St Mary’s Lecturer Discusses E-Learning at National Conference

A lecturer at St Mary’s University, Twickenham recently presented research on the use of the Mahara ePortfolio within teaching and learning at a national conference held at Brighton University. Amy Price, Lecturer for St Mary’s BA Physical and Sport Education (PSE) course, attended the Mahara UK conference, which attracted delegates from all over the world to share their experiences of integrating the online platform into their teaching and learning. Mahara, which is an open source ePortfolio software application, helps students to organise their work and record their learning and skills in a structured way. During the conference, Amy discussed the use of e-learning within the work based learning modules of the PSE course. As part of the modules, students are asked to document how they are meeting the PSE teaching and coaching standards whilst on work placement. The Mahara platform, combined with a flexible curriculum, allows students to communicate their teaching and coaching experience in a flexible and interactive manner such as online CVs or reflective journals, to aid their personal and professional development. The team is now working towards further enriching student engagement within the work based learning modules through exploiting the sharing and group capabilities of Mahara. It is hoped that this will allow students to engage in a process of peer feedback to enhance the effectiveness of their portfolio, and to develop the skill of providing constructive feedback for peers, and acting appropriately to feedback from peers.