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The New Teacher Advisor

Teachers and administrators have been making a move from traditional paper-and-pencil type tests to alternate forms of assessment. Teacher observation, projects, essays, and other more creative ways of evaluating student achievement have gained a larger following within the classroom. Although its use has declined, one type of assessment tool that can be used very effectively is the student portfolio. Portfolios remain quite popular in education coursework and with administrators evaluating senior teachers. Why, then, do so many classroom teachers forego the use of portfolios as assessment tools?

One reason might be that the portfolio is a very subjective form of assessment. For anyone uncomfortable without a grading key or answer sheet, subjective evaluation can be a scary task. Secondly, teachers often are unsure themselves of the purpose of a portfolio and its uses in the classroom. Third, there is a question of how the portfolio can be most effectively used to assess student learning.

The following suggestions will help you come to terms with those three factors and allow you to utilize student portfolios to evaluate the learning occurring in your classroom.

Set a goal, or purpose, for the portfolio. Your goal should be tied to how you plan to use the portfolio. Do you want to see student improvement over the long term or a mastery of a specific set of skills? Is it important for you to see the scope of student learning over time or do you merely want to collect samples of student work to pass along to the next teacher? Are you looking for a concrete way to show parents the amount of work completed and their child's improvement over time? Take some time to think about what kind of data you want to collect and how you plan to use it.

Next, determine how -- or if -- you will grade the portfolios. If your purpose is merely to collect work samples to pass along to another teacher or parent, there is no need to actually grade the portfolios. If, however, you are looking for an overall mastery of skills, you will want to grade the work collected. The most efficient way to grade a portfolio is through a rating scale. If you're looking for specific skills, you might begin with a checklist. That checklist will ensure that all necessary pieces are included. I use the following guidelines: Is the work completed correctly (mechanics), completely (information), and comprehensively (depth)? Each area is marked on a scale of 1-4. My scale is 1 = not at all; 2 = somewhat; 3 = mostly; and 4 = entirely.

Say, for example, that as a teacher of writing, I'm looking for examples within the student portfolios that show each writing mode covered during my course. Each piece then is determined to be correct, complete, and comprehensive based on a scale of 1-4. The three scores are averaged giving each piece an overall score. I then average all the scores to give a grade for the entire portfolio. A math teacher might be looking for samples showing various problems solved based on the skills taught during a particular unit or year. A social studies teacher might be looking for comprehension and understanding of major events during a specific time period. Each teacher must determine what skills or learning are to be evaluated through student portfolios.

It also is important -- especially if you plan to use the portfolio as a major grade for your course -- that you get another teacher to help with the evaluations. That ensures that your assessment is reliable. Teachers often cut some slack for less academically inclined students, while holding others to higher standards. That is especially prevalent in subjective assessments. By asking a teacher who is unfamiliar with your students to read over the work and assess it using your rating scale, you are making a more authentic evaluation. The two scores then can be averaged to get a final grade. That will show you and the student a more accurate assessment of their work products.

One thing to keep in mind is that, although many portfolios reflect long-term projects completed over the course of a semester or year, it does not have to be that way. You can have students create portfolios of their work for a particular unit. That portfolio might count as a project for that particular topic of study. The next unit might not include the use of a portfolio as an assessment tool. There is no need to collect work in a portfolio, give an end-of-unit test, and have students complete a major project in connection with the unit. All three activities are tools to evaluate student learning and its overkill for both you and the students to use all three. Choose the type of assessment that best meets the goals and objectives of a particular unit.

Finally, student involvement is very important in the portfolio process. It is vital that students also understand the purpose of the portfolio, how it will be used to evaluate their work, and how grades for it will be determined. Make sure students are given a checklist of what is expected in the portfolio before they begin submitting work. Take time at the beginning of the unit to explain the type of evaluation it is, so students clearly understand what is expected in terms of work product.

It also is important that you allow students a choice of what is placed in their portfolios. Although you might have a few specific pieces you require, permit students to include two or three pieces of their own choosing. Additionally, be sure to offer students the opportunity to reflect about the work included in the portfolio. What are their thoughts and feelings about each piece? Does it represent their best work or were they goofing off when they completed it? Why did a student choose a particular piece? What was his or her thought process in determining which pieces to submit? Those kinds of questions force students to actively think about their work and the portfolio as a whole rather than simply throwing any old assignment into a folder. Reflection provides further meaning to the assessment.

