Helen L. Chen is a research scientist in the Designing Education Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and was previously the Director of ePortfolio Initiatives in the Registrar's Office at Stanford Univeresity. Helen earned her undergraduate degree in Communication Studies from UCLA and her PhD in Communication with a minor in Psychology from Stanford University. She serves on the advisory board for the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning, is a co-founder of EPAC, an ePortfolio community of practice, and is a co-Executive Editor for the International Journal of ePortfolio. Helen has worked with the Association of American Colleges and Universities on higher education and assessment-related initiatives and is a co-author of Documenting Learning with ePortfolios: A Guide for College Instructors together with Tracy Penny Light and John Ittelson. Helen's current research interests and scholarship focus on engineering and entrepreneurship education; the pedagogy of portfolios and reflective practice in higher education; and reimagining and redesigning how we record and recognize lifelong and lifewide learning via transcripts, certificates, badges, and alternative credentials.
Innovations in pedagogy and technology could revolutionize academic records, moving our approach from one of checking off boxes to one of connecting the dots. This article highlights technological and pedagogical models that connect the dots toward agile, personalized evidence of learning.
E-portfolio efforts at Stanford have focused on capturing and documenting students' learning and engaging in reflection, rationale building, or planning, contributing to a culture of folio thinking.
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