The use of electronic portfolios to promote self-regulatory skills for children with learning difficulties

Abstract

The new Northern Irish educational curriculum implemented in 2007, analogous to the majority of modern curricula in developed states, promotes the development of thinking skills and personal capabilities for lifelong learning. A major focus is thus the promotion and maximisation of one’s skills to operate effectively and meet the increasing intellectual demands of society. A very important part of this development is conferring the ability to manage oneself by the continuous assessment of personal strengths and weaknesses, setting goals and directing one’s actions towards the successful achievement of these previously set goals. Although these skills may be acquired by some individuals through a natural, almost automatic learning curve, others may need to be specifically taught such self-regulating skills with a certain degree of investment of resources. Students with learning difficulties, in particular, fall within the latter group, as they are notoriously weak at managing their own learning. With this in perspective, this study is based on the notion that if approaches are thoroughly designed, even children with mild to moderate learning difficulties can successfully work towards becoming autonomous and self-regulating learners. This paper presents a case study documenting the design and implementation of a pilot electronic portfolio system aimed at promoting self-regulatory skills in students with learning difficulties. Portfolios have been used in a variety of academic settings with wide-ranging purposes and content. Their use in this study is congruent with their most basic definition, namely of being a repository of evidence that demonstrate effort, progress and achievement over time in an attempt to encourage students to become more critical and reflective learners. This definition is taken a step further here to make portfolios more accessible to the participating population by including interactive activities that enhance their gradual acquisition of skills that help them learn how to learn the material presented to them. The latter therefore involves the participants setting their own objectives, reflecting upon how best to reach them and ultimately attempting to reach these objectives. While focusing on exploring issues of design and integration of an electronic version of a portfolio, this paper discusses issues and possibilities of its use towards the acquisition of self-regulation skills for children with learning difficulties. Students required to portray self-regulatory skills should seek to actively and constructively participate in a process of meaning-making while being mediated by a community and its cultural artifacts. Perspectives from socio-cultural theory are used as a framework to combine analysis of the individual student and the external social world of the classroom in which activities of electronic portfolio development are carried out.