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What is a Portfolio?

A “portfolio” is a selection of student work that they have chosen and evaluated as their best work, or as representative of their development over time. By making students responsible for collecting, organizing, drafting, revising, proofreading, and/or reflecting on their work, portfolio assignments engage them in the learning process and afford them an opportunity to share with the instructor their own reasons for investing in the project of the course.

Portfolios are especially common in the arts and for courses in which students conduct a range of writing assignments. (“ Exam wrappers ,” increasingly common in STEM fields, might also be considered a form of portfolio.) Portfolios can be assigned for semester-long courses, or for longer term capstones like certificate programs, across a range of fields.

Why use Portfolios?

Portfolios can be assigned as an alternative to a traditional final exam or paper, and can be especially effective at meeting some or all of the following goals:

  • encouraging student agency;
  • generating insights into each student’s engagement in their own learning;
  • prompting students to reflect on and understand understand their own development over the course;
  • inspiring students to identify future goals for continued learning beyond the course;
  • providing students the opportunity to select and develop work that they can use beyond the classroom, such as samples for graduate school applications or future employers.

“Portfolio culture” honors both processes and products, and encourages students to prepare materials for the job market / interviews, by encouraging a mindset of professionalism, rather than an “assignment mindset.” Portfolios encourage students to reflect on the amount of work they’ve accomplished over the course of a semester, and ideally, to learn about themselves and their own learning strategies as much as they’re learning new content/skills.

What does a Portfolio contain?

A portfolio typically includes three key components:

  • Samples of student work distributed across the term
  • Reflections on the work samples
  • A professional re-presentation of the work samples
  • Samples of Work
  • Reflections
  • Re-presentation

Work samples can be chosen to:

  • represent the students’ best work (potentially incorporating revisions of previous work)
  • display an array and/or mastery of skills, such as drawing, digital media, music, language fluency, coding, etc.
  • Demonstrate growth over the course of the semester

Depending on the needs of the course, the selection might include essays, interviews, charts, inventories, diaries, tests, or artwork. These samples can vary based on content, format, length, or style of writing or research. The instructor may give specific requirements for the type of work, or it may be selected entirely by the student. For instance, for a writing class, the instructor might stipulate that the portfolio ought to include at least one persuasive piece (in which the main purpose is to agree or disagree with a public concern), and one source-based piece (in which the main purpose is to respond to a primary source).

Some portfolio assignments incorporate the requirement or opportunity to revise prior work. In some circumstances, the opportunity to incorporate instructor feedback can help reinforce learning goals and allow students to take their own work to the next level. In other circumstances, including rough drafts or early-semester work can provide the student with the opportunity to reflect on their early work from the position of greater mastery, and allow them to see their own growth over the semester.

The key self-reflexive element of a portfolio is that it contains a reflection on the work by the student: without the reflection it is just a collection of assignments. The reflection is an opportunity to convey a philosophy, methods, and goals, and identify strengths as a writer or learner.

Each piece might be accompanied by a reflection, or they can be summarized in a “Dear Reader”-style cover letter, with the artifacts as more of an appendix. This letter might contain:

  • What readers can expect to encounter in the portfolio
  • A rationale for the documents included
  • A description of the variety of strategies / methods / theories / skills utilized in the works included
  • Connections drawn between the assignments
  • Connections drawn between the assignments and the content/skills of the class
  • A reflection on what the student is most proud of, and why: did they experiment with new theories? Did they push themselves to try new styles or methods?
  • What the student was thinking when they created the artifact, and what impact did it have on their learning? (Questions here might include: What would you do the same or differently next time? How did specific moments in the assignment help you recognize that you were making improvement or on the right track?) This kind of reflective action involves an examination of their past work and the impact that it had in order to synthesize how it might be refined for a better outcome in the future
  • Evidence for how it aligns with assignment objectives or class goals
  • Moments of surprise or moments corroborating earlier intuitions

Finally, portfolios usually incorporate some sort of professional presentation—what would in another context be a physical portfolio. In other words, it is not merely the resubmission of the components in their original form, but rather an intentional re-presentation of them so as to make an argument about their relationship to each other. Tangible portfolios might take the form of a binder or book; digital portfolios might be collated into a website or slideshow. There could be a visual/graphic design component that could “package,” or “brand” the material to tie it all together, and/or a table of contents, to show how the components fit together. Giving students the opportunity to create a professional package with visual / non-textual material can encourage them to connect with it on a more personal level, and which might allow them to understand their own work in new ways. The act of “publishing” their work can also give it value.

What is an Exam Wrapper?

An exam wrapper (or paper wrapper) is an activity or document that “wraps around” an exam. Similar to portfolios, they are used to enhance student metacognition and self-awareness of their own strategies for study and performance. Common questions that might be asked in an exam wrapper include:

  • How did you study for this exam? What strategies did you use to prepare, and which seemed most effective?
  • Did these study strategies differ from your preparation for the last exam? Did these changes effect your performance?
  • On which aspects of this exam did you perform well?
  • Are there patterns to your errors that you can address in future preparation?
  • Name at least three things you plan to do differently in your preparation for the next exam. (For example, will you spend more time, change a study habit, or add a new skill?)

How are Portfolios Assessed?

Because of the open-ended nature of work that could be produced across portfolios, it is important to provide clarity about what is expected. Explicit instructions are necessary to avoid student uncertainty about what to include in their own portfolios. Periodic check-ins between student and instructor could alleviate student uncertainty. Students could be organized into pairs or groups, and could thought partners for students working on assembling and explaining their work.

Because of the potential variability between portfolios, a clear grading rubric is key to students understanding how their own work will be assessed. While the precise assessment scheme will depend on the course learning objectives, a rubric might include:

Selection of work

  • Shows a variety of work (for example, in different genres or at different stages of drafting)
  • Shows development / growth / moving up Bloom’s taxonomy
  • Shows clarity / concision of writing

Reflection: demonstrates understanding of course skills

  • Shows awareness of and ability to communicate development / growth

Professionalization: has an organizational structure, which is carried out consistently over the project

  • Shows engagement with presentation style: includes visual or graphic components that convey a polished professional finish, an overall “brand”
  • Is adapted to audience

Portfolios by definition contain individual parts that are organized into a whole, and these parts are themselves coming together at different stages of the assignment. As a result, assessment itself might take place at different stages—including lower-stakes formative feedback—with rubrics that are tailored to the individual parts and/or the final submission.

For more information...

University of Hawai’i at Mānoa: Using Portfolios in Program Assessment

The University of Arizona, Tucson: The Use of Portfolio Assessment in Evaluation

Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center, Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation: Exam Wrappers

Indiana University Bloomington, Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning: Help Students Learn to Take Exams with Exam Wrappers

J.E. Sharp, “ Using Portfolios in the Classroom .” Proceedings Frontiers in Education 27th Annual Conference. 1997.

Crystal Kwan and Camilla Kin Ming Lo, “ Evaluating the Portfolio as a Social Work Capstone Project A Case Study in Hong Kong .” Social Work Education 42, no. 1. April 2023: 145-160.

Betty McDonald, “ Portfolio Assessment: Direct from the Classroom .” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 37, no 3, May 2012, 335-347.

J. L. Ray, “ Industry-Academic Partnerships for Successful Capstone Projects .” 33rd Annual Frontiers in Education, 2003.

David R. Schachter and Deena Schwartz. “ The Value of Capstone Projects to Participating Client Agencies .” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 15:4 (2009), 445-462.

John Zubizarreta, The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning . Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Elana Michelson, Alan Mandell, eds., Portfolio Development and the Assessment of Prior Learning: Perspectives, Models, and Practices . Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2004.

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The Portfolio – Culminating Activity (Your Final)

Portfolio assignment.

EN 111 Final Portfolio

The portfolio is a selection of work that demonstrates your writing abilities and knowledge about writing and critical thinking at the close of EN 111. For the purposes of this class, this assignment will be considered the final.

What goes in the Portfolio?

  • Title page (title + optional picture and/or quote)
  • Reflective Essay (~2 pages)
  • A final (2nd) draft copy of all essays completed during the semester (Experience, Compare/Contrast, Issues) and the prior drafts for all essays.
  • Selected Artifacts (2-3)

You should title the portfolio in a way that captures your sense of yourself as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey. You can include a picture and/or quote on the title page as well. A quote can come from anywhere (any text, movie, lyrics, etc.) but should illustrate your perspective about writing and/or critical thinking. You will discuss the significance of your title (picture and quote too if you included them) in your Reflective Essay.

Reflective Essay for Portfolio

The Reflective Essay is a self-assessment that examines the entire body of your work (all of your writing up to this point) rather than a single subject and/or inquiry thread. Your task is to examine, or reflect on , your own writing and situate your observations and interpretations within the context of our discussions about writing and critical thinking skills. The portfolio, in essence, is a presentation—a somewhat persuasive demonstration illustrating how you approached writing and critical thinking before EN 111, and how you see yourself, as a writer and thinker, now, in relation to these same abilities/skills at the close of the course.

What goes in the Reflective Essay?

This essay should be a fairly polished and focused piece of writing that supports its claims and reflections with specific evidence (i.e. cite yourself). It will run ~2 pages in length. All reflective essays should take into account the following, but not necessarily in the order presented here:

  • The significance of your title (and picture and quote, if included).
  • What you now understand about effective writing and how it is achieved and what the portfolio reveals about your writing and your abilities to think on paper. (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
  • What you now understand about writing and critical inquiry that this portfolio might not reveal. (You may understand more than your portfolio reveals).
  • What the portfolio reveals about you as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey (Refer to your included essays and selected artifacts).
  • What challenges you continue to face as writer and critical thinker. (What is hard for you? In what areas have you gotten stronger and more confident? What immediate goals have you set for yourself as you continue to develop as a writer and critical thinker?)
  • (Optional) Discuss, document, and evaluate the extent to which you were actively engaged in this class (i.e. determine how much time/effort you put into this course and whether your writing reflects that same time/effort).

You are to include final (2nd) draft copies (at minimum) of all the essays you have written in this course. In including your essays, you will be expected to discuss why you have included them in your Reflective Essay, and explain specifically what they illustrate about you as a writer and critical thinker. As such, I recommend that you discuss how the essays reveal your analytical skills at work—your abilities to develop, examine, and communicate an informed perspective.

