From fragmentation to continuity: engineering students making sense of experience through the development of a professional portfolio

Abstract

Experience is commonly held to be essential for learning, especially in a professional discipline like engineering. However experiences, if unexamined, are not necessarily educative. This article explores the potential to fully claim prior experience as educative through the development of a professional portfolio. Eleven students developed portfolios and participated in qualitative interviews. The findings revealed that these students added educative value to their prior experiences in this process.

Keywords:

• portfolio
• engineering
• Dewey
• experiential learning
• experience

Acknowledgments

This article is based on research and scholarship funded by the US National Science Foundation, grant numbers EEC-0835836 and DUE-0737535. We would also like to acknowledge Kate Mobrand and Ashley Thompson for their feedback and assistance.