Students create their ePortfolios with TaskStream, which, as noted on its website, is web-based software with competency assessment capabilities that allow its licensees and users "to facilitate the alignment of skills requirements, standards and other performance indicators with work products, artifacts and other learner evidence."

Students learn how to use ePortfolios through an online training program that includes voice and video components. There is also a full-time trainer on the WGU staff who provides support as students go through the process of learning how to build their ePortfolios. The ePortfolios are housed on TaskStream servers through an Application Programming Interface (API) arrangement that ties the ePortfolios to WGU’s SCT Banner system.

Grading Performance Assessments

The Teachers College uses TaskStream as a highly efficient way to deliver performance assessments that students respond to online and where graders access the student’s work online. Performance assessments are located throughout the so-called "domains" and "subdomains" of every education program in the Teachers College, and they all contain multiple tasks, such as scored assignments, projects, essays and research papers. Each task also contains a grading rubric. Having students submit their completed tasks into their ePortfolios for archiving and grading has eliminated the need to e-mail tasks to students individually and then parcel the student’s work out to individual graders.

For example, under the "Foundations of Teaching" domain is a subdomain titled "Classroom Management" that has at least 10 tasks that a student is required to complete. When the student submits the completed task in Taskstream, it goes into what’s called a Direct Response Folio (DRF) where a grader goes in and assigns a grade of one to four (and feedback), with three being the minimum passing grade.

There are about 160 graders in the Teachers College. Graders must have at least a master’s degree in the area they are assigned to grade. Plans are to possibly double the number of graders working for WGU in the near future.

These rubric-driven performance assessments cross over multiple disciplines to measure competencies within each teacher certification program, including undergraduate degrees, post-baccalaureate certifications, and graduate degrees. The implementation of TaskStream within WGU allows students to show the growth in their work as they revise the assessments to meet the mastery level.

Where It All Comes Together

All this work throughout their education really comes to fruition when students complete the "Demonstration Teaching" component of their education. Demonstration Teaching is for teaching certification programs that require a live classroom teaching observation component, which WGU arranges through a 12-week, in-class teaching experience at schools that are close to where these WGU student-teachers live.

WGU’s Demonstration Teaching, for both undergraduate and graduate-level students, has a teacher work sample component that is aligned to the popular Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality rubric for assessing a P-12 (pre-school through 12th grade) teacher’s work. The teacher work sample is composed inside their ePortfolios and is structured around a unit that contains all the lessons plans and themes that cut across all the curricular areas the student teachers are working in. Referred to as a "Professional Portfolio," this particular ePortfolio houses representations of the results of their interactions, recommendations from colleagues and administrators, a variety of resume-like elements, and basically the full gamut of materials that these student-teachers need in order to document their experiences and competencies, says Janet Schnitz, executive director of the Teachers College.

A Professional Portfolio table of contents will include a student’s biography, a philosophy of teaching statement, a resume, examples of lesson plans and materials, a professional products section that will include a number of essays and evaluations, academic records, references, a statement on "why I want to be a teacher," the aforementioned comprehensive teacher work sample, and a reflection folio.

"We are very focused on measuring teacher effectiveness based on student results, and that comes out very clearly in the teacher work sample," Schnitz says.

The reflection folio is composed in a journal-style, or in a style similar to laboratory notes, as part of an online cohort seminar in which students interact with each other and a facilitator. Each week of the cohort seminar, students post their reflections on a variety of important topics related to their work, such as ethics within the classroom, or on other topics related to the challenges and issues they are dealing with as student teachers.

The Bottom Line

"Students have to be able to share and show their ability to master competencies, Schnitz explains. "Just putting out scores and objective test data is not enough. They have to really be able to demonstrate their abilities, and portfolios are a great way to do that. TaskStream is a robust environment for us. We are a big user, and they work with us to understand what our requirements are, and they help us maximize the use of the tool."