Selected Artifacts

I am asking you to include 2-3 artifacts from the course (or outside of EN 111) that are significant to, and reflective of, you in terms of yourself as a writer and critical thinker. You may select anything from your Informal Writing Collection (freewrites, peer exchanges, etc.), your formal writing (part of your essay(s), or parts of them as a sequence from the first draft to the final draft stage) or other texts (a particular paper or assignment from another class you found pertinent to your overall growth).

How Do I Submit It?

You should submit the portfolio, in the dropbox on the preceding page,  as a Word document or a PDF so that I may open it in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

  • Portfolio Assignment. Authored by : Jason Brown. Provided by : Herkimer College. Project : AtD OER Course. License : CC BY: Attribution
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Assessment and Curriculum Support Center

Using portfolios in program assessment.

On this page:

  • What is a portfolio?
  • Portfolios as a data-collection method for assessment
  • Advantages and disadvantages
  • Creating and designing portfolios
  • Questions to ask before adopting portfolios
  • E-Portfolios
  • Links: universities implementing portfolios; online portfolios
  • E-portfolio software and review

1. What is a portfolio?

Back to Top

A portfolio is a systematic collection of student work that represents student activities, accomplishments, and achievements over a specific period of time in one or more areas of the curriculum. There are two main types of portfolios:

Showcase Portfolios:  Students select and submit their best work. The showcase portfolio emphasizes the products of learning. Developmental Portfolios : Students select and submit pieces of work that can show evidence of growth or change over time. The growth portfolio emphasizes the process of learning.

STUDENTS’ REFLECTIVE ESSAY: In both types of portfolios, students write reflective essays or introductory memos to the faculty/assessment committee to explain the work and reflect on how the collection demonstrates their accomplishments, explains why they selected the particular examples, and/or describes changes in their knowledge/ability/attitude.

2. Portfolios as a data-collection method for assessment

Portfolios can be created for course assessment as well as program assessment. Although the content may be similar, the assessment process is different.

3. Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of a portfolio

  • Enables faculty to assess a set of complex tasks, including interdisciplinary learning and capabilities, with examples of different types of student work.
  • Helps faculty identify curriculum gaps, a lack of alignment with outcomes.
  • Promotes faculty discussions on student learning, curriculum, pedagogy, and student support services.
  • Encourages student reflection on their learning. Students may come to understand what they have and have not learned.
  • Provides students with documentation for job applications or applications to graduate school.

Disadvantages of a portfolio

  • Faculty time required to prepare the portfolio assignment and assist students as they prepare them. Logistics are challenging.
  • Students must retain and compile their own work, usually outside of class. Motivating students to take the portfolio seriously may be difficult.
  • Transfer students may have difficulties meeting program-portfolio requirements.
  • Storage demands can overwhelm (which is one reason why e-portfolios are chosen).

4. Using portfolios in assessment

TIP: START SMALL. Showcase portfolio : Consider starting with one assignment plus a reflective essay from a senior-level course as a pilot project. A faculty group evaluates the “mini-portfolios” using a rubric. Use the results from the pilot project to guide faculty decisions on adding to or modifying the portfolio process. Developmental portfolio : Consider starting by giving a similar assignment in two sequential courses: e.g., students write a case study in a 300-level course and again in a 400-level course. In the 400-level course, students also write a reflection based on their comparison of the two case studies. A faculty group evaluates the “mini-portfolios” using a rubric. Use the results to guide the faculty members as they modify the portfolio process.

Suggested steps:

  • Determine the purpose of the portfolio. Decide how the results of a portfolio evaluation will be used to inform the program.
  • Identify the learning outcomes the portfolio will address.Tip: Identify at least 6 course assignments that are aligned with the outcomes the portfolio will address. Note: When planning to implement a portfolio requirement, the program may need to modify activities or outcomes in courses, the program, or the institution.
  • Decide what students will include in their portfolio. Portfolios can contain a range of items–plans, reports, essays, resume, checklists, self-assessments, references from employers or supervisors, audio and video clips. In a showcase portfolio, students include work completed near the end of their program. In a developmental portfolio, students include work completed early and late in the program so that development can be judged.Tip: Limit the portfolio to 3-4 pieces of student work and one reflective essay/memo.
  • Identify or develop the scoring criteria (e.g., a rubric) to judge the quality of the portfolio.Tip: Include the scoring rubric with the instructions given to students (#6 below).
  • Establish standards of performance and examples (e.g., examples of a high, medium, and low scoring portfolio).
  • Create student instructions that specify how students collect, select, reflect, format, and submit.Tip: Emphasize to students the purpose of the portfolio and that it is their responsibility to select items that clearly demonstrate mastery of the learning outcomes. Emphasize to faculty that it is their responsibility to help students by explicitly tying course assignments to portfolio requirements.

Collect – Tell students where in the curriculum or co-curricular activities they will produce evidence related to the outcomes being assessed. Select – Ask students to select the evidence. Instruct students to label each piece of evidence according to the learning outcome being demonstrated. Reflect – Give students directions on how to write a one or two-page reflective essay/memo that explains why they selected the particular examples, how the pieces demonstrate their achievement of the program outcomes, and/or how their knowledge/ability/attitude changed. Format –Tell students the format requirements (e.g., type of binder, font and style guide requirements, online submission requirements). Submit – Give submission (and pickup) dates and instructions.

  • A faculty group scores the portfolios using the scoring criteria. Use examples of the standards of performance to ensure consistency across scoring sessions and readers.Tip: In large programs, select a random sample of portfolios to score (i.e., do not score every portfolio).
  • Share the results and use them to improve the program.

5. Questions to consider before adopting a portfolio requirement

  • What is the purpose of the portfolio requirement? To document student learning? Demonstrate student development? Learn about students’ reflections on their learning? Create a document useful to students? Help students grow through personal reflection on their personal goals?
  • Will portfolios be showcase or developmental?
  • When and how will students be told about the requirement, including what materials they need to collect or to produce for it?
  • What are the minimum and maximum lengths or sizes for portfolios?
  • Who will decide which materials will be included in portfolios- -faculty or students?
  • What elements will be required in the portfolio- -evidence only from courses in the discipline, other types of evidence, evidence directly tied to learning outcomes, previously graded products or clean copies?
  • Will students be graded on the portfolios? If so, how and by whom?
  • How will the portfolios be assessed to evaluate and improve the program?
  • What can be done for students who have inadequate evidence through no fault of their own? (E.g., transfer students)
  • What will motivate students to take the portfolio requirement seriously?
  • How will the portfolio be submitted–hard copy or electronic copy?
  • Who “owns” the portfolios–students or the program/university? If the program/university owns them, how long will the portfolios be retained after the students graduate?
  • Who has access to the portfolios and for what purposes?
  • How will student privacy and confidentiality be protected?

6. E-portfolios (electronic portfolios)

Traditional portfolios consist of papers in a folder. Electronic or “e-portfolios” consist of documents stored electronically. Electronic portfolios offer rich possibilities for learning and assessment, with the added dimension of technology.

  • What about an electronic portfolio is central to the assessment?
  • Who is the audience for the portfolio? Will that audience have the hardware, software, skills, time, and inclination to access the portfolio electronically?
  • Does the institution have the hardware and software in place to create portfolios electronically? If not, what will it cost and who will install it? Does the institution have the IT/technical staff to support e-portfolios?
  • What is the current level of computer skills of the students and faculty members involved in this project? Who will teach them how to use the technology necessary to create and view electronic portfolios?
  • Easy to share with multiple readers simultaneously.
  • Allows for asynchronous use for both students and faculty.
  • Allows for multi-media product submissions.
  • Offers search strategies for easy access to materials.
  • Makes updating entries easier.
  • Creating navigational links may help students see how their experiences interrelate.
  • Provides students the opportunity to improve as well as demonstrate their technology skills.
  • Allows faculty to remain in touch with students after graduation if the portfolio can become students’ professional portfolio.
  • Time is needed to master the software. Students may not have sufficient computer skills to showcase their work properly.
  • Faculty and students may be reluctant to learn a new software program.
  • Requires IT expertise and support for both students and faculty.
  • Cost associated with developing an in-house platform or the purchase of a commercial product may be expensive.
  • Cost associated with maintaining portfolio software. Ongoing support and training are necessary.
  • An external audience may not have access to proprietary software. Proprietary software may hinder portability.
  • Requires large amounts of computer space.
  • Privacy and security. Who will have access to the portfolio?

7. Links to universities implementing portfolios

Truman State University:  http://assessment.truman.edu/components/portfolio/

Penn State:  http://portfolio.psu.edu/

University of Denver:  https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/index

8. Electronic portfolio software

Laulima Open Source Portfolio . Laulima has an Open Source Portfolio (OSP) tool option. Contact UH ITS for information about turning on this tool.

List of E-Portfolio Software & Tools .  ePortfolio-related Tools and Technologies  wiki.

Sources Consulted:

  • Skidmore College, Assessment at Skidmore College, http://cms.skidmore.edu/assessment/Handbook/portfolio.cfm
  • Mary Allen – University of Hawaii at Manoa Spring 2008 Assessment Workshops
  • ERIC Digest, Assessment Portfolios (ED447725),  http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/eric_digests/ed447725.pdf
  • Portfolio Assessment: Instructional Guide (2nd Ed.),  http://libdr1.ied.edu.hk/pubdata/img00/arch00/link/archive/1/instarh/1921_image.pdf
  • Cambridge, B.L., Kahn, S., Tompkins, D.P., Yancey, K.B. (Eds.). (2001).  Electronic portfolios: Emerging practices in student, faculty, and institutional learning . Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education.

portfolio assignment type

Introduction

Background on the Course

CO300 as a University Core Course

Short Description of the Course

Course Objectives

General Overview

Alternative Approaches and Assignments

(Possible) Differences between COCC150 and CO300

What CO300 Students Are Like

And You Thought...

Beginning with Critical Reading

Opportunities for Innovation

Portfolio Grading as an Option

Teaching in the computer classroom

Finally. . .

Classroom materials

Audience awareness and rhetorical contexts

Critical thinking and reading

Focusing and narrowing topics

Mid-course, group, and supplemental evaluations

More detailed explanation of Rogerian argument and Toulmin analysis

Policy statements and syllabi

Portfolio explanations, checklists, and postscripts

Presenting evidence and organizing arguments/counter-arguments

Research and documentation

Writing assignment sheets

Assignments for portfolio 1

Assignments for portfolio 2

Assignments for portfolio 3

Workshopping and workshop sheets

On workshopping generally

Workshop sheets for portfolio 1

Workshop sheets for portfolio 2

Workshop sheets for portfolio 3

Workshop sheets for general purposes

Sample materials grouped by instructor

Portfolio Grading

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Social Sci LibreTexts

17.7: How can portfolios be used for assessment?

