19. Construction of Electronic Portfolio System and Use for Dental Education

Portfolios are seen as tools to increase students' self-awareness, to foster students' ability to learn independently and to encourage students to reflect on their own performance. We have been using paper-based portfolios since 2007. However, a problem was that teachers could not share the portfolios, and our students did not effectively use their past portfolios. In response, we created an electronic portfolio（E-portfolio）in 2011. We achieved two results by switching to the new E-portfolio. Both the student's submission and the teacher's feedback are now done by web communication in E-portfolio. The effect of using E-portfolio is expected to be that teachers can easily provide custom-made feedback according to a weak item for each student. Furthermore, students can confirm progress toward a new goal by comparing their past portfolios. Indeed, the educational effect of E-portfolio was that our students were able to set an appropriate target and goal by knowing their previous achievement level. In addition, we will include“Video”and“Photograph”in the portfolios in the future. By combining these elements together into one system, we expect further improvement in students' self-assessment capability and teachers' guidance.