TTT 05.27.2020 Navigating Our New Reality with Badges, Micro-Credentials, Portfolios
Channel: Paul Allison
Date: 2020-05-28

Last week I asked Niki Fayne, a professor at Lehman College and friend of the New York City Writing Project, to take a look at a couple of LRNG @WeAreLRNG portfolios that my students had just finished. Two of the students, Abigail and Fatema, are planning to attend Lehman in the Fall. This reminded me that Kiran Chaudhuri's and Dawn Reed's students also had LRNG portfolios, and we had never discussed them. Always looking for an excuse to learn more from David Niguidula, I sent him a note, and he agreed to come to update us on his work at Richer Picture. Remembering another unfinished conversation, I invited Suzanne Valenza to come to talk about the amazing multimodal portfolios that her students produce. Adding an interesting dimension to all of this, I invited Tanya Baker to come to talk about the launch of badges or micro-credentials in the National Writing Project. What a rich conversation this promises to be! 

Join us as we look at what is happening with badges and portfolios in our own practice and what role this work might play as we move to a world where seat-time might not be possible anymore.

Tanya Baker @tbakernwp Director, National Programs at National Writing Project. For the past twenty years, Tanya has been committed to and shaped by the National Writing Project’s mission (The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners) and vision (The NWP envisions a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world) and holds a deep commitment to practices that respect teachers and students. She strives throughout her work to design learning experiences that begin with a presumption of competence, are relentlessly collaborative, and deeply joyful. See more. Tanya will be highlighting a new micro-credential project that is about to be launched by the NWP.

Kiran Chaudhuri. English Teacher at Harvest Collegiate High School. Kiran has been a pioneer of the progressive schools movement in New York City over the past two decades — she has extensive expertise in cultivating students’ lifelong love of reading, in field studies and experiential learning and in engaging students with the great texts of the world’s religions. Kiran has contributed to various professional circles including The Prospect Institute and The New York City Writing Project. She has published extensively in educational journals and in addition to teaching Humanities, now leads the Harvest Art and GSX club. Kiran will be sharing portfolios her students did in a recent poetry class. See Wendy's and George's portfolios.

Dr. Harriet "Niki" Fayne. A leader and professor at Lehman College, CUNY, Niki Fayne has more than 30 years of experience in higher education, including her work as dean of the School of Professional Studies at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. As dean at Otterbein, she managed budgets of more than $7 million and supervised 57 full-time faculty. Before serving as dean, Fayne chaired Otterbein’s Education Department for 16 years. Fayne earned her B.A. from Barnard College, an M.A.T. from Harvard University, an M.A. and M.Ed. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Columbia. Fayne’s work has been published in The Professional Educator, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research and other professional journals.

Dr. David Niguidula @davidniguidula, founder of @Richer_Picture  / Ideas Consulting, an educational research and development firm based in Providence, RI. David leads the software R&D for Richer Picture and provides professional development for schools. And we all know him for his work on digital portfolios in K-12 schools, leading the first research project on the topic while at Brown University's Coalition of Essential Schools. His most recent publication: "Demonstrating Student Mastery with Digital Badges and Portfolios," published by ASCD, 2019.

Dawn Reed @dawnreed Writer. Reader. Learner. Inquirer. Author. English Teacher. Co-Director Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University. Dawn is a co-author in "Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay" and "Research Writing Rewired." Dawn will be sharing a portfolio of one of her student's developed in a recent Creative Writing class.

Suzanne Valenza @suzannevalenza. Suzanne currently teaches English Language Arts at Jericho High School where she advises the video yearbook club and the award-winning online newspaper the JerEcho which has over 800 subscribers. She is a mentor and professional development facilitator, and she has also served as a teacher leader in a progressive alternative school and as an educational consultant. Check out Suzanne's portfolio: suzannevalenza.com.