What are Portfolios?

Place to collect student performances over time

Consciously selected examples of work that is selected to show growth
Could be a collection of many different student performances OR can be single performance by different
students
3. Pros and Cons
Pros
Students revisit and reflect on their growth
Limited number of pieces of evidence can certify student learning
Focus on self-improvement
Cons
Scoring that is timely and reliable.
4. Questions that surround portfolios
Who owns it?
What value is there in passing the portfolio along to the next teacher?
How can we make sure that the sample is valid and reliable?
5. Uses for portfolios
Showcase for students best work, as chosen by student
Showcase for students best work, as chosen by teacher
Showcase for students interest
Showcase for students growth
Evidence of self-assessment
Complete collection of student work for documentation and archiving
A constantly changing sample of work chosen by student (could change in response to different
exhibitions or needs like applying to college)

6. Where will the portfolio pieces come from? Look at this list and see what else needs to be added .
7.
Media: videos, audio, pictures, artwork, computer programs
Reflections: plans, statement of goals, self assessment, journal entries
Individual work: tests, journals, logs, homework, essays
Group work: Labs, peer reviews, cooperative group projects
Work in progress: rough and final drafts, show-your-work problems, science fair projects
Performance assessments: designed to require students to produce core content and skills
Prompts: Conventional open-ended writing questions
8. Evaluationscan be done by either teachers or students or both
9. Individual pieces can be assessment by. Checklists, rating scales or rubrics
10. Getting Started.. How can I expand my assessment practices to include portfolios?
11. What should a student know and be able to do?
The answer to this question represents a vision of what a student should know and be able to do.
Creating that vision is one thing; helping students internalize that vision is quite another.. Of all the
questions listed above, establishing a vision is perhaps the most important.
12. Who is the audience?
List all the possible audiences and then figure out which audiences are most important.
Is the purpose is to help students understand themselves? Or, is it to serve a evaluative function?
There need to be some defined readers of the portfolio that will be receptive to examining student
work.
13. What information will be collected in the portfolio?
Will you collect some information, in addition to student work, that helped to put student work in
context. Most of the teachers ask for some kind of self-reflection, where the student explains why a
particular piece fits in the portfolio.

The student work itself can have multiple components. Do you want to encourage the collection of
multimedia pieces? Do you want to see works in process (rough drafts, early attempts at experiments)
as well as completed works?
14. Create a Mock-Up
Portfolios can be hard to visualize. For many teachers and students, portfolios only become clear when
they see a sample portfolio of work from a student from their school.
You might consider creating a mock-up by digitizing an existing student's paper portfolio.
The mock-up need not be a complete; its purpose is similar to an architectural model -- to provide a
visual sense of what the final version might look like.
15. Review with students what and how a portfolio is created
It will be important to make sure you are clear about who selects the work that goes into the portfolio.
You should describe the kinds and frequency of including work samples and self-reflections.
Describe how frequently teacher evaluations will be done and on what pieces or if it will be on the
entire collection.