Peer Reviewed Journal via three different mandatory reviewing processes, since 2006, and, from September 2020, a fourth mandatory peer-editing has been added.
Inspired by self-directed learning (SDL) theories, this paper
uses learning portfolios as a reflective practice to improve
student learning and develop personal responsibility, growth
and autonomy in learning in a Visual Arts course. Students
use PowerPoint presentations to demonstrate their concepts
by creating folders that are linked to e-portfolios on the
University website. This paper establishes the role of learning
e-portfolios to improve teaching and learning as a model of
reflection, collaboration and documentation in the making of
art as a self-directed process. These portfolios link students’
creative thinking to their conceptual frameworks. They also
establish a process of inquiry using journals to map students’
processes through their reflections and peer feedback. This
practice argues that learning e-portfolios in studio art not only
depends on a set of objectives whose means are justified by
an agreed end but also depends on a practice that engages
students’ reflection about their actions while in their art-
making practice. Using the principles of the maker as the
intuitive and reflective practitioner, the making as the
process in which the learning e-portfolios communicate the
process and conceptual frameworks of learning and the
eventual product, and the made as evidence of that learning
in light of progress made, this paper demonstrates that
learning-in-action and reflecting-in and-on-action are driven
by self-direction.
With technology, students bring their learning context to bear
with the use of SDL. Students’ use of PowerPoint program
technology in making their portfolios is systematic and builds
on students’ competencies as this process guides students’
beliefs and actions about their work that is based on theory
and concepts in response to a visual culture that is Trinidad
and Tobago. Students’ self–directed art-making process as a
self directed learning, models the process of articulated
learning. Communicating about learning in this way provides
a complete and whole picture approach of all the variables of
thoughts collected and presented to allow students to see
themselves as learners positioning themselves to test the
validity of their beliefs and actions within their communities
in and out of the classroom.
The e-learning portfolios are succinct in the way they scaffold
students’ intentions and realize students’ appraisal of new
ideas tested on how learning has occurred. They see a total
package of their ideas that engages their audience whether
live or electronic. Students see the conceptualization of their
ideas as concepts of whole self, whole learners in defining
their sense of space in this culturally diverse place of
Trinidad and Tobago.