The portfolio is not the easiest type of assessment to implement, but it can be a very effective tool. Portfolios show the cumulative efforts and learning of a particular student over time. They offer valuable data about student improvement and skill mastery. Along with student reflection, that data provides valuable information about how each student learns and what is important to him or her in the learning process.

When starting the portfolio process, remember to keep it simple. Start with a single unit. Determine your goals and purpose for the portfolio. Create a checklist. Explain the process to students and encourage them to take an active role in the development of their portfolios. What you might discover is a very valuable and meaningful evaluation tool that effectively assesses student learning.

Article by Emma McDonald
Education World®
Copyright © 2011 Education World

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Student Portfolios as an Assessment Tool

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Teachers and administrators have been making a move from traditional paper-and-pencil type tests to alternate forms of assessment. Teacher observation, projects, essays, and other more creative ways of evaluating student achievement have gained a larger following within the classroom. Although its use has declined, one type of assessment tool that can be used very effectively is the student portfolio.

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Every student should have a collection of personal bests-a cloud-based story of their development and artifacts of accomplishment that's easily shareable in full or in part and organized for presentation.

At their most basic level portfolios can simply be a storage strategy. They can also be an active work, collaboration and reflection space including a blog and feedback from teachers and peers. Active use cultivates habits of lifelong learning by promoting reflection on what to learn and how to learn. The third level of use is portfolio as showcase around a set of learning outcomes-an achievement documentation system-such as high school graduation.

Development of a digital portfolio is at the heart of a college and career readiness program at Grandview High School, which is located in Central Washington's wine country. The portfolio process is supported through an advisory system in which students explore career interests, monitor academics, and practice habits of success. Grandview has been recognized for its leadership in developing this program as part of a multi-year College Spark Washington grant initiative. Ultimately, each student's portfolio feeds a a senior project and is shared during a community panel presentation in which students tell the story of who they are, where they are headed, and how they will get there.

Following are eight tools that schools are using to promote deeper learning by encouraging students to build a collection of personal bests.

Google Drive portfolios. With more than 40 million active users of Google Apps For Education, there are likely thousands of schools making use of Google Drive for student portfolios. Students can create work in Google Docs, save it in Drive, and create a showcase portfolio using Google Sites (see Google Sites as a Tool for Student Portfolios and Kern Kelley videos; also see how Voyager Academy uses Drive for portfolios.)

Linkedin. Students 13 and over can use LinkedIn to create a professional presence online, showcasing their work, building out a network of people working in career areas of interest, and finding internships. LinkedIn is becoming a powerful tool to help students navigate their path from high school to college to career.

eduClipper. While focused on building community and content, Adam Bellow and the eduClipper team haven't neglected the portfolio uses. Both students and educators can create portfolios on eduClipper. An August portfolio update will allow students and teachers to create walkthroughs of their portfolios with audio narration from the creator. WeLearnedIt (the sister app to eduClipper) serves as a PBL platform for iPad. It has a robust digital learning portfolios feature including video and audio in addition to text. Content can be imported from Google Drive, Dropbox, the Web, any Microsoft Office file, PDF, and most embed code (YouTube, Vimeo, Prezi, etc.) and animated gifs. The apps both feature a great whiteboard video creation tool that is perfect for annotating over images with text, audio, and more-a user favorite for capturing and highlighting work. Collaborative portfolios allow more than one person to contribute content. Parents can see learning reports that showcase student work. (See feature.)

Three Ring. Committed to the idea that student work is the most important indicator of what students know, Three Ring allows students and teachers to capture evidence live from any mobile device with unlimited storage of video, pictures, and documents. Work can be viewed by student, class, date, or standard.

Pathbrite. Primarily a HigherEd tool, Pathbrite is used by students on more than 1,000 campuses through an integration with Cengage Learning's MindTap platform. Pathbrite enables users to tailor their stories of mastery for various employers and admissions officers. Cengage and ACT are investors. (See feature)

Seesaw. Empowering students as young as five to independently create and organize their work in a digital journal, Seesaw helps kids develop their academic voice, and collaborate with classmates.