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  • Page ID 87693

  • Jennfer Kidd, Jamie Kaufman, Peter Baker, Patrick O'Shea, Dwight Allen, & Old Dominion U students
  • Old Dominion University

By Megan Ricardo

Learning Objectives

  • Readers should be able to fully understand what a rubric is.
  • Readers will start to understand how rubrics can be assessed.
  • Readers will learn how to use portfolios in a variety of class subjects.

What is a Portfolio?

A portfolio has been defined as "a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas, the collection must include student participation in selecting contents, and show evidence of self-reflection (Paulson 1991). Rubrics have been used for several years in classes such as english and art, however are becoming more popular and are gaining more support in terms of assessment. A portfolio is basically a way for a student to reflect work done, and perhaps see growth building learning provided by the student himself. Portfolios are also used to be sent into some colleges or jobs, it provides an example of your current values and the way you make choices, without you even knowing it (Paulson 1991)! Assessment is becoming harder and harder with pressure on scaffolding and building learning for each individual. A portfolio allows "staff and students to understand the educational process at the level of the individual," making the learning and assessment based on the individual and not the general class such as a test (Paulson 1991). By learning more about portfolio and portfolio assessment, we as educated teachers can decide how they might be used in our own classrooms.

"Portfolios allow students to assume ownership in ways that few other instructional approaches allow, it requires students to collect and reflect on examples of their work, providing both an instructional component to the curriculum and offering the opportunity for authentic assessments" (Paulson 1991)

Guidelines for Realizing the Power of Portfolios

Portfolios include the power to reveal a lot about their creator and their learning in a formal way (Paulson). This power would not be useful if several key characteristics mentioned in the article "What makes a Portfolio a Portfolio" are not kept in mind. First, the portfolio must allow the student to learn about learning, this makes them involved and actively aware of the process. Second, the portfolio must be done "by the student and not to the student," this helps the student to "value themselves as learners". Third, the portfolio is not a cumulative folder, the student must be concise in deciding what will go into the portfolio, not everything should be in there. Fourth, the portfolio must contain the following parts, the rationale, intents of the student, contents, standards, and judgements as well as a reflection. This will allow students to "bring understandings and applications to the surface, thus encouraging metacognitive and reflective thinking (King 2008). Fifth, work should be kept throughout the year with the portfolio in mind but may be sorted through before producing the final portfolio. This is a great chance for students to keep up with unfinished work. Sixth, a portfolio may have multiple purposes but they should never conflict. Seventh, the portfolio should have information that shows growth within the class period. If there is no growth in a full year this may be a sign that learning did not occur. And finally, these portfolios will not happen themselves, be sure to guide the students and give proper instruction to make this a learning tool and not a punishment or stressful activity.

The impact of Portfolios as a tool of Assessment

Portfolios are different than standardized tests. Some argue that they are better, some argue they are worse. Naturally two sides will occur. The best we can do is to examine the characteristics of assessment and make the choice ourself. Achievement tests can give outcomes which can be "counted and accounted," yet "portfolio assessment offers the opportunity to observe students in a broader context: taking risks, developing creative solutions, and learning to make judgements about their own performances. (Paulson 1991). One of the problems of assessments such as tests or rubrics is that the student is only allowed statistics to be produced of their work, portfolio assessment is different. The student puts so much into the portfolio, the teacher is almost an outsider looking in when they grade it, on tests or rubrics, the teacher is looking for something they wrote down to look for. Portfolios allow a teacher to be taught on what might come out of the portfolio. "Portfolios provide an intersection between instruction and assessment and a means for the student to value themselves as learners, (King 2008) this helps students to be more positive and creative when turning in their portfolio which will thus produce a more satisfying grade. Since a student may not know what to put into the portfolio, teachers can guide the student by giving them "key assignments," these allow students to "write a metacognitive description explaining their thinking on how they showed the connections among theories" (King 2008). The key assignments are basically just main subjects from which a student can pick one of their works to relate to. Using portfolios can strongly help assessment in the classroom.

Ways to use Portfolios in a variety of classes

Up to this point, you may have been thinking a portfolio is only useful in art. But portfolios have been effectively used in many different subject areas. There are different kinds of portfolios and perhaps by looking at them we can get ideas of which ones we might be able to use for which subjects. A showcase portfolio "displays the candidate's depth of knowledge and is a compilation of successfully completed work" (King 2008). A great example of this kind of portfolio would be an art portfolio including several pieces of work, or maybe a history portfolio containing maps or other related works, or perhaps a Spanish portfolio of different Spanish speaking countries and information about each. Next there is a formative portfolio which "illustrates a student's learning processes over time and demonstrates growth" (King 2008). An example of this type of portfolio might be an English portfolio containing papers, poems or other forms of literature. Also, a math portfolio containing several examples of the main points of each chapter and how to do the problems step by step with the students comments on the best way to learn how to do this problem. Either way you look at it, showcase or formative, a portfolio can be used in any classroom in multiple ways but still holds the same benefits of the assessment of it.

Example Portfolio Assessment

This is an example of a perfect portfolio assessment sheet/rubric. By scrolling down to the "Content Assessment Rubric" we can see an assessment of a portfolio. (Click the one to go to the link) [1] (Gonzalez 2004). This is an example of a rubric to grade a portfolio keeping in mind the student's process of creating the portfolio and the individual. It shows how a portfolio might be graded for not only completion but elements required for the full learning through using the portfolio to occur. This is a good example because it does not only grade on content but also on what the student did to further their learning and how effective the assignment was and it even goes as far as showing the effectiveness of the learning outcomes. This is a strong rubric with high expectations of learning to have happened in making the portfolio, a perfect assessment for this type of assignment.

Portfolios have "become a mechanism to guide our own individual practices," the students are learning how to learn and the teachers are being taught by what the students have learned. By reflection on what a portfolio is, how it can be used, and its relationship to assessment, we as teachers can now start to form our opinion about using portfolios. The way we use a portfolio will vary from class to class and subject to subject, but one thing will always remain the same, "a portfolio provides a forum that encourages students to develop the abilities needed to become independent, self-directed learners," (Paulson 1991) and when they have done this, is our job of assessment not already half over?

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

1. What is a characteristic of a portfolio?

A. Allows students to fill out multiple choice questions.

B. Contains all documents from the entire course.

C. Must show reflection in the portfolio making process.

D. None of the above.

2. What are the two types of portfolios?

A. Formative and Summative

B. Formal and Informal.

C. Showcase and Formative.

D. Terrible and Good.

3. Which assignment listed below could a portfolio and portfolio assessment be used in to effectively grade a students learning:

A. A study of painting and growth of students painting technique

B. Doing a collection of history maps and reflecting on old maps versus new maps.

D. Neither A or B.

4. A Portfolio cannot be used to grade:

A. A students growth in general writing processes.

B. A multiple choice math problem assignment.

C. A collection of designs for a small engine project.

D. A compilation of poems written in a Spanish class.

Gonzalez, (2004). Portfolio Assessment Rubrics. Retrieved March 23, 2009, from Samford.edu Web site: www.samford.edu/ctls/Portfolio_Assessment_Rubrics.doc

King, Caryn M., Patterson, Nancy G., & Stolle, Elizabeth P. (2008). Portfolio assessment: Making connections, guiding change.. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. 7, Number 3, 4-9.

Paulson , F. Leon, Paulson , P.R., & Meyer, C.A. (1991). What Makes a Portfolio a Portfolio?. Educational Leadership. 60-63.

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Digital Literacy for Teaching

  • Digital Literacy at CSU
  • Listicle Assignment
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  • Portfolio Assignment
  • Teaching Multimodal Composition
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Digital Portfolio Assignment: An Overview

Portfolios have been shown to help students transfer skills from one project to the next and/or from one learning context to another. Further, digital public-facing portfolios have been shown to motivate and engage students (Vetter et al., 2019).  

A Personal Portfolio Website is a great way to teach students the importance of presenting themselves and their work professionally in a digital environment. The website also functions as a class portfolio, which provides students with the opportunity to reflect upon growth, and showcase texts that they are most proud of. It might also include non-coursework such as resumes/CVs, visuals, audio productions, etc. 

Additionally, the personal portfolio website gives students the following opportunities:

Learn about and practice multiple literacies

Practice “real-world” and transferable skills

Express creativity and professionalism 

Showcase various texts of your choice

Reflect upon growth and learning

Students can create a website using freeware such as Weebly, Wix, or Google Sites or an instructor can increase their technical literacy skills by asking them to code their website from scratch. 

Instructors should consider the following when implementing a personal digital portfolio into their classes: 

Do you want students to collect all of their work over the course of the semester or just a few exemplarily pieces?

Do you want students to revise their work before adding it to the portfolio? If so, how would you like students to demonstrate their revision?

Do you want students to reflect on their growth and/or learning over the course of the semester? If so, what type of format should be used (e.g., an essay, an audio blog, a vlog, etc.)?

Do you have standards for how the website should look or do students have creative freedom?

Do you want students to include any other professional items? If so, what are they?

Student Examples (used with the student's permission): 

  • Electrical Engineering Student from Auburn University

Technologies and Resources

Website creator (Weebly, Wix, Google Sites, Wordpress)

Coding Program (Bootstrap)

Open Access images

Outside Resources

  • Teaching with ePortfolios by Sweetland Center for Writing
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  • Last Updated: Aug 18, 2022 12:41 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.csuohio.edu/digital-literacy

Types of Portfolios

  • Author By Greg Port
  • Publication date March 26, 2021
  • Categories: Uncategorized
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portfolio assignment type

What type of ePortfolios will students create? Let’s break down the 4 most popular types and how they’re used.

There are four main types or functions of ePortfolios in schools and higher education:

  • Showcase or presentation
  • Process or learning

Let’s take a look at these four types of portfolios

1) Showcase or Presentation Portfolio: A Collection of Best Work

These types of portfolios focus on the portfolio as a product and are also typically called professional portfolios, formal portfolios, or career portfolio.

