Research and Innovation in Language Learning Vol. 3(2) May 2020 pp. 158-162 P- ISSN: 2614-5960 e-ISSN: 2615-4137 http://jurnal.unswagati.ac.id/index.php/RILL Copyright 2020@ Misdi 158 Short Report E-PORTFOLIO AS AN AUTHENTIC LEARNING ASSESSMENT IN A RESPONSE TO COVID-19 OUTBREAK IN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION: TOWARD CRITICAL STUDENT- WRITERS Misdi misdirina@gmail.com Department of English Education, FKIP, Universitas Swadaya Gunung Jati, Cirebon- Indonesia Abstract This report, a part of a larger study, describes a case study investigating university educators who struggled in empowering student-teachers that aimed to promote critical writing awareness. This study aimed at revealing phenomenon of edmodo-based e- portfolio as an alternative authentic assessment for empowering student teachers in the covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia. Twenty-five out of seventy-eight student teachers in teacher college in Indonesia voluntarily participated in the study. For the data, the student teachers were observed during their writing completion to assess their writing as well as their critical arguments. At the end of the first writing project, they were interviewed to reveal their attitudes towards the projects. Three main findings were reported, i.e. their writing skill improvement, attitudes, and critical writing. Overall, the findings show that edmodo-based portfolio provides graphic of students’ writing performance as authentic writing assessment and perceives positive attitudes from the student teachers. In addition, students’ critical writing awareness is also developed. Keywords: assessment, critical writing, e-portfolio, edmodo, empowered student teachers Sari Paper ini melaporkan sebagian hasil penelitian yang masih dalam pelaksanaan tentang calon guru yang berjuang memberdayakan mahasiswa calon guru untuk menulis kritis. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan fenomena penilaian menulis dengan teknik portofolio elektronik dengan menggunakan edmodo di tengah pandemik virus Corrona di Indonesia. Dua puluh lima mahasiswa calon guru bahasa Inggris secara sukarela berpartisipasi dalam penelitian ini. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan teknik observasi langsung di kelas virtual mereka. Observasi difokuskan pada aktivitas berargumen kritis yang Nampak pada proses penulisan mereka. Sebagai evaluasi akhir, wawancara dilakukan untuk mengetahui sikap mereka terhadap kegiatan menulis dan evaluasi ini. Ada tiga hal utama yang dilaporkan dari hasil penelitian ini yaitu tentang peningkatan kemampuan menulis mereka, sikap dan daya kritis menulis mereka. Secara Misdi 159 p-ISSN 2614-5960, e-ISSN 2615-4137 umum, hasil penelitian menjelaskan bahwa mahasiswa calon guru memberikan sikap yang positif atas penggunaan alat evalusi menulis berbasis portofolio elektronik dengan edmodo. Sedangkan kemampuan menulis kritis mereka juga dilaporkan mulai berkembang. Kata kunci: edmodo, memberdayakan calon guru, menulis kritis, penilaian, portofolio elektronik Received 2020-05-31 accepted 2020-06-01 published 2020-06-01 doi 10.33603/rill.v3i2.3565 APA Citation: Misdi, M. (2020). E-portfolio as an authentic learning assessment in a response to covid-19 outbreak in Indonesian higher education: Toward critical student- writers. Research and Innovation in Language Learning, 3(2), 123-144. 58-162 http://dx.doi.org/10.33603/rill.v3i2.3565 This study This study was conducted in the rush of calls for conducting online assessment for language educator in the critical pandemic of covid-19 period in the context of higher education. This project recruited twenty-five student teachers in English education in a private teacher college in Indonesia. They come from a multi social backgrounds aging from 19-20 year old. They also had different language background. As mandated during covid-19 outbreak, all students have to pursue and access internet services for joining their online courses. They were invited to participate in this. They joined language writing task in a four-week writing project. In this project, students had to discuss the issues and challenges in covid-19 online writing courses collaboratively. After the discussion, they had to report and proposed critical essays containing their learning reflection and proposal how to improve the online courses during this covid-19 outbreak. The writing project was conducted in Edmodo Learning Management System (henceforth Edmodo). As they discussed and had tasks completion in their Edmodo, their critical writing performance and learning attitudes were stored and easily assessed and evaluated. At the end of the writing project, the student teachers were interview to understand their perception related to the project. Findings The study shows that edmodo-based e-portfolio in the covid-19 outbreak successfully help to assess students’ writing performance in three ways. First, the data revealed http://dx.doi.org/10.33603/rill.v3i2.3565 Research and Innovation in Language Learning Vol. 3(2) May 2020 p-ISSN 2614-5960, e-ISSN 2615-4137 160 students’ writing performance was improved. In the earlier stage of the learning, the students showed their weak argumentative evidences, e.g. less supported and referred data. From the first commented draft, students found that their flow of writing was unstructured well. From the first feedback and peer-reviewed, they were able to revise and submit more structured writing draft. At