Digital Portfolios: A Method to Assess Student Understanding

摘要

Educators often question whether students truly comprehend difficult-to-understand concepts or merely retain the material long enough for testing purposes. Instructors recognize the need for students to recall information but also to develop critical thinking skills that translate to clinical practice. Interactive teaching strategies help students work independently and collaboratively by creating an environment of student-centered learning that helps foster critical thinking instead of just providing a teacher-centered explanation. Instructors can reinforce learning and help students become active participants in the educational process by using digital portfolios. Digital portfolios allow students to demonstrate understanding through photos, videos, and text (see Figure 1). Students can capture learning in many forms to document their work and become creators of knowledge rather than just consumers of information. The flexibility of this instructional platform makes it suitable for all content areas in the radiologic sciences.