Reflection runs right through Inclusive Leadership, from the personal values learners name in LEAD-1120 to the leadership development plan they build in the LEAD-1560 capstone. What makes this program flexible is also what makes it tricky: learners take the seven courses in their own order, at their own pace. Without somewhere to keep it, their earlier thinking is easy to lose track of.
That’s where PebblePad comes in. It belongs to the learner, not to the course, so the work stays with them long after the classroom empties out. A values statement written in the first course is still waiting two years later, and learners are often surprised by who they meet on the page. Because they decide what to share and what stays theirs, there’s room to be honest about bias, privilege, and the conversations at work that didn’t go well.
WHAT WERE THE MAIN GOALS OF THIS PROJECT?
Inclusive Leadership includes seven courses and a capstone. It is valuable for learners to have access to their work as their thinking develops throughout the program. We wanted a learner’s thinking from LEAD-1120 to still be available to them in LEAD-1560, rather than having that learning reset with each new course shell.
This also supports accessibility for adult learners, who may move through the program at different times and paces. Keeping their work in one place allows learners to return to earlier reflections, build on their thinking, and grow.
Give reflection a structure: Replace blank-page journalling with designed Pebble Pad workbooks and reflection prompts that learners can complete on their own.
Use what technology we already had: PebblePad was implemented, assessed for privacy, and easily linked in BlackBoard.
HOW DOES THIS DEMONSTRATE INNOVATION?
Reflection was designed as a through-line, not a per-course assignment. Most ePortfolio use is course-bound: a template, a submission, a grade, done. This project treats reflection as a multi-year arc across seven courses that learners take in varying order, online or in person, with gaps of months between them. Designing scaffolding that works when you don’t control sequence or timing is a genuinely hard instructional design problem.
WHAT WERE THE PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES YOU FACED WORKING ON THIS PROJECT?
No fixed sequence. Most reflective portfolio design assumes a learning moving through courses in order. This program doesn’t work that way. Learners take the seven courses individually, in whatever order prerequisites allow, spread over as long as four years, some online and some in person. So we couldn’t write a prompt in LEAD-1135 that says “look back at what you wrote in LEAD-1130” because that learner might not have taken it yet. Every workbook had to stand alone and still contribute to a whole.
Onboarding inside a 2–3 day course. Each course is roughly seven hours a day of leadership content. There is no real time to onboard learners to a new technology.
LESSONS LEARNED
Every workbook has to be complete on its own and still add to something larger.
Onboarding learners is a challenge. Minutes spent on platform navigation come directly out of teaching. That forced us to keep the learner-facing pieces as simple as possible, and required post-pilot redesign.
Balancing the volume of reflection, time and what is most valuable for adult learners.
TECHNOLOGY USED
PebblePad, Blackboard Ultra
PROJECT LINK
