The project involves establishing a technical solution for digital portfolios in CANVAS, inviting selected teachers and students to explore the digital learning portfolios in practice, and monitoring the process from a research perspective with a view to developing knowledge about the opportunities, challenges and experiences that the teachers and students encounter.
Digital portfolios could serve a number of purposes for students and teachers. A digital learning portfolio will allow the student to monitor, evaluate and reflect on their artistic development and profile and thus help the student with self-assessment.
From the teacher’s perspective, the portfolio could provide a richer and more holistic basis for formative assessment since it can highlight the student’s work in different performance, reflective and theoretical contexts. Secondly, the portfolio could make communication between teachers of different subjects easier and more effective.
The project includes a significant research element which is based on past research into formative assessment in music education. Portfolio assessment is in itself a practical form of assessment in music education (Elliott 1995), partly because it allows for assessments of authentic student works and formative feedback. However, we do not know how long teachers and students should work together before a digital portfolio begins to promote learning, nor how potential obstacles could prevent the effective use of the portfolios as a learning tool in higher music education. These are some of the questions that the project will seek to answer.