Author ORCID Identifier
Deanna Meth: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8749-3164
Melanie Finger: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8895-7354
Dean Brough: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3622-7218
Abstract
Development of a new design curriculum at Queensland University of Technology prompted a study to revisit the nature and purpose of portfolios. Always integral to design disciplines, more widely there has been rapid growth of portfolio use for student learning, assessment and showcase, with technological advancements adding impetus for these to move online. This aligns to pedagogic shifts linked to authentic learning, graduate employability, and fostering twenty-first century graduate capabilities such as collaboration and communication. Research findings conceptualise a Graduate Professional Portfolio as a living, digital “universal archive” for students’ storage, presentation of, and reflection on design processes and outputs, and a space for collaboration and showcasing selected work to peers and employers. The Behance online platform is proposed as suitable for these purposes. The study has relevance across the higher education sector where designing such learning activities with suitable flexibility for individual students’ developmental needs has proved complex.
Keywords
design education, employability, portfolio, Behance
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.317
Citation
Meth, D., Finger, M., and Brough, D. (2020) The Graduate Professional Portfolio as “synergy tool”: navigating the complex role of portfolios in future-focused design education, in Boess, S., Cheung, M. and Cain, R. (eds.), Synergy - DRS International Conference 2020, 11-14 August, Held online. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.317
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
The Graduate Professional Portfolio as “synergy tool”: navigating the complex role of portfolios in future-focused design education
Development of a new design curriculum at Queensland University of Technology prompted a study to revisit the nature and purpose of portfolios. Always integral to design disciplines, more widely there has been rapid growth of portfolio use for student learning, assessment and showcase, with technological advancements adding impetus for these to move online. This aligns to pedagogic shifts linked to authentic learning, graduate employability, and fostering twenty-first century graduate capabilities such as collaboration and communication. Research findings conceptualise a Graduate Professional Portfolio as a living, digital “universal archive” for students’ storage, presentation of, and reflection on design processes and outputs, and a space for collaboration and showcasing selected work to peers and employers. The Behance online platform is proposed as suitable for these purposes. The study has relevance across the higher education sector where designing such learning activities with suitable flexibility for individual students’ developmental needs has proved complex.