The content that’s added to showcase portfolios is written after the learning takes place, often with reflection from the student. Some schools adopt the mantra of, “collect, select, reflect, connect” ( PDF Hughes, 2008 ). The connect element is an interesting – it involves sharing student work with others (probably beyond the teacher) and actively seeking an audience and feedback.

The showcase portfolio is often used to share a student’s best achievements or evidence of learning. Students are generally given the choice to decide what is published.

These sorts of portfolios can assist with self-marketing, online branding, or building a positive digital footprint. In higher education, we see commonly see showcase portfolios that highlight a student’s CV or resume to suit a particular purpose such as attracting potential employers.

2) Process or Learning Portfolio: A Work in Progress

The second type of portfolio that we commonly see is more of a running record of learning. The purpose is to capture the learning process. It’s also called a development portfolio, a reflection portfolio, or a formative portfolio.

Entries and artifacts are added during the learning process. A process portfolio is not always a collection of a student’s best work; it can include a variety of learning attempts or unpolished documentation along with reflections on struggles and challenges.

These types of portfolios demonstrate a work in progress and allow for self-assessment and reflection.

One trap you might want to try to actively avoid if you’re using process portfolios is the “digital dump”. That is, over time, students can end up adding a lot of artifacts to their portfolio without much organisation, reflection, or purpose. A process portfolio is a fabulous way to demonstrate learning as it happens but students may want to consider how to keep the portfolio well-organised and meaningful.

3) Assessment Portfolio: Used For Accountability

The assessment portfolio is used to document what a student has learned, or demonstrate that they have mastered elements of the curriculum.

Here, reflective comments will focus on how artifacts align with curriculum objectives.

These types of portfolios may be more formal than a showcase or process portfolio. While they may be very useful within the school environment to provide evidence of learning to teachers and administrators, an assessment portfolio may be less useful for overall student development.

Assessment portfolios are commonly part of certification programs or even part of requirements for earning a degree.

4) A Hybrid Approach

The 4th type of portfolio you’ll commonly come across is a combination of the showcase, process, and/or assessment portfolio.

Canadian EdTech leader George Couros explains how two types of portfolios can come together with some examples,

Learning [process] portfolio: If a student were to take a video of them reading in four consecutive months, you would see all readings over time to see development and growth.

Showcase portfolio: If a student were to take a video of them reading in four consecutive months, they would pick the best one from the four samples.

What is beautiful in using a portfolio is that you do not have to choose; you can do both.

Does this show the student’s progression over time (learning), or just the best stuff (showcase)? There are considerable benefits to both over time and a combination, from my experience, is the best path to pursue.

Some educators find it’s easiest to start out with a showcase portfolio, or a collection of best work. From there, they can evolve into the process or hybrid approach. You might also find your portfolios are fluid in nature, for example, students may move pieces from a process portfolio into either an assessment or showcase portfolio.

This movement might be through having multiple blogs, or through using blog posts for process entries and blog pages for documenting assessment or showcasing artifacts. Alternatively, tags and categories can be used to identify assessment pieces or “final work” within a student’s portfolio.

Making choices about which process artifacts to move to a more “final” product involves a great deal of deep consideration and reflection: a rich experience in itself for students.

Knowing which type(s) of portfolio you will be focusing on will help inform decisions around choosing a platform and building a template portfolio.

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Academic Development Centre

Using portfolios to assess learning, introduction.

Paulson et al (1991) provide a useful definition to start our thinking about the value of portfolios as a means to assess student achievement:

a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self-reflection.

There are several important messages in the definition that will form themes of this briefing paper:

  • purposeful: as with all methods of assessment the purpose is to evidence the learner’s achievement of the intended learning outcomes
  • collection: portfolios should include many different forms of evidence of attainment: written; posters; artefacts; recordings [video and audio]; photographs; etc. The individual components may focus on particular learning outcomes, whilst the whole should evidence broader outcomes and success Link opens in a new window
  • contents : many years ago as an external examiner my first experience of a portfolio arrived in a huge box. Everything, including the kitchen sink, appeared to be in there. It seemed that I, as the assessor, was supposed to select which of this myriad of evidence proved achievement / competence. No, that is one of the student’s tasks ….
  • the criteria for selection : one value of portfolio assessment is that we give choices and responsibility to the student / learner. As assessors we provide the boundaries within which the student is working, but they have a say over why they think this particular piece of evidence - this component of the portfolio - satisfies the criteria
  • the criteria for judging merit : we may go further and give, or share, responsibility with the learner about the criteria that will be used to decide achievement
  • evidence of student self-reflection : another value of portfolio assessment is that we can require learners to analyse and reflect on their learning. In this way we are promoting and developing the ability to be self-critical and become autonomous learners; knowing what they know, realising what they need to know and deciding how they will achieve that further learning.

Lastly, in this overview of the method, is format. The portfolio can be (as mentioned above) in physical form as papers, objects, and recorded media, but it can be just as well be electronic: an e-portfolio. Warwick staff and students will have access to Mahara ( https://myportfolio.warwick.ac.uk ).

What can portfolios assess?

Whilst many of the individual items that are included in a portfolio will be short-term, in that they are produced at a particular stage of the course and capture evidence of achievement at that stage, the portfolio itself will be a long-term, sustained piece of work. Additional values of portfolios are:

  • that the learner can return to elements of evidence and (based on formative feedback) update and enhance them; and,
  • review their own learning over a period of time and reflect on their achievement and, ideally, move into double-loop learning (Argyris & Schön, 1974 and Anderson 1997) and think about how they learn as well as what they have learned.

This means that portfolios can be used to assess a wide-range of achievements and abilities but would only be recommended as a mean of assessment if the learning outcomes of the module/programme include the meta-learning/reflective aspects.

As will be noted in the design section below, a portfolio may include aspects that are not submitted for the final assessment, but may be useful for evidence of learning beyond the outcomes of the module and learners could rewrite sections to re-present the evidence to gain future study / employment opportunities or professional recognition.

Whilst here we are particularly concerned with the idea of a portfolio for assessment purposes it is worth thinking, even briefly, of the different types of portfolio and their uses as this background may be a useful means to ‘sell’ the idea to students; portfolios are a lot of work for both assessed and assessors and we need to be able to convince our learners of their value.

Working portfolio: or portfolio in waiting as I prefer to think about it. This is basically the collection / holding tank for all the materials that a learner may accumulate to use; it is work-in-progress. The definition above included student choice over what was presented; this is the wider collection that they are selecting from. This idea also links to the notion of the portfolio containing items that could be used for several purposes as discussed in the previous section. All of the collected work is, of course, linked to the learning outcomes but, after formative feedback, may be revised and selected from to respond to the assessment brief. As already noted, one important aspect of portfolio assessment is reflection across the collection to show what and how learning has taken place. It is during this reflective, double loop stage of the portfolio development that selection should occur.

Showcase portfolio: This is a collection of the best work and may go beyond the particular module / course. A student could collect work from across their degree course to use for job or further study application and / or professional recognition. As Danielson & Abrutyn (1997) say, a showcase portfolio allows a learner to say “Here's who I am. Here is what I can do.” This version of the portfolio is simply a selection from the working portfolio.

Assessment portfolio: the primary function of an assessment portfolio is to evidence what a student has learned and achieved against the intended learning outcomes. Depending on how the portfolio is originally defined this may be all of the work-in-progress portfolio or may be a selection.

How the portfolio is originally defined is the important point here. If the portfolio is defined just to address the outcomes of one module or course then it is likely that the working and assessment portfolios will be very similar; there will be a fairly narrow definition of purpose, content and expectation. If, however, the portfolio is seen to have a longer life then it will be available for the learner to use as all of the above. Many professions now require a portfolio for continuing professional development (CPD) purposes. These long-term records can be started during a first degree and then taken forward as needed; this is certainly a value of an e-portfolio which is transferable and mobile. Some universities now require academic staff members to maintain a portfolio that documents teaching even beyond any early-career development programmes.

Danielson & Abrutyn (ibid) outlined eight steps in designing an assessment portfolio system, building on those we suggest six crucial steps for designing valid portfolio assessment:

  • determine the curricular outcomes to be addressed through the portfolio; the intended learning outcomes must be clear and broad-reaching including reflective / meta learning aspects to make portfolio assessment valid
  • determine the decisions that will be made based on the portfolio assessments; will individual elements carry marks / grades or just the complete portfolio or a mixture of both, and in the latter case what are the relative weightings and why
  • design assessment tasks for the curricular outcomes; constructive alignment must rule here and the tasks must measure the knowledge, skills and approaches / attitudes (at the appropriate level of difficulty / sophistication) that students are expected to attain. This will will ensure the validity of the assessment
  • define / agree the criteria for each assessment task and the overall portfolio, as appropriate, and establish standards for each criterion
  • decide formative assessment points and what feedback (judgement) and feed-forward (development) pointers will be given
  • determine who will assess what: self, peers and staff can all contribute here.

Finally, returning to the requirement that students reflect on their learning through the portfolio:

  • at the most basic level we could require them to map the contents of their portfolio to the learning outcomes using a grid
  • at the next level we could ask that they write claims outlining explicitly how their work provides evidence that they have met the criteria and to what level
  • if we have allowed choice of elements from their (working) portfolio we could also ask that they explain why they have selected certain tasks over others.

These exercises force the student to focus on the content of the portfolio. The next stage is to concentrate on the process of developing the portfolio and require them to analyse their learning - how and what - as a result of undertaking the building of the portfolio, and still further, to reflect on what else they need to do to master the content / skills addressed.

Diversity & inclusion

By including a range of different tasks completed in a range of formats we are enabling all students to exhibit their achievements. Further, by allowing selection from a range of tasks we add to the student control over the process.

Academic integrity

As portfolios are developed over time, we are able to track the development of the work making it very difficult to include work that has been plagiarised. The requirement of critical reflection further ensures that it is difficult to copy /plagiarise. (Click for further guidance on academic integrity .)

By giving students agency and ownership of their learning they become more invested in the output, which can promote academic integrity.

The cumulative nature of portfolio building removes the big bang assessment, one high-stakes task at the end, which often creates stress and assessment bottlenecks which can motivate students to seek other solutions, such as contract cheating, collusion, or other shortcuts which compromise academic integrity.

All text-based assessment can be compromised by the use of AI if the intended learning outcomes address elements that generative AI can produce. Portfolio assessment provide opportunities for more creative, individuated, and ongoing assessment that would be harder to achieve with a one-off use of AI.

