Rationale
A portfolio often means a showcase or a display for others of achievements, but the “Reflective Practice (and Metacognitive) Portfolio” (RPP) is designed to be a revelation of the journey that one has taken through the (MA) program. The outcome serves as a self-customized tool box and set of reminders that students intend to use in their ongoing learning and practice (including their work beyond/after CCT), embedded in a narrative. The portfolio should be created along the way of the CCT study in order to best capture your reflection close in time to the points that represent the milestones of your journey (that is, it is not recommended to wait until the end of the degree program to put together the parts all at once). Asking students to build this kind of portfolio during their studies matches the goals of personal and professional development captured by the Program overview, excerpted below.
Requirements
The portfolio is a compilation of a set of exhibits (assignments from the courses), and an additional narrative writing that goes along with each of them. Toward this end, students should choose one specific assignment from every course taken as part of the MA (including electives taken from other graduate programs during your time of study, but excluding any courses taken prior to CCT matriculation at other institutions that were brought in as transfer credits). The section at the bottom of this page gives examples of a possible choice of assignment from many of the courses. Each course’s instructor may also recommend a specific assignment as a good option for your selected assignment. Ultimately, though, it is up to the student to choose the most appropriate assignment. This assignment is one that best illustrates a key shift or change in thinking that you experienced through that course or conveys an important insight about yourself that you want to continue to move into your own practice.
Once you select the representative assignment from a course, develop a narrative that explains why this assignment was meaningful to your development. The narrative should be 2-4 paragraphs of writing (about one double-spaced page per assignment) that shows your reflection on why that is the case, and how the writing demonstrates your thinking or assumptions. The narrative uses a metacognitive approach — is a type of “guided tour” of your thinking as you notice what you wrote previously and the significance that you find now in what you were writing about.
Note: If your selected assignment is a final paper or other lengthy work, do not submit the entire paper as the assignment. In this case, submit an excerpt of a single relevant section (or at least indicate in your narrative which section is relevant) so that the reader knows where to focus. The narrative should help to point to a moment of transition or insight that happened during the course. Even if your selected assignment is the course’s final paper, you should still try to illustrate such moments by pointing to specific points in the paper rather than refer to it as a generic whole.
Note that the above description implies that the narrative should not:
- be general commentary on the course as a whole or a broad appreciation for the course or key takeaways; that is, keep the narrative focused on the one specific selected assignment and its particular importance
- explain instructions for the assignment in detail (you can mention its purpose or goal but keep that to a sentence or two)
- merely give a summary/abstract of the content of the assignment; your narrative must go beyond what is included there. Address deeper reflection on how the assignment represents important shifts in your thinking during that period, or as part of your overall development as a reflective practitioner through the CCT program. Assume that the reader can refer to the assignment itself if they want to get into the full content.
Students are strongly encouraged to submit a sample of your ongoing portfolio no later than the mid-semester point of your final term to confirm that your work meets the requirements here.
Mechanics
The format for creating the portfolio is flexible. At a minimum, develop the portfolio in a way that allows you to eventually capture the entire contents as a single, standalone PDF file. You may develop the portfolio as a running document where you update the narratives after each term, and then add the selected assignments as attachments. You may also develop the portfolio as a personal web site or blog, where you set up one page on the site for each course term, and then add the narratives and attached selected assignments on that page (or similar variations).
Submit the final Reflective Practice Portfolio to cct@umb.edu (any documents or links to your site, plus a Microsoft Word or PDF compilation of the entire contents of the portfolio) no later than one week after the final Synthesis project has been submitted (typically during the CrCrTh 694 course). If you have remaining course requirements to fulfill after finishing CrCrTh 694, wait to submit the portfolio until all courses are finalized.
Portfolios are publicly viewable for at least one year after your graduation (and then possibly longer unless you ask for it to be removed). If your portfolio takes the form of a personal blog or web site and you prefer that this be used to view your work, it is requested that you keep this site live for (at least) one year after graduation (although the full single-file compilation is still needed). The portfolios serve as examples for future students to help them reflect and be inspired, and so these should generally be regarded as accessible to public. It is therefore ok to be selective about what/how much you share; you may hide or redact some sections or private information within the original assignments that you don’t want to be seen by others. Portfolios are also potentially shared with UMass Boston administration in demonstrating program outcomes.
Occasional CCT orientations may use past examples of portfolios to demonstrate to incoming students how these have been constructed.
Selected Examples of Portfolios
Note: Some examples below were produced before the RPP became a formal program requirement or still in piloting stage, so content may or may not fully cover the current guidelines as students used their own distinctive approaches. Refer to the sections above for current guidelines.
Andrew Castagna
Billie Charles
Emily Flaherty
Hans Helgeson
Matthew Jose
Ivy Madden
Bradford O’Brien
Randy Valdez
April Baptiste Robertson
Yin Chan
Geoff Keston
Annie McCluskey
Erin McCoy
Timothy Brian Nuryadi
Cynthia Romer
Evan Schapiro
Russell Suereth
Michael Teachey
Kyle Lemstrom
Cara Tuttle
Nadjia Edwards
Timizay Ruiz Pineda
Caitlin Quarrington
Casey Andrews
Erik Anker (overview | documents)
Meghan Callaghan
Russell DeLuca-Kavanagh
David Kooharian
Rhoda Maurer
Lauren Taub
Suggested Selected Assignments for Courses
(others may be substituted as appropriate)
- CrCrTh 601: Critical Thinking Manifesto, or individual Reflection Paper
- CrCrTh 602: Second Reflective Review of Diary
- CrCrTh 603: Weekly Paper or Final Paper
- CrCrTh 611: Process Review, or Final Written Plan
- CrCrTh 612: Self-Reflective Assessment, or Reflection Assignment
- CrCrTh 615: Manifesto, or Final Project
- CrCrTh 616: Final Paper or individual discussion posts
- CrCrTh 618: Plan for Practice; Critical Reflection Paper
- CrCrTh 619: Short Paper
- CrCrTh 627: Current Issues Analysis Paper
- CrCrTh 630: selection from Creative Products
- CrCrTh 640: Research Plan
- CrCrTh 645: Final Paper
- CrCrTh 649: Education Unit/Curriculum
- CrCrTh 650: selection from Creative Products
- CrCrTh 651: General Principles Journal/Summary
- CrCrTh 652: General Principles Journal/Summary
- CrCrTh 655: Plan for Classroom Implementation
- CrCrTh 670: Expert Teaching and Learning Portfolio
- CrCrTh 688: Progress Report or Plan for Practice
- CrCrTh 692: Self-assessment
- CrCrTh 693: Process Review
- CrCrTh 694: (brief) excerpts from Synthesis paper; ongoing writing exercises, or selection from the Exit Self-assessment
