Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment is a multi-faceted process characterized by the following recurrent qualities: * It is continuous and ongoing, providing both formative (i. e. , ongoing) and summative (i. e. , culminating) opportunities for monitoring students’ progress toward achieving essential outcomes. * It is multidimensional, i. e. , reflecting a wide variety of artifacts and processes reflecting various aspects of students’ learning process(es). It provides for collaborative reflection, including ways for students to reflect about their own thinking processes and metacognitive introspection as they monitor their own comprehension, reflect upon their approaches to problem-solving and decision-making, and observe their emerging understanding of subjects and skills.

* They clearly reflect stated learner outcomes identified in the core or essential curriculum that students are expected to study. * They focus upon students’ performance-based learning experiences as well as their acquisition of key knowledge, skills, and attitudes. They contain samples of work that stretch over an entire marking period, rather than single points in time. * They contain works that represent a variety of different assessment tools. * They contain a variety of work samples and evaluations of that work by the student, peers, and teachers, possible even parents’ reactions. Source: Paul S. George, (1995). What Is Portfolio Assessment Really and How Can I Use It in My Classroom? Gainesville, FL: Teacher Education Resources.

Purposes of the Portfolio The Professional Portfolio we describe at PortfolioMaker. a differs from others you may see elsewhere in that it includes the following two main purposes: * To demonstrate your professional knowledge and skill in what some people call teaching ‘competencies’ and which we call ‘Dimensions of Teaching’. * To emphasize your reflections on your entries. Your reflections will prove to be an integral part of the whole portfolio process because without them, the portfolio remains merely a scrapbook, a collection of information — not a portfolio. Our philosophy of the Professional Portfolio builds on the work of Donald Schon (1983).

The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books. * To illustrate your knowledge and skills in interviews or job appraisals. * To make your teaching visible so that you can: * Ensure that your teaching includes practices that reflect the reasons that you chose this profession. * Reflect on your practice and establish learning goals and/or targets. * Reflect on your practice to determine the extent to which you have achieved these goals and/or targets. * Ensure that your teaching reflects your beliefs about what good teaching should be * And, to celebrate your professionalism.

Different Types of Portfolios * Documentation Portfolio: This type is also know as the “working” portfolio. Specifically, this approach involves a collection of work over time showing growth and improvement reflecting students’ learning of identified outcomes. The documentation portfolio can include everything from brainstorming activities to drafts to finished products. The collection becomes meaningful when specific items are selected out to focus on particular educational experiences or goals. It can include the bet and weakest of student work.

Process Portfolio: This approach documents all facets or phases of the learning process. They are particularly useful in documenting students’ overall learning process. It can show how students integrate specific knowledge or skills and progress towards both basic and advanced mastery. Additionally, the process portfolio inevitably emphasizes students’ reflection upon their learning process, including the use of reflective journals, think logs, and related forms of metacognitive processing. * Showcase Portfolio: This type of portfolio is best used for summative evaluation of students’ mastery of key curriculum outcomes.

It should include students’ very best work, determined through a combination of student and teacher selection. Only completed work should be included. In addition, this type of portfolio is especially compatible with audio-visual artifact development, including photographs, videotapes, and electronic records of students’ completed work. The showcase portfolio should also include written analysis and reflections by the student upon the decision-making process(es) used to determine which works are included.