Exibi. Edvation CEO Adam Smith is excited about their new portfolio and project publishing tool Exibi. "Our mission is to help differently talented kids show what they know and can do. It's based on the work of Dr. Helen Barrett with a private workspace and public showcase," said Adam. After organizing learning artifacts, students 'make claims' explaining how their artifacts demonstrate particular competencies.

GoEnnounce. A portfolio with social media and crowdsource funding features, GoEnnounce allows students to add followers and share updates with friends.

A growing number of schools and universities are encouraging learners to create a domain and a digital portfolio. The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia provides its faculty and 5,000 students with a domain to, "Explore the creation and development of their digital identities." The Domain of One's Own initiative facilitates WordPress installation, provides technical support, and hosts the site until graduation-and then the domain and content remains the student's. A domain and a portfolio are great ways to encourage deeper learning and quality work products.

As evidenced at Grandview High and in thousands of other schools, well-designed learner portfolios provide students an opportunity to chart their growth and tell their story.

For more, see:

Tom Vander Ark is author of Smart Parents, Smart Cities and Getting Smart. He is co-founder of Getting Smart and Learn Capital and serves on the boards of 4.0 Schools, eduInnovation, Digital Learning Institute, Imagination Foundation, Charter Board Partners and Bloomboard. Follow Tom on Twitter, @tvanderark.

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Every Student Should Have A Digital Portfolio

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Every student should have a collection of personal bests-a cloud-based story of their development and artifacts of accomplishment that's easily shareable in full or in part and organized for presentation. At their most basic level portfolios can simply be a storage strategy.

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by Carol Rolheiser, Barbara Bower and Laurie Stevahn

Key Ideas

Establishing the goals and overall purpose of the portfolio

Choosing a type of portfolio

Considering the audiences for the portfolio

Determining the time frame for maintaining the portfolio

Overview

The material in this chapter helps you make decisions about the use and purpose of portfolio assessment in your classroom, school, or district. Focusing on and clarifying your educational goals is crucial groundwork for all other decisions. To define those goals, you'll work through an activity that is designed to identify the purpose of the portfolio. Once the purpose of the portfolio has been determined, a particular type of portfolio-either growth or best work-can be chosen, and the time frame for portfolio maintenance can be set. Through another activity you'll think about the different audiences for students' portfolios and plan to address their various needs. Use the figures to help you make and record key decisions about the purpose, type, audiences, and time frame for your students' portfolios.

Establishing Goals and Purposes

Beginning with your broader educational goals will help you focus decision making about the implementation of portfolios in your educational setting and clarify the purpose of the portfolios. Goals often emerge from an external source (state, provincial, or district guidelines) or an internal source (personal philosophy). Goals that are determined by external guidelines usually form the initial basis for classroom instruction and assessment; however, teachers tend to merge these external goals with personal goals that reflect their philosophical and pragmatic orientations. Activity 1 will help you articulate your "dream goals" for students. See Figure 1.1 for examples of dream goals, or responses, to Activity 1.

Activity 1. Identifying Dream Goals

Form groups of three teachers. Teacher A serves as the interviewer, B the responder, and C the recorder.

Teacher A interviews Teacher B, while Teacher C records the response to these questions:

What are some things you would like your students to achieve this year?

What is your dream goal for your students and why is it important?

Teachers rotate roles after each interview, until each teacher has been interviewed. (Allow 3-5 minutes for each interview.)

Discuss how your dream goals will influence instructional and assessment choices.

Responses can also be shared in a large group.

Helping students "develop a love of learning," "become self-directed learners," and "have a positive sense of self" are often identified by teachers as the most important goals to achieve with their students. When teachers articulate these or other personal goals, they are better able to select instructional and assessment approaches that will help them and their students achieve both personal goals and external goals. Portfolio assessment enables teachers to meet both personal and external goals because the process of developing a portfolio and the product created can target a variety of goals.

Identifying the purpose of the portfolio is an essential decision that will influence many facets of organizing the portfolio. Given the importance of this decision, think carefully about the fundamental reasons you are considering the implementation of portfolio assessment. Here are some questions you may want to consider:

Why am I implementing portfolio assessment? Is it mandated by an external body or is it a personal choice?

Why do I want to involve students in collecting and evaluating their own work?

How will portfolios help me achieve my personal goals with my students?

Is my purpose to show the process and product of work or just the product itself?

Is my purpose to have students accumulate a sampling of "best work" for admission to a particular program or for employment?

Is my purpose to carry out large-scale assessment or to report progress and inform instruction at the classroom level?

Is my purpose to evaluate overall student performance or to target specific areas?

Your answers to these questions will be influenced by the control that you have within your educational setting and will determine the overall purpose of the portfolios. The more that you are able to incorporate your personal goals into the portfolio model, the more ownership and motivation you will feel throughout the process.

Types of Portfolios

After identifying the reasons for using portfolio assessment, you need to determine what type of portfolio best suits your needs. The literature on the types, or categories, of portfolio assessment shows many different ways that portfolios have been conceptualized. For example, Danielson and Abrutyn (1997) identify three major types of portfolios: working portfolios, display portfolios, and assessment portfolios. Seely (1996) identifies four types of portfolios: showcase, documentation, evaluation, and process. Burke, Fogarty, and Belgrad (1994) discuss three major categories for portfolios: personal, academic, and professional. Campbell, Cignetti, Melenyzer, Nettles, and Wyman (1997) elaborate on a working and a presentation portfolio in their discussion of portfolios.

Although the conceptualizations of these authors are different, the common theme in determining the type of portfolio to use is that "it is important for educators to be clear about their goals, the reasons they are engaging in a portfolio project, and the intended audience for the portfolios" (Danielson & Abrutyn, 1997, p. 1). To simplify your decision making, think about portfolio types by focusing on two major classifications: best work portfolio and growth portfolio.

Best Work Portfolio

This type of portfolio highlights and shows evidence of the best work of learners. Frequently, this type of portfolio is called a display or showcase portfolio. For students, best work is often associated with pride and a sense of accomplishment and can result in a desire to share their work with others. Best work can include both product and process. It is often correlated with the amount of effort that learners have invested in their work. A major advantage of this type of portfolio is that learners can select items that reflect their highest level of learning and can explain why these items represent their best effort and achievement. Best work portfolios are used for the following purposes:

Student Achievement. Students may select a given number of entries (e.g., 10) that reflect their best effort or achievement (or both) in a course of study. The portfolio can be presented in a student-led parent conference or at a community open house. As students publicly share their excellent work, work they have chosen and reflected upon, the experience may enhance their self-esteem.

Post-Secondary Admissions. The preparation of a post-secondary portfolio targets work samples from high school that can be submitted for consideration in the process of admission to college or university. This portfolio should show evidence of a range of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and may highlight particular qualities relevant to specific programs. Many colleges and universities are adding portfolios to the initial admissions process while others are using them to determine particular placements once students are admitted.

Employability. The audience for this portfolio is an employer. This collection of work needs to be focused on specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for a particular job or career. The school-to-work movements in North America are influencing an increase in the use of employ-ability portfolios. The Conference Board of Canada (1992), for example, outlines the academic, personal management, and teamwork skills that are the foundation of a high-quality Canadian workforce. An employability portfolio is an excellent vehicle for showcasing these skills.

Growth Portfolio

A growth portfolio demonstrates an individual's development and growth over time. Development can be focused on academic or thinking skills, content knowledge, self-knowledge, or any area that is important in your setting. A focus on growth connects directly to identified educational goals and purposes. When growth is emphasized, a portfolio will contain evidence of struggle, failure, success, and change. The growth will likely be an uneven journey of highs and lows, peaks and valleys, rather than a smooth continuum. What is significant is that learners recognize growth whenever it occurs and can discern the reasons behind that growth. The goal of a growth portfolio is for learners to see their own changes over time and, in turn, share their journey with others.

