HIPs Case Study

Regina Lehman

Professor of Health Sciences & Occupational Therapy Assistant Program Director

HIPs Practice Area: ePortfolio

Crafting Reflective Clinicians: Integrative ePortfolio Practice in the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program

“You can write a prompt that tells the student what to say, or you can write a prompt that asks them what to think about.”

Case Study

When Regina Lehman stepped into her role as program director of the Occupational Therapy Assistant program (OTA) in 2012, she was introduced to something unexpected: ePortfolio. “E for what?” she recalls saying. But rather than brushing it off as another ed-tech fad, Lehman became one of its most persistent advocates and most creative implementers. Her work with high impact practices, particularly ePortfolio, has been transformative not only for her students but also for her own pedagogy and professional trajectory.

From the start, Lehman recognized the unique structure of the OTA program, which integrated a lab hour in the computer lab across three distinct phases of the curriculum. These labs were not merely tech support hours—they were pedagogically intentional spaces where students could engage with reflective, integrative learning through their ePortfolios. “It’s not just write a paper and upload it,” she explains. “It’s trying to teach the magic of the platform.”

Lehman’s approach to ePortfolio is centered on longitudinal growth. She is interested in how students evolve, from incoming learners to emerging clinicians, and how that arc can be both captured and deepened through reflective digital work. “The transformative nature of our pedagogy is about having students transition into being clinicians.” For Lehman, ePortfolio is the ideal tool to make that transformation visible.

Throughout her tenure, she has been at the forefront of designing reflective assignments that encourage students to return to their earlier work, revisit their “About Me” sections, and revise their professional statements in light of their clinical experiences. “By the time they get to be our seniors, the expectation is that they are going to see themselves more as clinicians,” she explains. She redesigned the capstone course to better reflect this achievement, ensuring that students articulate their evolution with intention and clarity.

A hallmark of Lehman’s pedagogy is her emphasis on reflection. She takes pride in her role as what she jokingly calls the “queen of reflection,” and she’s spent years learning how to craft prompts that ask students not just to answer but to think.“You can write a prompt that tells the student what to say, or you can write a prompt that asks them what to think about.”

These prompts underpin a series of scaffolded assignments that move students from self-assessment to global awareness to clinical competence. Early on, students reflect on who they are and what they bring to the field. They examine professional practice across the globe, analyze leadership and ethics, and eventually write a professional ethos statement grounded in personal and disciplinary identity. One signature assignment asks students to pledge ethical commitments based on the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) code. Others ask them to connect what they’ve written previously—like a personal strength, weakness, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis—to their future professional goals.

Lehman emphasizes the integrative nature of this work. “We talk about leadership, advocacy, ethics… These things should be part of your DNA as a good practitioner.” In the capstone, students build on these threads with a final reflective practice project titled “My Commitment to Best Practice,” where they articulate action steps for continued development.

For Lehman, these practices are not only about student learning—they are about creating meaningful professional identities. “It’s not siloed,” she says. “It’s not, ‘I do this assignment now and never look at it again.’” Instead, she asks students to link their assignments to larger themes and purposes. They even write letters to their clinical supervisors reflecting on what in their ePortfolios they would want to share, and why.

Lehman has also been attentive to shifts in student demographics. With younger, more tech-savvy cohorts entering the program, she has seen a renewed excitement around digital composition. “They’re selecting their backgrounds, curating images, choosing colors—it’s joyful,” she says. This engagement affirms her belief that students can and will take ownership of their ePortfolios when given the structure and encouragement to do so.

Still, she is honest about the challenges. “Sometimes it fails. It’s just getting lost in the sauce.” But rather than abandon the work, Lehman doubles down. “If it’s not meaningful, why are we doing it?” This question fuels her continual effort to connect assignments across the curriculum and ensure that the ePortfolio is not “one more thing,” but rather a central part of the student experience.

Lehman is now taking on a new role—teaching all three ePortfolio labs in the curriculum. For her, this is a chance to build a more cohesive thread through the program and to address what she sees as a challenge: faculty engagement with student portfolios. “If I’m not teaching it, I’m not looking at it,” she says. Her goal is to cultivate a culture in which faculty see the ePortfolio as a resource—not just for assessment, but for understanding students’ growth.

Through thirteen years of evolving practice, Regina Lehman continues to model what it means to teach with purpose, reflect with honesty, and design with the student’s journey at the center. “I still love what I do,” she says simply. “And I still believe ePortfolio is a high impact practice.”

Courses Targeting High Impact Practices

Other High Impact Practices Used

About

Regina M Lehman, MS, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist and educator. Since joining the LAGCC faculty in 2012 as the Program Director of the Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) Program, she has endeavored to create intentional connections between the high impact practices of occupational therapy and the pedagogy of ePortfolio. Throughout her tenure at the College, Professor Lehman has lead initiatives around ePortfolio practice including mini grants, interprofessional collaborations, and assessment of student learning outcomes. Her interest in the intentional infusion of ePortfolio pedagogy into the OTA Program curriculum, is the transformative power of the portfolio to make integrative learning visible to faculty and the student themselves as they transition from to students to entry-level clinicians. Ms. Lehman’s scholarly publications and local and national presentations have highlighted her work around the use of ePortfolio pedagogy, integrative learning, and reflective practice to impact longitudinal growth across the curriculum, student learning outcomes, and professional development.