Student and staff experience

Portfolios include work that is produced over an extended period and should require a wider range of skills in its production. As a result students may view it as a fairer form of assessment. Given the opportunity to be involved in

  • designing of the individual tasks
  • deciding the criteria to be used
  • selection of content to present
  • peer assessment

and the longer-term opportunities afforded by portfolio assessment all add to the attractiveness of the method.

Deciding on an e-portfolio rather than a paper-based version has further benefits (Madden, 2007) including:

  • cost-efficient means to store a large amount of material, allowing a range of media types to be included
  • easy sharing of the portfolio and, by selecting permissions, selective sharing of content
  • easy to adapt and so use for more than one purpose
  • ease to update, add to and delete from the content
  • developing additional IT skills
  • opportunities to display in a number of ways and so suit different purposes; showcase and assessment roles.

For students

Developing a portfolio is time consuming and if the range of tasks does not go beyond the ‘usual’ (essays, short answers , mcqs etc.) then there will be little motivation to engage and to invest the time. Counter to this, requiring production in a range of formats (audio, video, blogs, etc.) and as an e-portfolio may add time demands as students have to learn how to produce new formats, master editing techniques and gain competence in the use of additional technologies.

All of these concerns can be mitigated by providing advice and guidance on the techniques and underlining the added values of the method.

  • assessing portfolios can be time-consuming, especially as they can provide evidence of more than the usual disciplinary knowledge and understanding
  • building in student choice, whilst a positive in terms of developing autonomous learners, can be challenging when trying to ensure that the assessment of the portfolio is consistent and reliable
  • over-assessing if we are not careful about weighting elements and making this clear to learners.

Time consuming but has the potential to generate great benefits.

Time consuming - but all good assessment is. The Strivens (2006) report lists twelve strategies, identified by surveying users of portfolios, to mitigate workload; well worth considering.

Useful resources

Hamp-Lyons, L. and Condon, W. (2000). Assessing the Portfolio: Principles for Practice, Theory and Research . Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc.

Klenowski, V. (2002). Developing Portfolios for Learning and Assessment: Processes and Principles. Abingdon UK: Routledge-Falmer

Madden, T (2007). Supporting Student e-Portfolios - The purpose of this guide is to provide a basic introduction to e-portfolios: what they are how they are being used potential benefits and challenges technical implications and how they might be introduced. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/eportfolios_jisc_1568036898.pdf

Strivens, J. (2006). Efficient assessment of portfolios. The Centre for Recording Achievement. - An account of ways in which portfolios are used efficiently by:

  • describing portfolio practice in a minimum of five professional courses with large student cohorts
  • identifying efficient practices
  • discussing trade-off between educational effectiveness and efficiency
  • providing advice on the design of affordable portfolio assessment.

https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/efficient-assessment-portfolios

University of Edinburgh. Institute for Academic Development. - Some further ideas, guidance and sample portfolios

https://www.ed.ac.uk/institute-academic-development/learningteaching/staff/assessment/resources/techniques/portfolios

Annotated bibliography

Class participation

Concept maps

Essay variants: essays only with more focus

  • briefing / policy papers
  • research proposals
  • articles and reviews
  • essay plans

Film production

Laboratory notebooks and reports

Objective tests

  • short-answer
  • multiple choice questions

Oral presentations

Patchwork assessment

Creative / artistic performance

  • learning logs
  • learning blogs

Simulations

Work-based assessment

Reference list

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DartWrite Digital Portfolio Project

Dartmouth's home for digital writing portfolios

Portfolio Assignments

In the DartWrite program, students own and control their own portfolio spaces. We expect students to pursue goals we can't fully anticipate, and we know that student creativity with design and content will lead them to exciting and unexpected places.

But there's still a place at Dartmouth for formal assignments that engage with digital portfolios. Faculty can help students extract more from their courses by integrating parts of their teaching and advising with portfolios. Doing so can give students the time and support they need to do the important work of integrating and reflecting on learning experiences.

To that end, this page outlines a few broad assignment archetypes for integrating portfolios into coursework. Further down the page, find considerations for integrating portfolios with the College learning management system, Canvas, and handling site visibility/privacy concerns .

Three kinds of digital portfolio assignments:

Digital portfolios are adaptable tools that extend beyond the boundaries of a single course. We know that faculty meet their course objectives or advising goals in creative and diverse ways. That healthy diversity is impossible to fully predict. Still, we think most portfolio-based assignments fall into three broad categories: reflection , curation , and integrated composition .

1. Reflection

We have good reason to believe that reflection is one of the most powerful learning tools available. When our students reflect on what they learn, they create what educational research has called "deliberate effortful abstractions" of their knowledge, making that knowledge more accessible in future contexts (1).

To harness the power of reflection, faculty often prompt reflection in their classes, formally or informally. Here are just a few ways you might see reflection showing up in dialogue with the portfolios:

  • Holistic course reflection ; often assigned at the end of term, course learning reflections ask students to sum up the term's labor and identify key principles or values they want to retain for future use.
  • Process log ; usually created around major projects, particularly in the planning or review phases, process logs invite students to record their strategies and game plans, making it possible to step outside of the stresses of the moment to notice patterns across time.
  • About me ; typically something that students will want to update periodically, an "About Me" page gives students a chance to craft and revise their identities as students, making connections that reach beyond the boundaries of classes, major or minors, and Dartmouth itself.
  • Learning journal ; often an informal or semi-structured practice, learning journals invite students to frequently record their experience, often in preparation for class discussions or a later, holistic course reflection project.

2. Curation

Building a portfolio involves choosing what to include, what experiential artifacts to post, embed, link, or describe in the space. Curating a portfolio means making some conscious choices about how to configure those and frame the artifacts that are included.

Faculty can encourage curation by inviting students to make meaningful choices about what artifacts to post and how to frame them. Here are a few ways faculty can consider adopting portfolio curation as part of a course project:

  • Abstracts ; if an abstract isn't a required part of a project, creating one can be a valuable exercise in audience and genre awareness. Faculty can ask students to link to or embed a project file and write an abstract to accompany it. Doing so can help students consciously practice adapting their style and voice, reflect on the meanings and purposes of their projects, and practice an important academic genre.
  • Summary for new audiences ; much like an abstract, a project summary can be a way to practice adapting to audience and genre. Faculty can foster this work by asking students to see their projects through others' eyes, composing an entry-point for an audience that wasn't originally central to the project.
  • Project integrations ; curation often extends beyond the boundaries of a single project, showing connections between projects or situations. In asking students to integrate projects, articulating connections and differences between them, faculty help students create more robust and holistic frameworks to account for their college experiences.

3. Integrated composition (or remediation)

When digital portfolios are customizable websites with adaptable publicity settings, they offer new affordances to students and faculty. Integrated compositions harness those portfolios by requiring students to create projects that evoke or explore conventions in digital media. Here are just a few examples:

  • Digital essays ; digital essays - the genre of writing that has emerged with the digitization of formerly print magazines and the evolution of new-media journalism - use the conventions of educated online writing, perhaps explicitly modeling assignments on examples from digital magazines. In asking students to write within the online setting, using web publishing tools, faculty invite students to evoke online audiences and make decisions about form and content based on the relationship between purpose, audience, and medium.
  • Blog posts ; like digital essays, blog posts evoke the forms of public, digital media that students encounter in their daily lives. Typically more informal and exploratory then digital essays, blog posts offer students a chance to try on different voices, generate new ideas about course materials, and build connections across posts.
  • Course magazine ; a practice of collective curation, a course magazine invites students to reflect on their work as a community, make choices about how to articulate the relationships between their projects and how to present that collective work to audiences outside the classroom.
  • Remediation ; a well-established assignment type in digital rhetoric , remediations ask students to transform a completed project for a new medium and new audience, fostering greater audience and genre awareness along the way. A faculty member might, for example, ask students to take a thoroughly researched essay and use its conclusions, evidence, and claims to build a website aimed at a popular audience.
  • Multimodal projects ; of course websites can coordinate sound, image, and text in intricate ways. Multimodal projects require students to practice this work by integrating multiple kinds of media.

Canvas & WordPress

Portfolio sites give faculty access to teaching resources not available on Canvas. Composing a website, students can see and explore connections to the media they encounter every day. They can explore and practice multimedia composing in a format that feels authentic. And they can ask students to make more explicit connections between the class they are in and the rest of their college experience.

Because of the nature of the two systems, treating the WordPress portfolio like Canvas is a mistake . Students ought to have control over who sees constructive feedback that you provide, for example. And the built-in tracking tools in Canvas (which, among other things, note whether or not an assignment is late or incomplete) aren't available in our WordPress platform, called Journeys .

For projects that are composed and published on the portfolio sites, our recommendation is to keep grading and the tracking of assignment completion in Canvas.

For graded assignments that are completed in the portfolio, consider requiring students to submit something to Canvas so that you can provide grading or constructive feedback through that platform. Doing so preserves the timing of the submission and allows you to track your class conveniently. Simply ask set the Canvas assignment to accept a URL only and instruct students to submit the URL of the page or post they create to fulfill the assignment.

Site visibility and privacy

Portfolio-based assignments come in many shapes and sizes. Some require a public audience to promote learning. Others might ask for personal reflection best kept private. To help students navigate these waters, we recommend the following:

Let students dictate the visibility settings for deep reflections

For assignments that ask students to reflect deeply on their learning, consider allowing students to determine how public or private the page or post containing the reflection is. There are a couple of ways for students to make those reflections visible to you, but not to the rest of the Dartmouth community:

  • They can make a page or post "password protected" and share the password with you as a comment on their assignment submission.
  • They can set their site visibility to allow access only registered users of their site; if the student then adds you as a reader in the WordPress "Users" interface, you will be able to see a published page or post on the site.

Ensure students understand the basics of site visibility

Students should understand who can see their sites. Visiting the site visibility settings (Dashboard > Settings > Reading) lays out the choices available to students. If you're having trouble understanding those choices or would like to ask that a DartWrite representative visit your class to work with students on that issue and other WordPress topics, email us at [email protected].

(1): Perkins, David & Salomon, Gavriel. (1999). Transfer Of Learning. 11.

Other Content

Process: What processes will be engaged in during the development of the portfolio?