A growth portfolio can be culled to extract a best work sample. It also helps learners see how achievement is often a result of their capacity to self-evaluate, set goals, and work over time. Growth portfolios can be used for the following purposes:

Knowledge. This portfolio shows students' growth in knowledge in a particular content area or across several content areas over time. This kind of portfolio can contain samples of both satisfactory and unsatisfactory work, along with reflections to guide further learning.

Skills and Attitudes. This portfolio shows students' growth in skills and attitudes in areas such as academic disciplines, social skills, thinking skills, and work habits. In this type of portfolio, challenges, difficult experiences, and other growth events can be included to demonstrate students' developing skills. In a thinking skills portfolio, for example, students might include evidence showing growth in their ability to recall, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.

Teamwork. This portfolio demonstrates growth in social skills in a variety of cooperative experiences. Peer responses and evaluations are vital elements in this portfolio model, along with self-evaluations. Evidence of changing attitudes resulting from team experiences can also be included, especially as expressed in self-reflections and peer evaluations.

Career. This portfolio helps students identify personal strengths related to potential career choices. The collection can be developed over several years, perhaps beginning in middle school and continuing throughout high school. The process of selecting pieces over time empowers young people to make appropriate educational choices leading toward meaningful careers. Career portfolios may contain items from outside the school setting that substantiate students' choices and create a holistic view of the students as learners and people. This type of portfolio may be modified for employment purposes.

Considering the Audiences

At one time teachers were the sole participants in assessment decisions, and students and parents were viewed as the recipients of those decisions (Shaklee, Barbour, Ambrose, & Hansford, 1997). Today, however, educators are more actively engaging a wide array of audiences in the assessment process. These audiences are not only rich sources of ongoing information, but also bring diverse perspectives to students' learning. Portfolio assessment is a valuable tool for building bridges and creating partnerships with many audiences, or stakeholders, resulting in better learning opportunities for all students. As Shaklee and colleagues note, "The cast of stakeholders may vary from program to program or from teacher to teacher and from time to time. The important factor is that teachers and students define a series of multiple stakeholders in order to provide a broad panorama of the students' abilities" (1997, p. 44).

Many different audiences, or stakeholders, may have a role in the portfolio assessment process. Audiences vary, depending on your particular setting, goals, and purposes. Primary audiences usually include students, parents, teachers, and administrators. Knowing the assessment, evaluation, and grading needs and concerns of these groups will help you implement a portfolio process that is aligned with the needs of your audiences. Activity 2 will help you assess each group's needs; Figure 1.2 captures the needs and concerns generated by a parent while participating in Activity 2.

Activity 2. Identifying Needs and Concerns of Audiences

Form groups of four participants, including teachers and administrators when possible.

For each group, divide a piece of paper into quarters to use as a recording sheet. Use one label for each section: students, parents, teachers, and administrators.

Ask each participant to record the group's ideas for one section.

Allow about 3 minutes to brainstorm and record ideas in each of the four sections. The ideas should be focused on the needs and concerns of each audience (students, parents, teachers, and administrators), regarding assessment, evaluation, and grading. For example, the recorder can ask the group the following questions:

What are the needs and concerns of [students] regarding assessment (gathering data)?

What are the needs and concerns of [students] regarding evaluation (judging merits)?

What are the needs and concerns of [students] regarding grading (assigning values to symbols for reporting)?

At the end of the group process, facilitate a whole-group discussion to identify key ideas related to each audience. The following questions may guide discussion:

What are the common concerns and needs across all audiences?

How do the concerns and needs differ across the audiences?

What potential contributions could each audience make to the portfolio process?

Figure 1.2. Sample Response to Activity 2 (Needs and Concerns)

Potential audiences may vary according to the purpose and type of portfolio used. For example, the student creating a best-work employability portfolio needs to consider employers as a primary audience. On the other hand, a growth portfolio focused on academic skills might involve peers in the classroom, other teachers (e.g., a resource teacher), and parents. Ways that teachers can engage a variety of partners in the portfolio process, including creative ways for students to share their learning, will be explored in Chapter 7.

