I discuss my engagement with three professional recognition and development opportunities for academic developers: Senior Fellowship of HEA, HERDSA Fellowship, and SEDA Fellowship. I found that the portfolios for these fellowships complement one another well, and together present a valuable reflection on all aspects of the academic development…

Composition professionals in post-secondary institutions--composition faculty, writing program administrators, and technology staff--share concern and responsibility for helping students learn to write at a college level, using the most effective communication technologies. Disciplinary practice and research suggest that portfolio assessment has…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) designed the portfolio model based on the idea that we should move away from a "school system" to, instead, "a system of schools." In essence: school boards should focus on overseeing a "portfolio" of distinctive schools rather than directly running a set of…

Writing and communication are essential skills for success in the workplace or in graduate school, yet writing and communication are often the last thing that instructors think about incorporating into a mathematics course. A mathematical modeling course provides a natural environment for writing assignments. This article is an analysis of the…

In this interview, JD Brown reflects on language testing/assessment. He suggests that language testing can be seen as a continuum with hard core positivist approaches at one end and post modernist interpretive perspectives at the other, and also argues that norm referencing (be it proficiency, placement, or aptitude testing) and criterion…

This article reports on an interview with Marcia McCaffrey, the state arts consultant for the New Hampshire Department of Education and current president of the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE). The discussion revolved around how the new arts standards may interact with evolving structures of arts teacher evaluation…

In this article, the author argues first, that critical-thinking skills do exist independent of disciplinary thinking skills and are not compromised by interaction effects with the major; and second, that standardized tests (e.g., the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA, which is his example throughout the article) are the best way to measure…

Scholars and teachers within the field of composition have long heralded the merits of reflective writing. Whether written intermittently throughout a course or near the end (typically in the genre of portfolio cover letter), reflective writing assignments are thought to promote cognitive development by helping students become more aware of their…

The aim of this anecdotal essay is to encourage college lecturers and classroom teachers to examine and articulate their personal instructional theory. This is important for two reasons. One, doing so brings an awareness of personal instructional practices, and two, it is an important facet of the scholarship of teaching and learning. To achieve…

This paper outlines the potential of the portfolio as a product of doctoral work, especially in the Professional Doctorates. It compares the traditional mode of a single, lengthy but clearly focused doctoral dissertation with the portfolio as a collection of shorter research reports, held together by a linking paper articulating the thesis. We…

Advanced Placement (AP) Studio Art is an influential force in secondary art education as is evident in the 31,800 portfolios submitted for review in 2008. From the perspectives of a high school educator and AP Reader, this author has observed how the constraints of the AP program can be used to generate support for high school art programs and…

The purpose of this essay is to instruct teachers how to write a letter of recommendation for their students. It includes when to say no, what the student needs to provide the teacher and how to write a strong letter. I am a teacher with sixteen years experience and therefore have written many letters for students. This instructional essay will…

The paper critically discusses key theoretical concepts and definitions attached to the notion of a "plurilingual social actor", and assesses their impact and implications for European language policies and for the development of plurilingualism and citizenship in schools. (Contains 11 notes.)

Over the past few decades, educators in general, and language teachers in specific, were more inclined towards using testing techniques that resembled real-life language performance. Unlike traditional paper-and-pencil language tests that required test-takers to attempt tests that were based on artificial and contrived language content,…

Academic institutions mediate online literacy practices in meaningful and significant ways. This essay explores the nature of that mediational process, using a visual-spatial method to map out and conceptualize dynamics and structures that have a bearing on the work of composition. A key argument is that composition teachers are intellectually…