One of the greatest attributes of the portfolio is its potential for focusing on the processes of learning. Too often in education we emphasize the products students create or the outcomes they achieve. But we do not give sufficient attention to the processes required to create those products or outcomes, the processes involved in self-diagnosis and self-improvement, or the metacognitive processes of thinking. As a result, the products or outcomes are not as good as we or the students would like because they are often unsure how to get started, how to self-diagnose or self-correct or how to determine when a piece of work is "finished."

Although a variety of processes can be developed or explored through portfolios, I will focus on three of the most common:

  • selection of contents of the portfolio;
  • reflection on the samples of work and processes;
  Selection of Contents

Once again, identifying the purpose(s) for the portfolio should drive the selection process. As listed in the tables above, different samples of student work will likely be selected for different purposes. Additionally, how samples are selected might also differ depending on the purpose. For example, for an evaluation portfolio, the teacher might decide which samples need to be included to evaluate student progress. On the other hand, including the student in the decision-making process of determining appropriate types of samples for inclusion might be more critical for a growth portfolio to promote meaningful reflection. Finally, a showcase portfolio might be designed to include significant input from the student on which samples best highlight achievement and progress, or the teacher might primarily make those decisions.

How might the selection take place?

What I will describe below are just a few of the many possible avenues for selecting which samples will be included in a portfolio. But these examples should give you a good sense of some of the choices and some of the decisions involved.

  • when a sample of work is completed -- at the point a piece of work is ready to be turned in (or once the work has been returned by the teacher) the student or teacher identifies that work for inclusion in the portfolio;
  • at periodic intervals -- instead of selecting samples when they are completed, the samples can be stored so that selection might occur every two (three, six or nine) weeks or once (twice or three times) every quarter (trimester or semester);
  • by the student -- students are the most common selectors, particularly for portfolios that ask them to reflect on the work selected. Which work students select depends on the criteria used to choose each piece (see below).
  • by the teacher -- teachers may be the selector, particularly when identifying best pieces of work to showcase a student's strengths or accomplishments.
  • by the student and teacher -- sometimes portfolio selection is a joint process involving conversation and collaboration.
  • by peers -- a student might be assigned a "portfolio partner" or "portfolio buddy" who assists the student in selecting appropriate pieces of work often as part of a joint process involving conversation and collaboration. A peer might also provide some reflection on a piece of work to be included in the portfolio.

Based on what criteria?

  • best work -- selection for showcase portfolios will typically focus on samples of work that illustrate students' best performance in designated areas or the culmination of progress made
  • samples of earlier and later work highlighting some skill or content area
  • samples of rough drafts and final drafts
  • work that traces the development of a particular product or performance
  • samples of work reflecting specifically identified strengths and weaknesses
  • evidence of achievement -- particularly for showcase and evaluation portfolios, selection might focus on samples of work that illustrate current levels of competence in designated areas or particular exemplars of quality work
  • evidence of standards met -- similarly, selection could focus on samples of work that illustrate how successfully students have met certain standards
  • favorite/most important piece -- to help develop recognition of the value of the work completed and to foster pride in that work, selection might focus on samples to which students or parents or others find a connection or with which they are particularly enamored
  • one or more of the above -- a portfolio can include samples of work for multiple reasons and, thus, more than one of the above criteria (or others) could be used for selecting samples to be included
Reflection on Samples of Work

Many educators who work with portfolios consider the reflection component the most critical element of a good portfolio. Simply selecting samples of work as described above can produce meaningful stories about students, and others can benefit from "reading" these stories. But the students themselves are missing significant benefits of the portfolio process if they are not asked to reflect upon the quality and growth of their work. As Paulson, Paulson and Meyer (1991) stated, "The portfolio is something that is done by the student, not to the student." Most importantly, it is something done for the student. The student needs to be directly involved in each phase of the portfolio development to learn the most from it, and the reflection phase holds the most promise for promoting student growth.

In the reflection phase students are typically asked to

  • comment on why specific samples were selected or
  • comment on what they liked and did not like in the samples or
  • comment on or identify the processes involved in developing specific products or performances or
  • describe and point to examples of how specific skills or knowledge improved (or did not) or
  • identify strengths and weaknesses in samples of work or
  • set goals for themselves corresponding to the strengths and weaknesses or
  • identify strategies for reaching those goals or
  • assess their past and current self-efficacy for a task or skill or
  • complete a checklist or survey about their work or

Reflection sheets

Selection questions/prompts
  • Why did you select this piece?
  • Why should this sample be included in your portfolio?
  • How does this sample meet the criteria for selection for your portfolio?
  • I chose this piece because ....
Growth questions/prompts
  • What are the strengths of this work? Weaknesses?
  • What would you work on more if you had additional time?
  • How has your ______ (e.g., writing) changed since last year?
  • What do you know about ______ (e.g., the scientific method) that you did not know at the beginning of the year (or semester, etc.)?
  • Looking at (or thinking about) an earlier piece of similar work, how does this new piece of work compare? How is it better or worse? Where can you see progress or improvement?
  • How did you get "stuck" working on this task? How did you get "unstuck"?
  • One skill I could not perform very well but now I can is ....
  • From reviewing this piece I learned ....
Goal-setting questions/prompts
  • What is one thing you can improve upon in this piece?
  • What is a realistic goal for the end of the quarter (semester, year)?
  • What is one way you will try to improve your ____ (e.g., writing)?
  • One thing I still need to work on is ....
  • I will work toward my goal by ....
Evaluation questions/prompts
  • If you were a teacher and grading your work, what grade would you give it and why?
  • Using the appropriate rubric, give yourself a score and justify it with specific traits from the rubric.
  • What do you like or not like about this piece of work?
  • I like this piece of work because ....
Effort questions/prompts
  • How much time did you spend on this product/performance?
  • The work would have been better if I had spent more time on ....
  • I am pleased that I put significant effort into ....
Overall portfolio questions/prompts
  • What would you like your _____ (e.g., parents) to know about or see in your portfolio?
  • What does the portfolio as a whole reveal about you as a learner (writer, thinker, etc.)?
  • A feature of this portfolio I particularly like is ....
  • In this portfolio I see evidence of ....
Other reflection methods

In addition to reflection sheets, teachers have devised a myriad of means of inducing reflection from students and others about the collection of work included in the portfolio. For example, those engaging in reflection can

  • write a letter to a specific audience about the story the portfolio communicates
  • write a "biography" of a piece of work tracing its development and the learning that resulted
  • write periodic journal entries about the progress of the portfolio
  • compose an imaginary new "chapter" that picks up where the story of the portfolio leaves off

Reflection as a process skill

Good skill development requires four steps:

  • Instruction and modeling of the skill;
  • Practice of the skill;
  • Feedback on one's practice;
  • Reflection on the practice and feedback.

As a skill, reflection is not something that can be mastered in one or two attempts. Developing good reflective skills requires instruction and modeling, lots of practice, feedback and reflection. As many of you have probably encountered, when students are first asked to respond to prompts such as "I selected this piece because..." they may respond with "I think it is nice." Okay, that's a start. But we would like them to elaborate on that response. The fact that they did not initially elaborate is probably not just a result of resistance or reluctance. Students need to learn how to respond to such prompts. They need to learn how to effectively identify strengths and weaknesses, to set realistic goals for themselves and their work, and to develop meaningful strategies to address those goals. Students often have become dependent upon adults, particularly teachers, to evaluate their work. They need to learn self-assessment.

So, the reflection phase of the portfolio process should be ongoing throughout the portfolio development. Students need to engage in multiple reflective activities. Those instances of reflection become particularly focused if goal-setting is part of their reflection. Just as instruction and assessment are more appropriately targeted if they are tied to specific standards or goals, student identification of and reflection upon strengths and weaknesses, examples of progress, and strategies for improvement will be more meaningful and purposeful if they are directed toward specific goals, particularly self-chosen goals.

Once opportunities for reflection (practice) take place, feedback to and further reflection upon student observations can be provided by conversations with others. Conferencing is one tool to promote such feedback and reflection.

Conferencing on Student Work and Processes

With 20 or 30 or more students in a classroom, one-on-one conversations between the teacher and student are difficult to regularly arrange. That is unfortunate because the give and take of face-to-face interaction can provide the teacher with valuable information about the student's thinking and progress and provide the student with meaningful feedback. Such feedback is also more likely to be processed by the student than comments written on paper.

Conferencing typically takes several forms:

  • teacher/student -- sometimes teachers are able to informally meet with a few students, one at a time, as the other students work on some task in class. Other times, teachers use class time to schedule one-on-one conferences during "conference days." Some teachers are able to schedule conferences outside of class time. Typically such conferences take only a few minutes, but they give the teacher and the student time to recap progress, ask questions, and consider suggestions or strategies for improvement.
  • teacher/small group -- other teachers, often in composition classes, meet with a few students at a time to discuss issues and questions that are raised, sharing common problems and reflections across students.

Management: How will time and materials be managed in the development of the portfolio?

As appealing as the process of students developing a portfolio can be, the physical and time constraints of such a process can be daunting. Where do you keep all the stuff? How do you keep track of it? Who gets access to it and when? Should you manage paper or create an electronic portfolio? Does some work get sent home before it is put in the portfolio? Will it come back? When will you find the time for students to participate, to reflect, to conference? What about students who join your class in the middle of the semester or year?

There is one answer to all these questions that can make the task less daunting: start small! That is good advice for many endeavors, but particularly for portfolios because there are so many factors to consider, develop and manage over a long period of time. In the final section of this chapter (Can I do portfolios without all the fuss?) I will elaborate on how you can get your feet wet with portfolios and avoid drowning in the many decisions described below.

How you answer the many management questions below depends, in part, on how you answered earlier questions about your purpose, audience, content and process. Return to those answers to help you address the following decisions:

Communication: How and when will the portfolio be shared with pertinent audiences?

Why share the portfolio?

By the nature of the purposes of portfolios -- to show growth, to show case excellence -- portfolios are meant to be shared. The samples, reflections and other contents allow or invite others to observe and celebrate students' progress and accomplishments. A portfolio should tell a story, and that story should be told.

Students should primarily be the ones telling their stories. As students reflect on the balance of their work over some period of time, there is often a great sense of pride at the growth and the accomplishment. By telling their own stories students can take ownership of the process that led to the growth and achievement. Assessment is no longer something done to them; the students are playing an active role through self-assessment.