second feedback session, issues of grammaring and writing style were commented. From the results of the feedback and peer-review, they worked in their group. In the small group discussion, students were able to fix and improve their writing performance. The findings show that edmodo- based portfolio provides graphic of students’ writing performance. Well-known as a nightmare activity, writing activities are perceived as an art of writing. Now, the students are getting aware off their good writing performance as the results of interactive and dialogic process between the writer, peers, and lecturer as their their tutor. As Nur (pseudonym) noted, “..dengan mendapatkan feedback terus, tercatat dengan baik dan saya baru paham, banyak hal yang harus diperbaiki lagi dan lagi (having consecutive feedback through edmodo intensively, now I know and become aware of how to fix each mistake I have”). Second, Emodo-based e-portfolio also provides information about perceives positive attitude from the students. The students realized that this edmodo-based e-portfolio writing made their writing practices different from earlier writing activities which feedback was rarely given and stored. Febby, for example, commented that this way of writing practices kept her optimistic for having quality of writing practice during this covid-19 lockdown. Furthermore, the students’ critical writing awareness is also developed. During the writing practice, the students were directed to search credible sources of information to support their arguments. They finally acknowledged that presenting and showing strong argument is crucial in writing. In short, the success of applying critical argumentative essay writing was demonstrated in their first draft of writings after getting several feedback and peer comments. This suggests that e- portfolio was suitable to be employed as alternative writing assessment in this outbreak period. Misdi 161 p-ISSN 2614-5960, e-ISSN 2615-4137 Discussion and Conclusion This study investigating how e-portfolio based assessment was conducted to assess students writing performance through Edmodo Learning Management System in a classroom of Teacher College in Indonesia. The findings show that the students’ writing performance was tracked and found their improvement. E-portfolio, an assessment tool has been widely endorsed in theories (Chye, Zhou, Koh, & Liu, 2019). The students also received Edmodo-base e-portfolio writing assessment positively. From this e- portfolio assessment, students critical discussion and writing were also seen. E-portfolio serves in-depth view of both students and teachers about their writing classroom practices. Thus, e-portfolio in writing activities enable to save students’ writing rhetoric development (Barrot, 2020). E-portfolio, e.g. edmodo LSM also internalize students as reflective and critical writers as “using edmodo make it powerful to be self-directed writers. The corrective feedback often empowers so that now I know what and how to fix and develop for each sentence (S1). Therefore, e-portfolio based writing assessment is mandated as an alternative formative assessment which fruitfully rich of competence- based feedback and practices (Popescu-mitroia, Lumini, & Greculescu, 2015). As Lam & Lam (2019) suggest, portfolio is an innovative learning-process assessment that is promising and enlightening assessment for teacher educators. The findings reported here suggest that e-portfolio, e.g. Edmodo LMS based e-portfolio as applicable authentic assessment in covid-19 context for language learning and teaching assessment and evaluation. As reported by Chye (2019), e-portfolio enables to deliberately promote critical and self-directed assessment for their selfness in inquiry of being self-reflected and empowered student teachers and language teachers, especially in teachers of English as a foreign language. Therefore, educators should consider this kind of authentic assessment instead of traditional assessment in term of papers and classroom-based assessment. References Barrot, J. S. (2020). Effects of Facebook-based e-portfolio on ESL learners’ writing performance. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 1–17. http://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2020.1745822 Chye, S., Zhou, M., Koh, C., & Liu, W. C. (2019). Using e-portfolios to facilitate reflection : Insights from an activity theoretical analysis. Teaching and Teacher Research and Innovation in Language Learning Vol. 3(2) May 2020 p-ISSN 2614-5960, e-ISSN 2615-4137 162 Education, 85, 24–35. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.06.002 Lam, R., & Lam, R. (2019). Writing portfolio assessment in practice : individual , institutional , and systemic issues institutional , and systemic issues. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 1–14. http://doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2019.1696197 Popescu-mitroia, M., Lumini, L.-, & Greculescu, A. (2015). The Usefulness of Portfolios as Assessment Tools in Higher Education, 191, 2645–2649. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.722 Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest was reported About Author Misdi is a faculty member of English Education Department, Universitas Swadaya Gunung Jati Cirebon- Indonesia. He has taught EFL for thirteen years. His research interests include TEFL methodology and academic writing. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3543-0823