Definition
Portfolio
assessment provides a body of student work--essentially, a
portfolio--that can be used to appraise student
performance over time.
Discussion
Portfolio
assessment ranges from portfolios that demonstrates the
student's best work to an "expanded student
record" that holds a full representation of the
student's work, from math equations to essays on
literature. There has been some confusion in the field as
to who the portfolio is being kept for. For example, in
some cases, student portfolios serve as a replacement for
the high school diploma or transcript.
The
disadvantage of portfolios is that they're not as quick
and easy to evaluate, plus they're hard to rank, as with a
grade or score. Because portfolios are qualitative, many
employers find them difficult to use as a determinant of a
candidate's skills. Often, employers would rather see a
quantitative demonstration of a student's best skills and
work.
Some
schools create portfolios that serve as a representative
sample of a student's work, showing the range of
performance and experience. Such records usually hold far
more information that employers need. Other schools want
to use portfolios as an assessment tool to provide an
alternative to standardized or teacher testing.
In
some schools there has been much discussion on who
"owns" the portfolio, the student or the school?
Ownership implies who gets to decide what goes into the
portfolio, where the portfolio is stored, and what happens
to the portfolio after graduation.
Let's
look the implications portfolios have on the following
elements of education:
 | Curriculum--Some
people believe that using portfolios will enable
teachers to broaden their curriculum to include areas
they traditionally could not assess with standardized
testing. How well this works depends on how much a
curriculum is developed "to the test," in
other words, how much curriculum is geared towards
achieving high test scores rather than learning for
learning's sake.
| Instruction--Portfolio
assessment appears to compliment a teacher's use of
instructional strategies centered around teamwork,
projects, and applied learning. Portfolios are also
compatible with more individualized instruction, as
well as strategies focused on different learning
styles.
| Assessment--A
portfolio can be used as an assessment tool. External
assessors--employers, evaluation panels, and so
on--can benefit from them. Teachers can also utilize
them to judge student performance. Plus, students can
use their own portfolios for self-assessment and
reflection. |
| |
The
content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
If you want me to evaluate your student's
portfolio, please email me at:
