Nearly two weeks ago at the Progressive Educators' Network Conference in San Francisco held the Whitcomb Hotel (October 4 – 6, 2007), a group of educators came together in an “Open Space” dialogue to discuss portfolios in schools. Most of the folks that came to the open space session had some knowledge of portfolio assessment, yet the groups’ familiarity with using portfolios to assess students ran the gamut from “we use portfolios a lot” to “I’ve heard a bit about portfolio as an assessment tool and I’d like to learn more.”
This particular blog entry attempts to start the conversation about portfolios between those people who want to enter the dialogue in this “Open Source” community. By Open Source, we mean anyone is free to join in the conversation (in a respectful way of course). Eventually, we’ll talk about moving traditional class content into portfolios. Later, we’ll talk about e-portfolios (electronic portfolios) and give some ideas about how many of the people within this community can join in the discussion. Finally, we’ll distill some of the thinking that we at Presidio Hill School have been doing in thinking about portfolios, particularly e-Portfolios, with an eye on their further use in our classrooms and beyond.
To start, portfolios and even electronic portfolios are nothing new. Many schools have been using both kinds of portfolios in a way to help “authentically assess” what a particular child does on a specific project or within a given discipline. Some schools even attempt to capture a learner's work and reflection in a wholistic way across disciplines.
Perhaps we should begin by having some common terminology. I don’t mean to offend anyone or even talk down to people, but I want to make sure that I’m not assuming anything by using terms that could mean something very different for someone else. The “comment” section on this blog is a great way to correct or clarify any of the assumptions that I may make.
Let’s start with a definition of “portfolio.” A portfolio is a collection of work by an individual or group. The work can be used for purposes of securing a job (by showing a body of work), as a collection of learning samples, or can be seen as a keepsake for future observers. Oftentimes, portfolios show people’s best work or it shows how work has evolved over time. Portfolios are popular in the creative fields because to show someone work over time in a visual or auditory way (like song clips for a sound artist), is a good way to track progression.
Moving on to discuss the term “authentic assessment." Authentic Assessment is assessing students on what they actually know or want to know rather than on what someone else (a teacher, school, district, test company, state, or nation) wants that student to know. For instance, a student does a report on Caesar Chavez. The student, often in conference with the teacher, comes up with what s/he wants to know about the Chavez, and the student completes the project with the teacher as the guide. Assesment occurs all throughout the process with clear expectations (perhaps a rubric) and at the end with the actual product. Another definition of “authentic assessment” is that the person being assessesed calls in people from outside the school community to provide contextual feedback (i.e., a panel of evaluators, maybe the teacher is involved, maybe not)>
Many of the people at the PEN sessison talked about ways in which portfolios were used to either assess or to have students reflect upon their learning. Students reflecting on their learning is one of the most powerful ways that teachers can take students far beyond the moment in their learning and into the realm of connecting their thinking to some larger purpose. Some questions that students may have are: Why is this particular artifact (in the portfolio) relevant? Does the piece (that I’m reflecting on) show what I want it to show? Does it answer what the teacher/facilitator would like me to answer? Is this my best piece? Is it a piece that I’m proud of? Is it just one piece in the journey of the piece? How did I create the piece?
This last question is one that begins to get into metacognition, which is when students begin to reflect on how they came up with the processes involved in creation. Metacognition are the whys and hows of a particular assignment.
The next blog entry will focus on ways that traditional class content may be archived as well as using portfolios to assess student work and/or have students refelect on their thinking.