Furthermore, others will be able to recognize and celebrate in the growth and accomplishment of the students if their work is communicated beyond the borders of the classroom. A portfolio provides a unique vehicle for capturing and communicating student learning. Parents tend to learn more about their children's abilities and propensities through a portfolio than they do through the odd assignment that makes it home and into the parents' hands. Moreover, other interested members of the school and local community can recognize and celebrate the accomplishment.

Finally, the portfolio can provide an excellent tool for accountability. Parents, educators and community members can learn a great deal about what is happening in a classroom or school or district by viewing and hearing about the contents of these stories. Perhaps more importantly, the student and teacher can uncover a vivid picture of where the student was, where she has traveled to, how she got there and what she accomplished along the way -- a fascinating and enlightening story.

Considering the audience

Of course, deciding how to tell the story will be influenced by the intended audience. For example, presenting a collection of work to a teacher who is already familiar with much of the content will likely require a different approach than presenting that work as part of a college application.

Audiences within the classroom

In some classrooms, a portfolio is used much like other assignments as evidence of progress towards or completion of course or grade level goals and standards. In such cases, the only audience might be the teacher who evaluates all the student work. To effectively communicate with the teacher about a body of work, the student may be asked to write a brief introduction or overview capturing her perceptions of the progress (for a growth portfolio) or accomplishments (for a showcase portfolio) reflected in the collection of work. Teachers who assign portfolios not only want to see student work but want to see students reflect upon it.

As a classroom assessor, the teacher also has the benefit of communicating face-to-face with each student. Such conferences take a variety of forms and vary in their frequency. For example,

  • A teacher might review a portfolio at one or more intervals, and then prepare questions for the face-to-face conversation with each student;
  • A student might run the conference by taking the teacher through her portfolio, highlighting elements consistent with the purpose of the portfolio;
  • A "pre-conference" might occur in which teacher and student discuss how the portfolio should be constructed to best showcase it or best prepare it for evaluation.

Additionally, classmates can serve as an audience for a portfolio. Particulary for older students, some teachers require or encourage students to present their portfolios to each other for feedback, dialogue and modeling. For example,

  • Pairs of students can review each other's work to provide feedback, identify strengths and weaknesses, and suggest future goals;
  • Sharing with each other also provides an opportunity to tell a story or just brag;
  • Students can always benefit from seeing good (or poor) models of work as well as models of meaningful reflection and goal-setting.

As students hear themselves tell each other about the value and meaning of their work it will become more valuable and meaningful to them.

Audiences within the family and school community

As many of us have experienced with our own children, parents sometimes only receive a small, fragmented picture of their children's school work. Some work never makes it home, some is lost, some is hidden, etc. It can be even harder for parents to construct a coherent picture out of that work to get a real sense of student growth or accomplishment or progress toward a set of standards.

Portfolios provide an opportunity to give parents a fuller glimpse of the processes and products and progress of their children's learning. Many teachers intentionally involve the parents in the development of the portfolio or make parents an audience or both.

For example, to involve parents in the process,

  • some teachers require students to get much of their work signed by parents to be returned to school;
  • some teachers send work home in a two-pocket folder in which one pocket contains work that can stay home and the other pocket contains work that can be viewed by parents but should be returned to school, each pocket carefully labeled as such;
  • some teachers use a three-pocket folder in which the third pocket is a place parents can pass along notes or comments or questions;
  • a reflection sheet, perhaps similar to the ones students complete, can be attached to some of the pieces of work sent home inviting parents to make comments, ask questions or provide evaluation;
  • parents might be invited to provide a summary reflection of work they have seen so far;
  • or simply identify one or two pieces of work or aspects of their children's work that they most like or are most surprised about.

To share the portfolio with parents,

  • many schools host Portfolio Nights, at which students often guide their parent or parents through the story of their work. Having the Night at school allows the student to more easily share the variety of two- and three-dimensional work they have created.
  • after teacher evaluation of the portfolio (if that is done), the complete portfolio might be sent home for the parents to view and possibly respond to. This might occur once at the end of the process or periodically along the way.

A Portfolio Night also provides an opportunity for other members of the school or larger community to view student portfolios. The portfolios may simply be on display to be sampled, or students might guide other audiences through their work.

Similarly, during the school day students can share their portfolios with students from other classes or with school personnel.

Audiences beyond the classroom, school and family

An external audience for student work can serve to motivate students to give more attention to and take more seriously their performance. First, it may give more legitimacy to assigned work. If the work is to be externally reviewed, it suggests that it is not simply "busy work" that provides a grade but that it is something authentic valued outside the walls of the classroom. Second, some students may take more care in their work when they believe a new, different, and perhaps expert audience will be viewing it.

To extend the audience beyond the classroom, school and family, teachers have adopted a variety of approaches, including

  • expanding the audience at Portfolio Nights to include a larger community, perhaps even authors, or scientists or other professionals relevant to the work in the portfolio;
  • inviting professionals or experts in a particular field to come listen to presentations of the portfolios;
  • inviting professionals or experts to serve as one of the reviewers or evaluators of the portfolios;
Preparing the student to share

Just as we do not expect children to write or speak well without considerable instruction and practice, it is not reasonable to expect students to effortlessly and effectively share their stories without some help. Teachers have devised a number of strategies to prepare students to communicate with the target audience. Some such strategies include

  • pairing up students in class ("portfolio partners") to practice presenting their work to each other;
  • pairing up the author of the portfolio with an older student a few grades above. The younger student would practice presenting her work as if she is presenting it to the intended audience (e.g., parents at a Portfolio Night). Both students can benefit as the older student provides feedback and encouragement and may increase her own self-efficacy for the task through modeling and tutoring the younger student.

Evaluation: If the portfolio is to be used for evaluation, how and when should it be evaluated?

As with all of the elements of portfolios described above, how and when evaluation is addressed varies widely across teachers, schools and districts. Take, for example, …

Evaluation vs. Grading

Evaluation refers to the act of making a judgment about something. Grading takes that process one step further by assigning a grade to that judgment. Evaluation may be sufficient for a portfolio assignment. What is (are) the purpose(s) of the portfolio? If the purpose is to demonstrate growth, the teacher could make judgments about the evidence of progress and provide those judgments as feedback to the student or make note of them for her own records. Similarly, the student could self-assess progress shown or not shown, goals met or not met. No grade needs to be assigned. On a larger scale, an evaluation of the contents within the portfolio or of the entire package may be conducted by external bodies (e.g., community members, other educators, state boards) for the purpose of judging completion of certain standards or requirements. Although the evaluation is serious, and graduation might even hinge on it, no classroom grade may be assigned.

On the other hand, the work within the portfolio and the process of assembling and reflecting upon the portfolio may comprise such a significant portion of a student's work in a grade or class that the teacher deems it appropriate to assign a value to it and incorporate it into the student's final grade. Alternatively, some teachers assign grades because they believe without grades there would not be sufficient incentive for some students to complete the portfolio. Ahh, but …

What to Grade

Nothing. Some teachers choose not to grade the portfolio because they have already assigned grades to the contents selected for inclusion.

The metacognitive and organizational elements. But the portfolio is more than just a collection of student work. Depending on its purpose, students might have also included reflections on growth, on strengths and weaknesses, on goals that were or are to be set, on why certain samples tell a certain story about them, or on why the contents reflect sufficient progress to indicate completion of designated standards. Some of the process skills may also be part of the teacher's or school's or district's standards. So, the portfolio provides some evidence of attainment of those standards. Any or all of these elements can be evaluated and/or graded.

Completion. Some portfolios are graded simply on whether or not the portfolio was completed.

Everything. Other teachers evaluate the entire package: the selected samples of student work as well as the reflection, organization and presentation of the portfolio.

How to Grade/Evaluate

Most of the portfolio assignments I have seen have been evaluated or graded with a rubric. A great deal of personal judgment goes into evaluating a complex product such as a portfolio. Thus, applying a rubric, a tool which can provide some clarity and consistency to the evaluation of such products, to the judgment of quality of the story being told and the elements making up that story makes sense. Moreover, if the portfolio is to be evaluated my multiple judges, application of a rubric increases the likelihood of consistency among the judges.

Examples of Portfolio Rubrics

What might a portfolio rubric look like? If the focus of the grading is primarily on whether the samples of student work within the portfolio demonstrate certain competencies, the criteria within the rubric will target those competencies. For example,

Evaluating competencies

  • Electrical and computer engineering portfolio rubric

Or, Completing requirements

Meeting standards

Evaluating the portfolio as a whole

  • Electronic portfolio rubric - very detailed criteria
  Who evaluates
The more we can involve students in the assessment process, the more likely they will take ownership of it, be engaged in it, and find it worthwhile. So, it makes sense to involve students in the evaluation process of their portfolios as well. They have likely engaged in some self-assessment in the reflection or goal-setting components of the portfolio. Additionally, students are capable of evaluating how well their portfolio elements meet standards, requirements, or competencies, for their own portfolios or those of their peers. Furthermore, older peers could make excellent judges of the work of younger students. Cross-grade peer tutoring has demonstrated how well the older and younger students respond to such interactions.
Obviously, the classroom teacher, other educators, review board members, community members, etc. can all serve as judges of student work. If multiple judges are used, particularly if they are not directly familiar with the student work or assignments, training on a rubric should be provided before evaluation proceeds. The evaluators should be familiar with and clear on the criteria and the levels of performance within the rubric. A calibration session, in which the judges evaluate some sample portfolios and then share ratings to reach some consensus on what each criteria and level of performance within the rubric means, can provide a good opportunity for judges to achieve some competence and consistency in applying a rubric.  

Can I do Portfolios Without all the Fuss?

Oh, what fun would that be! Actually, the answer is a qualified "yes." Portfolios do typically require considerable work, particularly if conferencing is involved. But with most anything, including assessment, I recommend that you start small.

Here's a quick, easy way to get started if any of the above thoughts has either encouraged you or not discouraged you from considering assigning portfolios in your little world. The following describes just one possible way to get started.

Step 1. Depending on the age of your students and other considerations, have students select two pieces of their work over the course of a quarter (or three or four over a semester). Decide (with your students or without) upon one or more criteria by which the selection will be guided (e.g., their best work). To limit management time, don't wait for the end of the quarter for students to make those selections. Otherwise, all their work will have to be collected along the way. Instead, if you want to keep it simple, tell your students ahead of time that they will be selecting two or more pieces matching certain criteria, and that you will ask them to do it at the point each sample is completed.

