Student portfolio as a learning tool in UPC-BarcelonaTech technical and health degrees. Good practices in GTPoE-RIMA

Abstract

The Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, UPC-BARCELONATECH (http://www.upc.edu), is a technical university that teaches engineering, architecture and optometry degrees. RIMA project (http://www.upc.edu/rima) has been created as a meeting point for Communities of Practice (C&P) at UPC-BARCELONATECH in research devoted to teaching and learning methodologies. RIMA project includes Student Portfolio Community of Practice, GTPoE, focused on portfolio design models and templates. The main goal of GTPoE is to help teachers and students in developing portfolios as an authentic and holistic assessment tool in the frame of European Higher Education Area (EHEA) degrees and masters. GTPoE allow teachers and students to show and share works and examples according to Autonomous Learning (AL) level, as well as exchange experiences and results by creating a Decalogue of Good Teaching Practices, to improve students' portfolio performance. This work provides an approximation to research, based on fundamental aspects that a lecturer might consider to include in a student learning portfolio optimised for common activities in engineering and optometry degrees, essentially describing a relation of good practices. Portfolio experience can be easier applied to other subjects once the GTPoE site contains storage of some examples of using the portfolio in subjects in engineering and optometry degrees. This collection will be also very resourceful for other lecturers and students who have to introduce the tool. Generally, portfolio activity assessment is carried out by means of a survey, in which students can identify the strengths and weaknesses to guarantee the continuous improvement of their performance through portfolio development, in a progressive way to integrate academic knowledge and professional skills.