Abstract:

The literature has been demonstrating the potential of cooperative e-portfolios in developing competencies, particularly self-regulation, and critical thinking dispositions (Pospíšilová & Rohlíková, 2022) indicated by various international educational and professional organizations as necessary for the professional and societal challenges of the 21st century. Learning is conceived in its most humanistic and personalized dimension, considering students as protagonists in the teaching and learning process. Compared to the most common practices in higher education, the pedagogical innovation presented here consists in shifting the focus from the teaching process, by abandoning a transmissive methodology of knowledge and summative assessment, to a learning process with a methodology that favors cooperative knowledge construction and the use of formative assessment (Silva et al., 2022). The use of cooperative learning (Johnson & Johnson, 2009) for e-portfolio development is considered an advancement in students' learning autonomy, valuing the formative dimension of (self and peer) assessment, thereby reinforcing the metacognitive component of learning. In cooperative portfolios, students collect their work negotiating its relevance by providing evidence of their performance and progress, including their reflections on learning (Pospíšilová & Rohlíková, 2022), identifying successes and areas for improvement; making assessment more reflective. It is intended that students, alongside learning content from Curriculum Units (CU), be able to develop metacognitive skills, critical thinking dispositions, and teamwork skills, reflecting on their work, evaluating the products and processes used, monitoring their progress, and combining planning, reflection, and execution capabilities (Oliveira & Rodrigues, 2022).

This research presents results of a pedagogical innovation project involving approximately 200 students from a University in Northern Portugal within the scope of five CU from humanities and science fields. The project focuses on the promotion of metacognitive skills and critical thinking dispositions through the development of cooperative e-portfolios. The teaching and learning methodology used was mainly cooperative, with emphasis on collaboration among students to achieve common learning objectives. It included the group investigation method, questioning, self and peer assessment, formative feedback, and the use of technological resources such as Padlet and Google Forms. Data were collected from the study participants to whom pre and post-tests were applied, using the Cognitive Inventory (Schraw & Dennison, 1994), the Cooperative Learning Questionnaire (Silva et al., 2024) and the Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale (Morais et al., 2023). In addition, self and peer assessment grids and individual student reflections were used as data collection instruments. Importantly, rather than treating all students as a collective group, this study presents the analysis of the groups separately based on their field of study.

The results highlight the importance of collaborative e-portfolios in promoting reflection on the learning process itself, as well as evidencing advances in students' metacognition and critical thinking. The interdisciplinary approach adopted in this study expands the scope of research, offering a comprehensive view of the benefits of this methodology in higher education, especially in the mentioned areas.

Keywords:

E-Portfolios, cooperative learning, metacognition, critical thinking dispositions.