Critical Thinking Assessment via Eportfolio

Fatma SABRI
Université de Tlemcen ABOU BEKR BELGAID, Laboratoire ESPTLAB

Resumé

Tous les éducateurs – étudiants, enseignants et chercheurs – ne devraient pas être surpris que le monde de l’éducation aux langues change constamment; mettre en lumière de nouvelles exigences et de nouvelles compétences académiques et de vie. Par conséquent, vivre au 21ème siècle rend inconcevable de continuer à suivre la même approche centrée sur l’enseignant. Ainsi, le passage à une approche centrée sur l’apprenant est considéré comme le signe distinctif de cette nouvelle ère; particulièrement dans l’éducation post-secondaire. Pourtant, l’importance d’une telle approche en ce qui concerne l’autonomie et l’auto-évaluation n’est toujours pas considérée dans nos écoles et nos universités. Dans cette essence, l’enseignement des compétences du 21ème siècle et plus précisément de la pensée critique et des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) dans notre classe d’anglais comme langue étrangère est plus que jamais nécessaire; afin d’élever l’armure intellectuelle des étudiants. La pensée critique doit être nourrie en encourageant l’esprit des étudiants dans les meilleures pratiques pour leur permettre de voir le monde, ou des aspects cruciaux, à nouveau. Ensuite, grâce aux (TIC) et à un portefeuille électronique précis, l’évaluation de ces compétences pourrait être réalisée. Les modèles d’éducation traditionnels ne peuvent pas plus satisfaire les nouvelles demandes urgentes exigées dans l’enseignement, en particulier au niveau de l’université. Ainsi, l’utilisation du portfolio électronique comme outil pédagogique est le type d’innovation qui transformerait l’étudiant d’un apprenant passif en un apprenant actif. En conséquence, en tant que tel, impliquer les étudiants dans ce rôle actif est la base pour les cultiver à compter sur eux-mêmes en évaluant leur amélioration de manière autonome et finalement inciter leurs capacités de pensée critique.

Mots-clés: évaluation, portefeuille électronique, pensée critique, les étudiants.

Abstract

Undoubtedly all educators -teachers, researchers, and graduate students agree that the world of language education is changing consistently; bringing to light new demands and new academic and life skills. Consequently, living in the 21st century makes it unwise to keep following the same teacher-centred approach. Thus a shift to learner-centered approach is considered the hallmark of this new era; especially in post-secondary education. Yet, the emphasis of such approach with regard to autonomy and self assessment is still not deemed in our schools and colleges. In this essence, the teaching of the 21st century skills and most precisely critical thinking and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) in our English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom is needed now more than ever; in order to raise EFL students’ intellectual armor. Critical thinking needs to be nurtured through engaging EFL students’ minds in best practices to allow them to see the world, or crucial aspects of it, anew. Then, thanks to ICT and exactly electronic portfolio, the assessment of those skills might be achieved. Traditional education models can no more satisfy the novel urgent demands required in EFL instruction especially at the level of university. Hence, using e-portfolio as an ICT pedagogical tool is the kind of innovation; not only in teaching but also in testing; this would transform the student from a passive learner into an active learner. Accordingly, as such, involving the EFL students in that active role is the basis for cultivating them to rely on themselves via assessing their improvement in an autonomous way and eventually prompt their critical thinking abilities.

Keywords: assessment, eportfolio, critical thinking, EFL learners.

  1. INTRODUCTION

Despite the teachers as well as learners’ attempts to share meaning under the umbrella of learner-centred approach, but still one can notice that many instructions are delivered in a traditional way; in which learners are passively spoon fed. Expressed differently, there is a lack of awareness about the importance of critical thinking which is sine qua non prior to embarking students within the process of actively participate in their learning. In addition, there exists a certain consensus among scholars about the difficulty to teach and assess those skills. That is why; the complexity to assess critical thinking skills in a reliable and valid manner is considered another obstacle facing the integration of critical thinking skills within EFL instruction.

It has long been the hope behind university instruction, as a crucial slant for innovation, is to insert critical thinking within that significant stage of education and especially for first-year students who are fresh and more mature to receive this kind of new beginning in their educational career. “Many campuses have focused on first-year students in an effort to build foundations for critical thinking, engagement on campus, and commitment to college completion.” (Buyarski & Landis, 2014, p. 49).

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

An emergent body of research suggests that, “To adequately prepare – to become college and work ready – students and teachers must learn and share content within the context of 21st century skills.” (Pacific Policy Research Center, 2010, p. 18). In other words, both the teacher and the student need that kind of instruction which is drawn upon and within the framework of a critical and reflective; technical society and digital age. In order to illustrate clearly those skills; which are highly required for success, the Research Center demonstrates in an earlier page;

Today, much success lies in being able to communicate, share, and use information to solve complex problems, in being able to adapt and innovate in response to new demands and changing circumstances, in being able to command and expand the power of technology to create new knowledge. (ibid, p. 01).

