Portfolio of Learning

It is important for students to understand how the China Center faculty structure and evaluate experiential learning and how students are expected to document this type of learning. Our approach to experiential learning is given form and content in five major ways:

• through a Learning Plan formulated jointly by the student and her or his Faculty Adviser;

• through regular advising sessions, in which a student's ongoing work is reviewed and suggestions are made for proceeding;

• through presentations given before the learning community in which students reflect on, organize and orally present their study as a means of clarifying their learning and giving others the opportunity to benefit from what each student has learned;

• through writing a Portfolio of Learning in which learning is documented, analyzed, presented and reflected upon;

• through faculty evaluation of the Portfolio of Learning, the basis upon which students receive feedback on their work and upon which credit is granted.

Learning Plan

Every student prepares a learning plan to outline the course of study he or she intends to pursue by the second week of the semester, which is due to the Faculty Adviser together with the China Center Contract. Preliminary planning for the semester is essential to the educational process. As students determine their own courses of study in conjunction with their Faculty Advisers, it is essential to prepare a plan that outlines not only a course of study but also goals and learning objectives for the semester. Learning plans help students to conceptualize, define, organize, plan, execute, analyze and document their learning experiences.

In addition to helping the student plan the semester, the learning plan also functions as a sort of contract between the student and her or his advisor. The student and Faculty Adviser formalize this contract using the Learning Plan Form, which is a signed agreement between the student and Faculty Adviser that clearly states the course title and description, credit and credit distribution requested by the student, and the requirements for credit, to be determined by the course instructor and Faculty Adviser. Narrative evaluations at the conclusion of the semester will assess the quality of the student’s work, and partial credit may be awarded by the advisor if the student fulfills only part of the requirements agreed upon. This agreement may be renegotiated by the Faculty Adviser and student as needed over the course of the semester, but all Learning Plans must be included in the Portfolio of Learning due at the end of the semester. The Student Learning Plan and the China Center Student Contract forms are available on the Download Forms page of this website and from the student’s Faculty Adviser.

Portfolio of Learning

The Friends World Program requires that each student produce a Portfolio of Learning in order to receive credit for the term’s work. The Portfolio of Learning is the concrete manifestation that serves to document a student’s learning during the course of a semester. While largely a written document, the portfolio may include slides, photos, paintings, sketches, tapes, videos, and any other alternative documentation that demonstrate learning acquisition and experience. Interviews, poetry, accounts of failures as well as successes, fiction, and other imaginative and creative elements are encouraged. The Portfolio should contain all those elements stipulated in the current Friends World Handbook, and should be divided into sections that reflect each course or area of exploration pursued during the period of study. The Faculty Adviser in charge of a particular student’s portfolio will evaluate the document according to the following criteria:

• A reasonable and logical structure

• A title page in addition to the title cover

• A table of contents

• A bibliography

• A reflective and honest self-evaluation

• Copies of all the student’s learning plans

• Documentation of all seminars, lectures, demonstrations, field trips, and other activities from the Area Studies seminars, language courses, electives, independent studies or internships

• Observation of the process of learning that transpired, to be written in a descriptive style

• Demonstration of understanding. This should include documentation of the student’s knowledge of the discipline undertaken, written in an analytical style and illustrating a theoretical or critical level of intellectual understanding

• Properly cited references

• Correct writing mechanics, including grammar, spelling, punctuation and proper integration of quotations

All portfolios should be submitted as one document in PDF format on a digital medium, such as a CD or DVD, although the student may also submit a printed copy for the library in addition to the digital copy, which must be professionally bound on standard A4 size paper, in order to facilitate shelving. It is the student’s responsibility to keep a second copy of this document for her or his own records in perpetuity.

A suitable length for a term’s work should be a minimum length of 2,500 words per credit for all courses, including but not limited to independent studies and internships, the length of which does not include learning plans and front and back matter, such as table of contents and bibliography. For those elective courses taken in the discipline of Crafts, Trades or Profession, and language courses, students must determine a means to document learning progress that can be objectively evaluated, in consultation with her or his Faculty Adviser. In addition, it is the student’s responsibility to submit the Foreign Language Evaluation Form to each language instructor and the Elective Evaluation Form to instructors of the taiji quan, Chinese painting, and calligraphy courses. These forms, which are available on the Grading Rubrics section of the Download Forms page of this website and from the student’s Faculty Adviser, should be submitted together with an envelope to each instructor two weeks prior to the last day of classes. The instructor should seal the evaluation in the envelope provided, sign across the seal, and return to the student by the last day of classes. The student should return these sealed evaluations to her or his Faculty Adviser by the end of the semester. These will be used by the Faculty Adviser, in addition to written and visual documentation of learning, to evaluate the student.

Students conducting independent study projects or internships may also include alternative and creative documentation, if such documentation is the means of demonstrating understanding, critical reflection and analysis of the subject, and not the subject itself. Such alternative documentation must, however, be substantial and demonstrate serious effort and thought on the part of the student, and may not account for more than twenty percent of the total documentation required, and must be accompanied by at least 2,000 words per credit of analytical writing.

Students are encouraged to seek extra credit by publishing portions of a Learning Portfolio online as a Friends World Podcast. For instructions how to create a Podcast, please see this tutorial.

Students working with visual media are also encouraged to publish an Electronic Study Abroad Portfolio with the Realia Project, which is currently targeting projects from China. Successful applicants to the Realia Project will receive free technical assistance and instruction on how to document visual aspects of the student's study abroad experience through digital media. Students involved in the project would take images based on specific topics and provide textual descriptions in English and Chinese based on metadata criteria set forth by the Realia project. The Relia Project is a nationally recognized, non commercial media project that serves a wide population of foreign language and culture instructors and learners. It recently has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand its collection. Projects selected for approval will be featured on the web site, listing the student and institution name and their complete collection, and participants will also receive recognition and a letter of gratitude from the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education. To learn how to contribute images and submit material to the Relia Project, please click here.

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