Norwalk Community College, an open-access institution, provides opportunities for intellectual inquiry, open dialogue, multicultural awareness and lifelong learning. Recognizing the diverse needs of its students, the college strives to provide an environment in which they are empowered to achieve their highest potential. Like many urban colleges, 35% of Norwalk’s students are non-native speakers, coming from 62 different countries and speaking about 32 different languages; approximately 60% test into developmental courses. Below you’ll find all of the resources submitted by Norwalk Community College for the C2L Project.
Campus Metrics
- We are an Associate's/2 years college.
- Our institution serves 6,500 students (headcount).
- Each year 1,100 students use ePortfolio, which is about 17% of our total enrollment.
- We currently have 4 program(s) and/or majors actively using ePortfolio.
- We currently have approximately 35 faculty using ePortfolios in their courses.
- ePortfolio is used for Assessment on our campus at the Course Level.
- Our professional development is provided via workshops, roundtables, and one-on-one consultations.
Norwalk & the Catalyst Framework
Pedagogy (PED) Location
- Early Childhood Development
- Exercise Science
- Graphic Design programs
- English
- First Year Experience
- Public Speaking
- ESL
- Foreign Language courses
Professional Development (PD) Focus
- Reflection and Integration
- Seminar Series
Outcome Assessment (OA) Level
- Emerging
Technology (TECH) Platform
- Digication
Scaling Up (SU) Strategies
- Advancing through Professional Development
- Developing an Effective Leadership Team
Visual Overview
This diagram is a visual representation of self-reported project strengths, focus, and level of ePortfolio implementation across the sectors of the Catalyst Framework. It is based on a survey completed in Fall 2013.
Browse Norwalk Community College's Stories and Practices:
Raison d’etre? Students and Their Success! NCC’s Reflective Practice and Integrative Learning
Our students inspire and motivate us, which is why we continually look for new ways to help them succeed. Integrating consistent reflective practice and integrative learning through eProtfolios is one of our methods.
Reflective practice takes place in a variety of ways in many different kinds of courses, from the reflection a student engages in for her allied health classes, to a student’s reflecting on the connections among her classes or assignments within one class, to the reflective practice Read more [...]
“Where are you going, Where have you been?” NCC’s ePortfolio Project is Growing Up
From platform, to purpose, to potential: the evolution of ePortfolio at NCC is based on asking tough questions, sheer tenacity, and a core of perpetual learners.
Where We Are Now
Randy Bass notes that part of the complexity of scaling an ePortfolio initiative is because the practice “must straddle both established and emerging paradigms of higher education.” In other words we must intentionally use practices and strategies and shift to a paradigm of systems and networks—across the traditional Read more [...]
Norwalk CC – Reflecting to Learn: Professional Development Practice at NCC
Technology and terminology take a back seat to pedagogy and reflection -- the real focus of ePortfolio professional development at NCC.
Description
Our professional development workshops focus on the pedagogical foundations for using ePortfolios. One of our primary goals is for faculty to concentrate on how reflection can support and promote student learning. Since many of our faculty struggle with incorporating reflection in a meaningful way into their thinking and, therefore, their teaching, Read more [...]
Minding the Mantra of ePortfolio Pedagogy: NCC’s Professional Development Story
The story of our professional development models the ePortfolio mantra: we collect a lot of ideas; we select the most beneficial; we reflect on what worked and didn’t work; and finally we connect to previous workshops and look toward the next ones.
Our Professional Development Story
Norwalk Community College’s Professional Development program for ePortfolio began when we became one of LaGuardia’s Making Connections first cohort in the summer of 2008. Making Connections laid a groundwork Read more [...]
Juggling Chaos and Intention: Social Pedagogy at NCC
Sometimes, one must be a nimble juggler to balance the chaotic nature of group dynamics and real-world problems with the intentional design necessary to create a productive learning environment.
In her Advanced Composition class at Norwalk Community College, Professor Linda Legters intentionally centers its curriculum and assignments on “Social Pedagogy.” Balancing individual work with various kinds of group work, Professor Legters encourages ownership of learning as well as understanding Read more [...]
“The Awkward Age”: The Technology Story at NCC
While we don’t have the same decadence and corruption as the Henry James novel, we do believe that growing up is hard: whether it’s an individual or a program, it inevitably involves a few stumbles. What’s important though is to keep getting up and taking another step forward. That’s what we do at NCC.
Our Platform:A Difficult Beginning
NCC began its ePortfolio initiative in the fall of 2008 in partnership with LaGuardia Community College’s Making Connections FIPSE grant. At that Read more [...]
External Drivers: NCC and Outcomes Assessment
Even though a project may be firmly grounded in a bottom-up, faculty-driven environment, you can’t underestimate the power of accreditation agencies and legislative mandates.
The link between Outcomes Assessment and ePortfolio is still developing at NCC. On an institutional level, the General Education Taskforce used ePortfolio (Digication) to assess student writing in one upper level course. The plan is to expand this assessment on a regular basis. On a programmatic level, Early Childhood Education, Read more [...]