In recent years, and behind the recent wide-world reform in education lies the fact of stressing the idea of life-long” and “life-wide learning” and of “critical thinking” which is the aim of any new educational programme (Mason, 2008). Likewise, Bhattacharya & Hartnett (2007) emphasize the prospective initiative of a “lifelong learning tool” and here they highlight the possible proposed model that of “e-portfolio”. Hence, to point up the weight of upgrading “meta-cognitive” practices so as to assist student “ownership” of their own learning and progress; Parkes, Dredger, & Hicks (2013) argue that ePortfolios are placed as pedagogical means to reach such comprehensible teaching and learning rather than view them as a collection of artifacts.

On the other hand, “ePortfolios have been looked to as a tool for the direct assessment of student learning.” (Buyarski & Landis, 2014, p. 49). According to Buyarski & Landis (2014), the clue and the hint used for assessment are concrete student’ s work; Thanks to ePortfolios, outlook of learning is provided which is not obtainable via traditional educational methodologies applied to assess the learners –here they mean assessment methodologies like surveys and exams ̶. In this regard, it is highly recommended to view eportfolio as a process through which learners reflect on their learning as well as a product. (Centre for Teaching Excellence [CTE], n.d.).

Thus ,to set it more briefly and more clearly, it is of paramount importance to mention that embedding eportfolios in Irish higher education is taken seriously though the adoption of it is taking a slow pace. Additionally, when digging deeper in recent research areas, one can easily notice attempts to link eportfolios with critical thinking. An example of that is Farrell’s PhD project; An exploration of criticality, reflective learning and eportfolios among third level learners’. Through this work Farrell suggests that; “Reflection is a critical process which supports the creation of an e-portfolio”, and when trying to answer the question: How can you use an eportfolio? She mentions both formative and summative assessment. (Farrell, n.d.).

3. CRITICAL THINKING DEFINED

Critical thinking has been defined in a number of ways and this reflects the multifaceted nature of it. All thinking is defined by the eight elements that make it up. Eight basic structures are present in all thinking; whenever we think, we think for a purpose within a point of view based on assumptions leading to implications and consequences. We use concepts, ideas and theories to interpret information, data, facts, and experiences in order to answer questions, solve problems, and resolve issues.

3.1. Critical Thinking: What is involved?

  • Question: what is being asked?

  • Purpose: why do I want the answer?

  • Point of View: where do I stand to look at the question?

  • Information: what data do I have?

  • Concepts: what ideas are involved?

  • Assumptions: what am I taking for granted?

  • Inferences: what conclusions am I drawing?

  • Consequences: what are the implications of my question?

Figure 1. Paul & Elder’s 2009 Model of Critical Thinking Skills.

4. TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING

One of the most challenging issues within EFL education is teaching critical thinking. According to Albert Einstein; “education is not the learning of facts but training the mind to think” and not only to think but to think critically. Since facts, information, and knowledge are available everywhere in a very simpler and easier way; especially with the advent in technology; so, what matters in this digital era is to train EFL learners how to think critically in order to create new knowledge. The key starting point to reach such a level of thinking critically is to ask questions. One quality of a good critical thinker is the ability to ask on-target questions. When you don’t ask questions, you sacrifice your education. If you don’t take risks, you won’t get the maximum benefit in developing your mind.

In this regard a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom (1956) devised a taxonomy of educational objectives consisted of six main skills classified in a hierarchical order starting from lower order thinking to higher order thinking. This Classification of Educational Goals begins with knowledge, comprehension, and application to move to analysis, synthesis and end up with evaluation. Based on this, critical thinking assessment is considered one of the most critical matters in question in higher education. For this reason, assessing critical thinking is based on Bloom’s Taxonomy via asking questions involve the following;

A: Knowledge involves recognizing or remembering facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers without necessarily understanding what they mean.

  • What is . . . ?

  • When did ____ happen?

  • How would you explain . . . ?

  • Why did . .. ?

  • How would you describe . .. ?

B: Comprehension involves demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating the main ideas.

  • How would you compare . .. ? contrast.. ?

  • Explain in your own words . . . ?

  • What facts or ideas show . .. ?

  • What evidence is there that…?

C: Application involves using prior knowledge to solve problems, identify connections and relationships and how they apply in new situations.

  • What examples can you find to . . . ?

  • How would you show your understanding of. .. ?

  • What approach would you use to … ?

