Elmhurst College   ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO PROGRAM Dimensions and Skills: In creating your personal portfolio, you will be documenting your acquisition of knowledge, skills, and expertise in five Dimensions and five Skills that are essential for a true professional.  Five Dimensions  Five Skills   Career Exploration Analytical Ability   Intercultural Perspectives  Computer/Information Literacy  Leadership/Teamwork  Interpersonal Skills  Responsibility to the Wider Community  Oral Communication  Values and Ethical Articulation  Written Communication Preparation of Your Electronic Portfolio At Elmhurst College, five dimensions and five skills are considered essential in the education of a competent professional. A true professional should graduate from Elmhurst College with experiences, abilities and learning that are polished and well articulated in the areas listed above. During your education at Elmhurst College, you will be engaged in the exploration of a variety of experiences, gaining knowledge and skills from the experience and writing reflectively about the impact of the experience within you. Your documentation of a wide variety of learning experiences forms the foundation for the construction of your personal portfolio. On the pages that follow, are a listing of the Dimensions and Skills with some ideas about possible sources of experience and examples for each one. There are also suggestions for you to consider for documentation of the experience for inclusion in the portfolio. You are encouraged to consider alternative sources of experience, as well as unique, individual means to document your experience and abilities gained through the experience. In all cases, a short reflective written record of the activity or experience will include: a description, reflection of enhanced learning, and the impact of your participation in the activity. Also to be placed into your portfolio are examples that support your reflections about acquiring the specific Dimension or Skill. In the Dimensions and Skills sections, you will need to: a) Seek out activities or experiences (previous, current, and/or new ones) that help you grow in each Dimension and Skill. b) Document your progress in each Dimension and Skill as you : 1) Describe the experience. 2) Reflect about how the activities have enhanced your learning, your expertise, and your growth. 3) Write about how each experience impacts your life and contributes to your professional growth. c) Collect examples of your best work that show clearly that you are acquiring the associated skill. DIMENSION 1 -- Career Exploration As you move toward the choice of a career, you need to explore the relationship of your academic interests and career options. Try to identify personal traits and their "fit" with your potential career selection. Definitely take part in activities designed to explore your abilities, interests, values and their relationship to career choices. Suggested activities include the establishment of a relationship with a faculty mentor, participation in the career exploration and awareness activities sponsored by the Center for Professional Excellence, participation in the shadowing, mentoring and internship programs of the Center for Professional Excellence. The first PPP activity, entitled "Life and Career Reflection," will help you begin your career exploration. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief description of activities, curricular and co-curricular, in which you participated as a means to explore abilities, interests, values. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: reflection of what you learned about yourself from the activity in terms of abilities, interests, diverse points of views, leadership, values, communication and interpersonal skills, and potential career choices. 3) Impact: of the activity on your professional development and career choice. DIMENSION 2 -- Intercultural Perspectives A professional who is accomplished in this dimension is able to use multiple perspectives in the understanding and solution of problems or life situations. You also demonstrate that you value the diversity of humankind and the contributions of various cultures in increasing the richness of life within a community. Suggested activities includes foreign study, employment/service learning/internship with organizations of another culture, learning another language, course work studying another culture through artistic, political, sociological expressions. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief written description of the activity you selected. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: what you learned about your point of view as a result of your participation in the selected activity. 3) Impact: your assessment of the impact of diverse points of view within a community upon the community. Community may include an office environment, classroom, resident hall, club or organization. DIMENSION 3 -- Leadership/ Teamwork An effective leader and team member can encourage, motivate and organize the activities of others toward the achievement of a common goal. As a leader you are also able to organize and manage resources through the ability to allocate and to organize time, monetary, material, facility and human resources to achieve a common goal. Your experiences should lead you to become involved in both formal and informal positions of leadership. Suggested activities include membership and performance in clubs or other organizations, membership on an athletic team, membership in work related organizational structures, and membership in classroom work teams. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief written description of the leadership (formal and informal) positions you held and identification and description of the organization. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: brief written reflection of the leadership/teamwork skills you exercised, enhanced, or learned; what you learned about your view of leadership. 3) Impact: what your learned about your ability to provide leadership and teamwork. DIMENSION 4 -- Responsibility to the Wider Community As a responsible student, future professional, and citizen, it is necessary to make a commitment to the wider community by your participation in: 1) activities designed to improve the quality of life for all members of the community and 2) activities that explore the responsibilities of the individual member of the community to a larger community. Suggested activities include membership or participation in service organizations, membership or participation in organizations focused on issues within the community (environment, political process, safety, health, race/ethic relations), membership or participation in activities designed to enhance the quality of life within the residence halls. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief written description of the activity, why you selected the activity, and the impact upon individuals within the community. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: reflect upon what you learned about yourself as a member of a larger community and your responsibilities to the community. 3) Impact: reflect upon the importance of responsible action in the community as a future professional. DIMENSION 5 -- Values and Ethical Articulation To identify your personal values and describe how personal values affect your judgments, behaviors and decisions is the goal of this dimension. You are able to articulate how personal values impact professional practice. Suggested activities include essays/papers from classes in which you discuss your moral or ethical values. Essays/papers in which you explore the relationship between your personal values and your spiritual beliefs or participation in a community of faith. Writing a narrative about personal, work-related or academic experiences that identify/exemplify your values or judgment decisions. Writing about an ethical challenge you faced and how you resolved the issue. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief written description of the activity and why you selected the activity. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: identify personal values through the use of readings of literary works, through discussions of social issues; identify of values and their impact upon judgments and behavior through examination of values in artistic and written works. 3) Impact: describe how your personal values, and the relationship to scientific, technological and social developments, will impact your professional practice. SKILL 1 -- Analytical Ability Problem solving involves the construct logical explanations for life situations and to answer questions from the social, political, or scientific world. Solutions to problems or life situations need the most effective approach in terms of choosing appropriate reasoning or mathematical or statistical formulas to utilize. Some examples of this include class projects, lab reports, or papers that demonstrate your ability to reason logically and/or manipulate data. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a written explanation of how you have used logical problem solving, as well as an explanation of why you chose a specific type of reasoning to manipulate the data or format an argument. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: a reflection on the outcome of the project and your use of logical explanations. 3) Impact: assess your skills and abilities in qualitative and quantitative reasoning. SKILL 2 -- Computer / Information Literacy Computer literacy means being competent in using a number of general and field-specific computer programs. You will also show that you are able to access and evaluate information from a wide range of computing networks. You are able to think critically about your experiences and the information you encounter in any of these networks. Some examples of this include using word processing programs, spreadsheets, presentation software, statistics programs, and any additional software applicable to your specific discipline. Using library online catalogues, microfilm, and microfiche. Thinking critically about the utility of the information you obtain. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief explanation of the use of computer software programs and specific information searching. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: an explanation about how you will apply the knowledge and experience you gained from these activities to the field of your choice. This also includes an explanation about the relevancy of a particular piece of software to your chosen field. 3) Impact: assess your skills and abilities in computer / information literacy. SKILL 3 -- Interpersonal Skills A professional with effective interpersonal skills actively participates as a member of a team by working together towards a common goal. You also teach others, negotiate with individuals or organizations, and advise people, while learning from the process of engaging in a diverse group of people. You identify and value the input from people who possess different points of view or who come from widely varied backgrounds. You are able to encourage and motivate others, even if they do not share your point of view. Some examples of this include participating in a group activity at school, church, or home, acting in a school play, participating on a sports team, or writing and interviewing people for the school newspaper. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief summary of a group activity you were involved in. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: what you learned from the experience, an explanation of how you interacted with other members of your group and the benefits gained from this interaction, and a reflection on what it means to be a team player. 3) Impact: assess your skills and abilities in interpersonal communication.   SKILL 4 -- Oral Communication In this skill, you should emphasize that you can verbally present and discuss ideas, information, or issues in a clear and concise manner that is appropriate for your target audience. Some examples of this include summaries of presentations you gave in class or to community groups or other organizations, conference papers you read, or reports you presented to your class or any other organization, video or audio recordings of your actual presentation. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: a brief explanation of the performance you gave. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: explain what was great about your talk or performance and what you could have improved; this is a type of self-critique that informs your reader not only about the topic, but also about the actual experience of the presentation. 3) Impact: assess your skills and abilities in oral communication. SKILL 5 -- Written Communication It is important to write in an organized fashion that clearly communicates your message and your goals to your reader. You must also know and employ the vocabulary that best suits your target audience and best relates to the subject matter at hand. Some examples of this include samples of analytic writing such as research papers, synthesis of information such as lab reports, and creative or business writing such as short stories, cover letters, and memos. Documentation includes: 1) Explore - Describe: an explanation of what you learned from doing these written activities. 2) Reflect - Enhanced Learning: a commentary and reflection as to why a certain way of writing is an effective way of communicating the desired information, as well as an explanation as to why you chose one format over another. 3) Impact: assess your skills and abilities in written communication.