The use of portfolios has grown tremendously over the past
ten years and for good reason. Portfolios are an excellent means
of demonstrating student growth. At times, items from individual
student portfolios may be submitted as alternative assessments
for proficiency requirements.
Portfolios vary according to their purpose. Some school systems
require portfolios (especially in the area of writing) and
are
very clear in the expected content. Some teachers include student
projects, videotapes, computer disks, and cassette tapes of
students reading in their student portfolios. Other teachers
are computerizing their students' entire portfolios. Some
teachers return student portfolios at the end of the school
year, others
pass them onto next year's teacher, thereby allowing student
portfolios to continue over several years.
The time to consider using portfolios is before school starts.
First ask if your school requires portfolios and if so, obtain
a list of expected content. If portfolios are not required,
decide what your purpose for using portfolios
would be. For example if you are interested in documenting writing
growth within portfolios, it will not be necessary to put science
papers and other subject materials into the portfolios (unless
they demonstrate writing growth).
Once you decide on purpose, the next question is how and where
to store the material. Options include: three-ring
binders, hanging files, folders, new pizza boxes, and even shoe
boxes (though it is best to have papers fit flat within the
portfolios). I used legal-sized hanging files this year and
it worked well. The students could easily access their portfolios
and they were large enough to accommodate large or oddly shaped
items.
Selecting pieces for inclusion within the portfolio
can be the choice of the teacher, student, or both. I tend
to select the initial pieces to include in student's portfolios
and allow the students to select the final year-end pieces.
I find it is best not to send the papers to be included
in the portfolio home first because the return rate is most
often not 100%. Instead, I invite parents to come and look at
their child's portfolios at any time and, for very special pieces,
I have sent home copies of a specific assignment. I also review
the contents of the portfolio at parent-teacher conferences.
I have my students select the final pieces for their portfolios.
They design a cover and create a dedication page as well as
a table of contents. I find at this age, it is often difficult
for the student to describe in detail why he/she selected an
individual piece to include within the portfolio (too often
their reason is simply "I got a good grade on it," or "I liked
it"). I found it works better to have the students assess their
overall growth as they look at their pieces chronologically.
(The students stamp the date on each item before they place
it into their portfolio.)
Within their overall written assessment piece, I require details
and specific examples that illustrate what type of growth they
are identifying. Often the students want to rewrite a piece
they wrote earlier in the year before placing it into their
portfolio. I encourage these revisions and ask them to analyze
what specific changes they are making so they can include this
information in their final evaluation. This year I laminated
their portfolio covers and used our school's bookmaker to create
their final portfolios.
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