Time Frame

The time frame of portfolio maintenance is a key factor influenced by decisions about goals, purposes, and type of portfolio. For example, if a growth portfolio is being used to document learning across the entire curriculum, then a full-year time frame may be most appropriate. For a high school teacher using a best work porfolio focused on algebra and problem-solving skills, however, a term or semester portfolio may be adequate. For teachers just beginning to experiment with portfolios, a shorter time frame may be advisable (e.g., a best work portfolio in social studies for six weeks). A short-term experience can build eraly success for the teacher and can help build confidence for future refinement and expansion.

As you select a time frame, consider student's familiarity with portfolio assessment. Students who have had experience creating portfolios will allow the teacher to proceed quickly through the initial stage of portfolio introduction because they understand many of the concepts related to portfolio use. Students with some portfolio experience will also be able to handle long-term portfolios because they are more comfortable with self-directed learning.

Use Planner A on pp. 8-9 to record your decisions as you work through this chapter. Keeping a log or journal of the decision-making process can help you implement portfolio assessment in your classroom and assist you in evaluating and modifying your portfolio assessment plans.

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Determining the Basics of Student Portfolios

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by Carol Rolheiser, Barbara Bower and Laurie Stevahn Key Ideas Establishing the goals and overall purpose of the portfolio Choosing a type of portfolio Considering the audiences for the portfolio Determining the time frame for maintaining the portfolio The material in this chapter helps you make decisions about the use and purpose of portfolio assessment in your classroom, school, or district.

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A student portfolio is a compilation of academic work and other forms of educational evidence assembled for the purpose of (1) evaluating coursework quality, learning progress, and academic achievement; (2) determining whether students have met learning standards or other academic requirements for courses, grade-level promotion, and graduation; (3) helping students reflect on their academic goals and progress as learners; and (4) creating a lasting archive of academic work products, accomplishments, and other documentation. Advocates of student portfolios argue that compiling, reviewing, and evaluating student work over time can provide a richer, deeper, and more accurate picture of what students have learned and are able to do than more traditional measures-such as standardized tests, quizzes, or final exams-that only measure what students know at a specific point in time.

Portfolios come in many forms, from notebooks filled with documents, notes, and graphics to online digital archives and student-created websites, and they may be used at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Portfolios can be a physical collection of student work that includes materials such as written assignments, journal entries, completed tests, artwork, lab reports, physical projects (such as dioramas or models), and other material evidence of learning progress and academic accomplishment, including awards, honors, certifications, recommendations, written evaluations by teachers or peers, and self-reflections written by students. Portfolios may also be digital archives, presentations, blogs, or websites that feature the same materials as physical portfolios, but that may also include content such as student-created videos, multimedia presentations, spreadsheets, websites, photographs, or other digital artifacts of learning.

Online portfolios are often called digital portfolios or e-portfolios, among other terms. In some cases, blogs or online journals may be maintained by students and include ongoing reflections about learning activities, progress, and accomplishments. Portfolios may also be presented-publicly or privately-to parents, teachers, and community members as part of a demonstration of learning, exhibition, or capstone project.

It's important to note that there are many different types of portfolios in education, and each form has its own purpose. For example, "capstone" portfolios would feature student work completed as part of long-term projects or final assessments typically undertaken at the culmination of a middle school or high school, or at the end of a long-term, possibly multiyear project. Some portfolios are only intended to evaluate learning progress and achievement in a specific course, while others are maintained for the entire time a student is enrolled in a school. And some portfolios are used to assess learning in a specific subject area, while others evaluate the acquisition of skills that students can apply in all subject areas.

The following arguments are often made by educators who advocate for the use of portfolios in the classroom:

Student portfolios are most effective when they are used to evaluate student learning progress and achievement. When portfolios are used to document and evaluate the knowledge, skills, and work habits students acquire in school, teachers can use them to adapt instructional strategies when evidence shows that students either are or are not learning what they were taught. Advocates typically contend that portfolios should be integrated into and inform the instructional process, and students should incrementally build out portfolios on an ongoing basis-i.e., portfolios should not merely be an idle archive of work products that's only reviewed at the end of a course or school year.

