reflections may be seen by faculty as “extra work.” Within the EXACT-approved courses, faculty do facilitate reflection artifacts through the SL&L software by developing experiential learning activities which correspond to critical thinking reflections. The creation of a uniform ePortfolio as an opportunity for EXACT-approved activities may make it easier for faculty to develop EXACT courses, thus, potentially increasing faculty buy-in.
REFERENCES:
• AAC&U (2021). How College Contributes to Workforce Success: Employer Views on What Matters Most. https://www.aacu.org/research/how-college-contributes-to-workforce-success
• USG Core Impacts (2025) https://www.usg.edu/curriculum/core-impacts
Project Description:
As the core IMPACTS domain courses focus on career ready competencies, it is critical that students not only recognize the importance of these courses to their future career goals, but that the students learn how to articulate how these courses contribute to their career readiness. This is done best through reflection since it is through reflection that students demonstrate their learning. As John Dewey stated, “We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience” (Dewey, 1993). Specifically, Kolb & Kolb (2006) suggested that learning is “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience.” (pg. 47). This represents the Experiential Learning Cycle presented in Kolb (1984) adapted from the Lewinian Model of Action Research and Laboratory Training. Reflection through an ePortfolio is an explicit component of experiential learning as a high impact practice. The ePortfolio serves as the collection device and since it can transcend courses, it provides students with an opportunity to collect the reflections and artifacts across their academic journey initially through the core IMPACTS domains but potentially expanding into major courses. The ePortfolio will showcase the importance career ready competencies necessary for students and serve as an opportunity for us to truly access the students’ perceptions of these career readiness competencies learned through the core IMPACTS domain courses.
REFERENCES:
• Dewey, John (1993). How We Think: A Re-Statement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Education Process.” DC. Health & Co., Boston.
• Kolb AY, Kolb DA (2006). Learning styles and learning spaces: A review of the multidisciplinary application of experiential learning theory in higher education in Learning Styles and Learning. Editors Sims RR and Sims SJ. Pp 45-91. Nova Science Publishers Inc. ISBN 1-59454-608-8
• Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. http://academic.regis.edu/ed205/Kolb.pdf
SUMMER 2025: A faculty member specifically trained to utilize the SL&L software will develop a uniform ePortfolio that will serve as a model to transcend core IMPACTS domain courses. The ePortfolio will focus on the career readiness competencies specific for each domain through the use of experiential learning activities developed within the course. A reflection prompt will be developed for each career readiness competency within each domain that focuses students’ reflections on their understanding of the career readiness competency address in the course. The prompt will focus on having students write a brief reflection related to the specific career readiness competency and give examples of work products as artifacts. These prompts will be developed in consultation with the Director of Career Services to ensure that they accurate represent career readiness competencies. The reflections will provide not only the explicit information about the skills but also enables the students to provide their understanding of how the course facilitated those skills. The SL&L faculty member will work with course coordinators of proposed EXACT courses during the EXACT Plan summer bootcamp to determine which core IMPACTS domain courses will serve as the pilot course for Fall 2025.
FALL 2025: The career readiness ePortfolio will be piloted as an option for an EXACT course starting in Fall 2025. Potential courses will be CHEM 1211K – Principles of Chemistry I with lab, ENGL 1102 – English Composition II, HIST 1112 – Survey of World History/Civilization II, and/or ITEC 1001 – Introduction to Computing. These courses represent different domains within the core IMPACTS and as such will address different career readiness competencies. Section faculty within one of these courses will be asked for their optional participation in the career readiness ePortfolio. Section faculty and their students participating in the use of the career readiness ePortfolio will be surveyed to determine ease of use, engagement, and opinions of career readiness competencies reflections and experiential learning activities associated with the course. In addition, EXACT faculty assessors will evaluate the current critical thinking skillset prompts versus the new career readiness prompts. This evaluation will provide insight to whether the reflections and artifacts developed by the students are effective for the EXACT Plan assessment process.
SPRING 2026: The career readiness ePortfolio pilot begun in Fall 2025 will be continued and expanded as an option for another EXACT course within the core IMPACTS domains. Section faculty and their students participating in the use of the career readiness ePortfolio will be surveyed, as well as surveying the EXACT faculty assessors similarly to Fall 2025. Following the two pilot semesters, the EXACT faculty statistician will conduct analysis and share summative results and recommendations with the EXACT director and the EXACT Plan Advisory Committee.
Project Outcomes:
The deliverables are:
• A career readiness ePortfolio template that can be utilized across core IMPACTS domains demonstrating what students are actually learning about the career readiness competencies in their own words and choice of artifacts representing these career readiness competencies.
• An increased number of students utilizing the high impact practice of experiential learning reflection and ePortfolios.
• An increased number of students accustomed to reflective skills earlier in their academic career via an increased number of opportunities to reflect.
Once the career readiness ePortfolio template is built and tested, it will only need to be minimally maintained by the EXACT Plan staff. It will also enable the EXACT Plan to expand throughout the core IMPACTS domain courses more rapidly through uniform reflection activities. Faculty curriculum designers can utilize this as an option, particularly for large section courses more easily than developing multiple experiential learning experiences as originally proposed. Thus, more students will be exposed to high impact practices throughout more courses beginning at the core IMPACTS domain level. This will enable students to hone their reflective skills earlier and integrate core IMPACTS domain courses into their career readiness skillsets sooner. Not only will they be told how these courses integrate with their career plans, but the students will also articulate how the courses integrate with their career plans.
