Topic 7 Portfolios

Many professionals such as artists, architects and designers use portfolios to showcase their work and record their achievements. Teachers are also being asked to use portfolios to document their accomplishments and professional learning. Recall what you already know about Portfolios and Portfolio Assessment. The following prompts will help to activate your prior knowledge. · Compare and contrast report card grades and portfolios as a means of communication about students' achievement. How are they alike? How are they different? · What do you believe to be the major challenges that teachers face in their use of portfolios and why is each a challenge? · Consider the following viewpoints: · Creating portfolios automatically makes you a better teacher. · Portfolios are easy to manage if you're an organized person. · Portfolios make learning easy for students. · Self-reflection is at the heart of portfolios and portfolio assessment.

Portfolios come in many forms and can hold many types of artifacts and evidence that tell a complete story of achievement or growth. Portfolios offer ways to communicate about student learning in greater detail than is permitted by report card grades. This does not mean that they should replace grades, but rather that we should see them as serving different purposes with different users and uses. What are some of the benefits of portfolios? For Students

For Teachers

For Parents

• shows growth over time •displays student's accomplishments •helps students make choices •encourages them to take responsibility for their work •demonstrates how students think

•highlights performance-based activities over year •provides a framework for organizing student's work •encourages collaboration with students, parents, and teachers •showcases an ongoing curriculum •facilitates student information for decision making

•offers insight into what their children do in school •facilitates communication between home and school •gives the parents an opportunity to react to what their child is doing in school and to their development •provides actual work samples by their children •shows parents how to make a portfolio so they may do one at home at the same time

Administrators •provides evidence that teacher/school goals are being met •shows growth of students and teachers •provides data from various sources

Reference: http://www.uncp.edu/etc/webpage/Benefits_of_Using_Portfolios.html

What is a portfolio? A portfolio is a carefully selected sample of a student's work to illustrate significant learning throughout the year. Portfolios can be used to represent learning for one subject area, composite learning for a particular grade, or learning that spans several grades. Portfolios are one way to collect students' work to show progress over time. Portfolios become powerful assessment tools when students are engaged in reflecting on the learning demonstrated by the artifacts collected. Portfolios can range from very simple to very comprehensive systems that reflect the purpose of the portfolio. Unfortunately many teachers have drowned in a sea of paper trying to manage a mega-portfolio system. The most effective portfolios are those that grow naturally out of the classroom learning where everyone understands the portfolio's purpose, there is a shared vocabulary for talking about the portfolios, students have opportunities to think about and talk about their portfolios, and students have an active role in managing their portfolios.

When incorporating student literacy portfolios into your classroom assessment package ask yourself the following key questions: · What is the purpose of the portfolio? · What would I like to know about the students? · What evidence/artifacts will best represent student learning?

To recap, when developing a plan for using portfolios in your classroom: · Maintain a sharp focus: develop clear guidelines for selecting material to be collected in the portfolio to reflect dependable evidence of learning expectations. · Rely on quality assessments: align expectations, purposes, and assessment methods to provide evidence. · Be clear about the purpose. · Develop a shared language: criteria for judging merit. · Provide opportunities to collect evidence. · Check for understanding through student selfreflection.

Literacy Portfolios provide a tangible record of students' development as readers, writers and oral and visual communicators. Many of the reading assessment strategies investigated in previous topics can be part of a student's literacy portfolio. As you investigate portfolios in more detail, you are encouraged to use your knowledge of effective and authentic assessment to think critically about the information and ideas presented.

Task #1: Visit the following site: http://www.prenhall.com/literacy_portfolios/html/portfolios.html The site provides examples of what a literacy portfolio may look like at different grade levels. Choose the example that applies to you. Skim through the samples and information provided. You will also find blackline masters at the end of the article that are included as part of the portfolios.

Task #2: 1) Investigate and collect portfolio ideas and strategies from your personal collection, readings and online searches. There are some starting points listed below. Read the article in Orbit on Portfolio Assessment: Barb Bower and Carol Rolheiser. "Portfolio Assessment Organizing for Success", Orbit, pp. 47-49. Volume 30, Number 4, 2000. Explore one or more of the following web sites on different aspects of portfolios: http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4528.html http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4530.html http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4537.html http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4535.html http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4536.html http://abcteach.com/directory/portfolios/goalsevaluations/ http://www.anglit.net/main/portfolio/default.htmlhttp://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/mla/assess.html#port

Task #3 Share your ideas and thoughts relating to Task #3 in the online professional dialogue. Imagine that you are going to develop a student reading portfolio for your classroom. · What is the purpose of the portfolio? · What would you like to know about the student as a reader? · What evidence/artifacts will best represent student learning? You may want to include any forms that you may already be using within your own class that others may benefit from.