Portfolios can help teachers monitor and evaluate learning progress over time. Tests and quizzes give teachers information about what students know at a particular point in time, but portfolios can document how students have grown, matured, and improved as learners over the course of a project, school year, or multiple years. For this reason, some educators argue that portfolios should not just be compilations of a student's best work, but rather they should include evidence and work products that demonstrate how students improved over time. For example, multiple versions of an essay can show how students revised and improved their work based on feedback from the teachers or their peers.

Portfolios help teachers determine whether students can apply what they have learned to new problems and different subject areas. A test can help teachers determine, for example, whether students have learned a specific mathematical skill. But can those students also apply that skill to a complex problem in economics, geography, civics, or history? Can they use it to conduct a statistical analysis of a large data set in a spreadsheet? Or can they use it to develop a better plan for a hypothetical business. (Educators may call this ability to apply skills and knowledge to novel problems and different domains "transfer of learning"). Similarly, portfolios can also be used to evaluate student work and learning in non-school contexts. For example, if a student participated in an internship or completed a project under the guidance of an expert mentor from the community, students could create portfolios over the course of these learning activities and submit them to their teachers or school as evidence they have met certain learning expectations or graduation requirements.

Portfolios can encourage students to take more ownership and responsibility over the learning process. In some schools, portfolios are a way for students to critique and evaluate their own work and academic progress, often during the process of deciding what will be included in their portfolios. Because portfolios document learning growth over time, they can help students reflect on where they started a course, how they developed, and where they ended up at the conclusion of the school year. When reviewing a portfolio, teachers may also ask students to articulate the connection between particular work products and the academic expectations and goals for a course. For these reasons, advocates of portfolios often recommend that students be involved in determining what goes into a portfolio, and that teachers should not unilaterally make the decisions without involving students. For related discussions, see student engagement and student voice.

Portfolios can improve communication between teachers and parents. Portfolios can also help parents become more informed about the education and learning progress of their children, what is being taught in a particular course, and what students are doing and learning in the classroom. Advocates may also contend that when parents are more informed about and engaged in their child's education, they can play a more active role in supporting their children at home, which could have a beneficial affect on academic achievement and long-term student outcomes.

Debate

While portfolios are not generally controversial in concept, it's possible that skepticism, criticism, and debate may arise if portfolios are viewed as burdensome, add-on requirements rather than as a vital instructional strategy and assessment option. Portfolios may also be viewed negatively if they are poorly designed and executed, if they tend to be filed away and forgotten, if they are not actively maintained by students, if they are not meaningfully integrated into the school's academic program, if educators do not use them to inform and adjust their instructional techniques, or if sufficient time is not provided during the school day for teachers and students to review and discuss them. In short, how portfolios are actually used or not used in schools, and whether they produce the desired educational results, will likely determine how they are perceived.

Creating, maintaining, and assessing student portfolios can also be a time-consuming endeavor. For this reason and others, some critics may contend that portfolios are not a practical or feasible option for use in large-scale evaluations of school and student performance. (Just imagine, for example, what it would require in terms of funding, time, and human resources to evaluate dozens or hundreds of pages of academic documentation produced by each of the of tens of thousands of eleventh-grade students scattered across a state in any given year.)

Standardized tests, in contrast, are relatively efficient and inexpensive to score, and test results are considered more reliable or comparable across students, schools, or states, given that there is less chance that error, , or inconsistency may occur during the scoring process (in large part because most standardized tests today are scored in full or in part by automated machines, computers, or online programs). Student portfolios are a comparably time-consuming-and therefore far more expensive-assessment strategy because they require human scorers, and it is also far more challenging to maintain consistent and reliable evaluations or student achievement across different scorers. Many advocates would argue, however, that portfolios are not intended for use in large-scale evaluations of school and student performance, and that they provide the greatest educational value at the classroom level where teachers have personal relationships and conversations with students, and where in-depth feedback from teachers can help students grow, improve, and mature as learners.

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A student portfolio is a compilation of academic work and other forms of educational evidence assembled for the purpose of (1) evaluating coursework quality, learning progress, and academic achievement; (2) determining whether students have met learning standards or other academic requirements for courses, grade-level promotion, and graduation; (3) helping students reflect on their academic goals and progress as learners; and (4) creating a lasting archive of academic work products, accomplishments, and other documentation.