  • What might have happened if. . . ?

D: Analysis involves examining and breaking information into component parts, determining how the parts relate to one another, identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and finding evidence to support generalizations.

  • What inference can you make from. . . ?

  • How would you classify . . . ?

  • How would you categorise . .. ?

  • Can you identify the difference parts… ?

E: Synthesis: involves building a structure or pattern from diverse elements; it also refers to the act of putting parts together to form a whole.

  • What might have happened if… ?

  • Can you propose an alternative interpretation to that of ……. . ?

  • Is there a marmite solution here?

F: Evaluation involves presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, the validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria.

  • How would you compare ……?

  • Which do you think is better….?

  • What was the value or importance of …….. in …………..?

  • What would you have recommended if you had been ……?

5. EPORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Meeting the needs of a digital age with regard to higher education and new critical thinking skills’ demands involves mastering certain digital skills and especially eportfolio. Electronic portfolio is the package of digitised documents gathered by the learner which demonstrates students’ learning. This digital archive can be used in many different learning contexts and functions as learning evidence and resources and guarantees life-long and life-wide learning as well as professional and career development learning. Throughout the construction of learning, EFL learners might benefit from a number of applications such as “weebly”, “blackboard”, “mahara”, “wikispaces”, or simply “google sites”. The creation of an eportfolio requires four main strides; “collection” of the students’ artifacts moving to the critical “selection” among those electronic artifacts leading to the process of the structured “reflection” in order to end up with publishing those students’ work via the final procedure which is “connection”; and they are clearly highlighted in the following picture:

Figure 2. Dr. Robin Alison Mueller’s Model of Eportfolio Stages.

Eportfolio system allows students to present their artworks to the world online as a structured assessment system for specific courses. Digital portfolio assessment matches the assessment of critical thinking to the teaching of critical thinking skills; it has clear goals which are decided on at the beginning of instruction and are clear to teacher and students. This systematic and longitudinal electronic collection of students artifacts are created in response to specific and known instructional objectives and evaluated in relation to the same criteria. Electronic portfolio creation is the responsibility of the learner, with teacher guidance and support and often with the involvement of peers and parents. Briefly speaking, this form of assessment permits EFL learners to reach certain autonomy via their reflection upon their work in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own work “self assessment”. Then, the weaknesses become improvement goals and what counts is the quality not the quantity. To sum it up, through an eportfolio system, both staff and students have the opportunity to reflect on their personal development.

6. CONCLUSION

Today learners face a lot of challenges to succeed in their profession. Besides acquiring the technical knowledge, EFL learners should also develop the ability to use effectively the English language to achieve success in their career. The ability to use the language intelligently involves mastering the skills of critical thinking, which is one of the basic skills towards acquiring proficiency in English language. These skills are much reflected in the formation of a portfolio and more precisely an electronic portfolio since both skills whether those needed in an eportfolio system or even critical thinking skills are regarded as the core of the 21st century skills.

REFERENCES

Bhattacharya, M. & Hartnett, M. (2007). Eportfolio Assessment in Higher Education. 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. T1G, 19-24. Retrieved fromhttp://www.ied.edu.hk/obl/files/eportfolio%20assessment%20in%20higher%20ed.pdf

Buyarski, C. A. & Landis, C. M. (2014). Using an ePortfolio to Assess the Outcomes of a First-Year Seminar: Student Narrative and Authentic Assessment. International Journal of ePortfolio, 4(1), 49-60. Retrieved from https://www.pratt.edu/uploads/using_e-portfolios_for_assessment.pdf

Centre for Teaching Excellence [CTE]. (n.d.). Resources » Teaching tips » Educational Technologies » ePortfolios Explained. Retrieved February 5, 2017, from https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/educational-technologies/all/eportfolios

Farrell, O. (n.d.). Critical thinking and ePortfolios; (with a Mahara focus). Retrieved February 5, 2017, from https://eportfoliohub.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/orna-farrell.pdf

Mason, M. (2008). Critical thinking and learning (1st ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Retrieved from http://en.bookfi.net/book/704302

Pacific Policy Research Center. (2010). 21st Century Skills for Students and Teachers. Retrieved from http://www.ksbe.edu/_assets/spi/pdfs/21_century_skills_full.pdf

Parkes, K.A., Dredger, K.S., & Hicks, D. (2013). ePortfolio as a Measure of Reflective Practice. International Journal of ePortfolio, 3(2), 99-115. Retrieved from http://www.theijep.com/pdf/ijep110.pdf

Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2009). The miniature guide to critical thinking-concepts and tools (Thinker’s guide). Dillon Beach, CA: Foundation for critical thinking.