Step 2. At the time a student selects a sample to be included in his portfolio, require the student to complete a brief reflection sheet and attach it to the sample.

Step 3. Depending on the age of your students, ask your student to save that sample and the attached reflection sheet until the end of the quarter or semester, or collect it and store it yourself at that point.

Step 4. At the end of the quarter or semester, ask your students to reflect upon the samples one additional time by describing what they liked best about their work, or by identifying strengths and weaknesses, or by setting one or two goals for the future.

There, that wasn't too painful. Okay, you ask, that was relatively simple, but did it really accomplish anything? Good question. If you don't think so, don't do it. On the other hand, it could possibly have a few benefits worth the effort. First, if nothing else it gave you some experience working with portfolios. If you want to pursue portfolios in a more elaborate manner, at least you are now more familiar with some of the issues involved. Second, if you think developing self-assessment skills in your students is a worthwhile goal, you have also begun that process. Even a little reflection on your students' part may be more than some of them typically give to their work. Finally, you may have opened, even if it is just a little bit, a new avenue for you and your students to communicate with their parents about their performance, their strengths and weaknesses, and their habits. Any of those reasons may be sufficient to try your hand at portfolios. Good luck!

   

Copyright 2018, Jon Mueller. Professor of Psychology, North Central College , Naperville, IL. Comments, questions or suggestions about this website should be sent to the author, Jon Mueller, at [email protected] .

Portfolio Assessment: Meaning, Types, Benefits, and Examples

What is portfolio assessment?

For non-education graduate students like me, bewilderment comes next whenever I see this word during training courses on curriculum development.

Two questions come to mind:

  • How do I incorporate this form of assessment in the evaluation of student or even my performance as a professor or teacher?
  • Does the application of this form of assessment enable teachers to evaluate their students or themselves better?

This article explains how it works and provides some examples with some useful links for further reading. Read on to find out and apply as part of your teaching strategy.

Table of Contents

Introduction.

In the landscape of learning and professional development, the measure of student competency goes beyond isolated tests and examinations. Among the many assessment methods employed, portfolio assessment stands out for its holistic approach that links theory with practice.

This in-depth analysis aims to demystify portfolio assessment, exploring its definition, types, benefits, and real-life examples that shed light on its practical applications. While predominantly used in education, the insights derived from this approach are also transferable to professional development, demonstrating a broad spectrum of its functionality.

Defining Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment defined.

Portfolio assessment is a method of assessment often used in academic and professional fields, where an individual’s ability, progress, and achievement are evaluated through review of a pre-selected collection of work known as a portfolio. This portfolio may consist of various forms of work samples like projects, reports, examinations, observations , or other forms of evidence that reflect a person’s competency or growth over time.

Portfolio assessment can be very beneficial, as it provides a cumulative and comprehensive view of an individual’s achievements, rather than focusing on isolated performances or individual test scores. It supports interdisciplinary learning and promotes self-directed learning opportunities, helping individuals become independent, self-reflective learners.

Key Principles of Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment follows 4 key principles.

The first one is the collection of evidence from various sources and across different periods, demonstrating the breadth and depth of an individual’s ability or progress.

The second essential principle is the organization and presentation of the collected works in a manner that enables easy and meaningful review.

The third principle involves evaluating the portfolio , usually by multiple reviewers, to ensure fairness and objectivity. Reviews may be based on established criteria or rubrics, or sometimes on relative progress and development.

The final principle is reflection , which is facilitated through the portfolio’s structure, encouraging the individual to reflect on their learning progress and areas of improvement.

Portfolio Assessment in Education

In an educational setting, portfolio assessment is often applied to demonstrate students’ learning and growth over the course of a school term or academic year.

Examples of elements included in an educational portfolio could be a series of writing assignments that demonstrate the progression of writing skills, art projects that reflect the development of artistic techniques, or science projects that show the understanding of scientific concepts.

Teachers may use portfolio assessment as a tool to gauge students’ understanding in a comprehensive manner, looking at the overall progress instead of individual marks from tests and quizzes. It also helps teachers identify areas where the student may need additional support or resources to improve.

Portfolio Assessment in Professional Development

In the field of professional development , portfolio assessments are used to evaluate and determine an individual’s professional competence and growth. For instance, in medicine, a practitioner might compile relevant case studies , patient feedback , peer reviews , training certificates , or research participation to form their professional portfolio.

This compilation provides a comprehensive and continuous record of a professional’s competence, demonstrating their ongoing learning, development, and progression in their field. The portfolio is frequently reviewed and updated to reflect the evolution and enhancement of a professional’s skills, abilities, and experiences over time.

The portfolio is frequently reviewed and updated to reflect the evolution and enhancement of a professional’s skills, abilities, and experiences over time.

Portfolio assessment serves as an all-encompassing approach to scrutinize individual development and learning. It champions a reflective, autonomous, and perpetual learning style.

portfolio assessment

Types of Portfolio Assessment

Why is portfolio assessment distinctive.

Portfolio assessment stands out as an instructional, diversity-friendly evaluation method. It encapsulates a collection of a student’s work over an extended duration, demonstrating progress, competence, capacity, and accomplishment in specific fields.

Portfolio assessments are distinctive due to their ability to offer a comprehensive perspective of a student’s skills, showcasing not merely the knowledge they possess, but also how they utilize and convey this knowledge. The portfolio can encompass various elements such as written tasks, reading records, projects, self-evaluations, alongside reviews from classmates or instructors.

Three Types of Portfolio Assessment

There are various types of portfolio assessments, each with specific characteristics that suit its intended use. Portfolio assessments are categorized into three primary types: assessment portfolios, showcase portfolios, and learning portfolios.

1. Assessment Portfolios

Assessment portfolios , otherwise known as evaluative portfolios, contain work that has been evaluated according to set standards or criteria. These portfolios demonstrate a student’s ability to meet specific learning standards. They often contain rubrics, test results, student reflections, teacher’s notes , and graded assignments .

For instance, in a Science class, an assessment portfolio may contain lab reports , results from class tests , assessed projects , and the student’s reflection on their learning throughout the term. Evaluation is often comparative, and is accomplished by using scoring guides or rubrics. The main aim of an assessment portfolio is to display clear evidence of learning.

2. Showcase Portfolios

A showcase portfolio , on the other hand, represents the best work of a student. Unlike the assessment portfolio, the showcase port f olio allows the student to select their most outstanding work, hence demonstrating their highest level of learning and achievement. It can contain final drafts of assignments, projects, or any piece of work that the student is particularly proud of.

The purpose of a showcase portfolio is to provide a sense of accomplishment and to display one’s best abilities. An example might be a portfolio of an art student, presenting their best paintings or sketches.

3. Learning Portfolios

Lastly, learning portfolios , also known as process portfolios, document the learning process of a student. Unlike the other types of portfolios which emphasize on the final product, the learning portfolio focuses on the learning journey and the progress made . This may include drafts, revisions, mistakes, feedback, and reflections indicating how the student has overcome difficulties and improved over time.

For instance, in a literature class, a learning portfolio could include an initial draft of a book review , followed by the teacher’s comments, the revised drafts, and finally, the final version of the review. This allows for an accurate tracking of a student’s learning progression and the process of knowledge development over a period of time.

Comparison Between the Types

The primary difference between these three types of portfolios lies in their purpose and the type of work they encompass. Assessment portfolios are reliant on evaluated work to depict a student’s ability to align with specific learning standards. Showcase portfolios, however, are a collection of a student’s best work, exemplifying their skills, creativity, and personal learning outcomes. Learning portfolios focus on the student’s learning process, capturing their journey from inception to completion of learning objectives.

While each type has its individual strengths, they also have limitations. For example, assessment portfolios offer a comprehensive view of student achievements but may not fully capture a student’s creative abilities like a showcase portfolio would. Conversely, a showcase portfolio might not adequately demonstrate how the student has improved over a period. A learning portfolio can show this improvement, but it requires careful and continuous documentation and management to be effective.

Identifying the Ideal Portfolio

Deciding the right type of portfolio hinges upon the primary learning goals and the level of understanding needed about a student’s educational pursuits and accomplishments.

Benefits and Challenges of Portfolio Assessment

4 benefits of portfolio assessment.

Portfolio assessment technique is beneficial in a multitude of contexts, including educational and professional settings. I enumerate four of these in the next paragraphs and highlight the important benefits.

1. Allows for a Comprehensive Evaluation

Portfolio assessment allows for a comprehensive evaluation of one’s skills, knowledge, and performance, rather than focusing solely on a single task or test result. This holistic approach can more accurately reflect an individual’s learning or professional growth and provides deep insights which are often overlooked in traditional assessments.

2. Encourages Self-Assessment and Reflection

Portfolio assessment encourages self-assessment and reflection, promoting personal responsibility for one’s learning and development. Students or professionals actively engage in collecting, selecting, and analyzing their work, receiving feedback, and setting future goals. This process enhances their critical thinking and decision-making skills.

3. Offers Flexibility

Portfolio assessment is especially beneficial in settings where diverse skills and competencies need to be evaluated. It offers flexibility, as different kinds of evidence can be included depending on the specific skills or abilities one wants to showcase.

4. Provides a Tangible Record

Portfolio assessment provides a tangible record that can be utilized for future learning, professional growth, or performance evaluation purposes. Hence, you can always refer back to it whenever needed for some useful purposes such as program accreditation.

Challenges of Portfolio Assessment

Despite its numerous advantages, portfolio assessment also poses some challenges. A primary concern is that it requires substantial time and effort. Managing and maintaining a portfolio, particularly a physical one, can be time-consuming for both the evaluator and the individual being assessed. Considering the ongoing nature of portfolio assessment, this difficulty can become significant over time.

Another challenge pertains to the subjectivity of assessment . Given that portfolio includes a wide range of work, it can be difficult to standardize criteria and benchmarks for evaluation. Consequently, it may lead to inconsistences and bias during the review process.

Moreover, there could be issues with validity and reliability of the assessment . For example, in academic settings, unless closely monitored, students might submit work that was not solely theirs, casting doubt on the authenticity of the portfolio. In professional settings, embellishments or omissions of certain aspects of work might question the validity of the career narratives presented in the portfolios.

Addressing Potential Hurdles

In the face of potential challenges surrounding portfolio assessments, a host of strategic approaches can be adopted to ensure optimal benefits. Matters such as time and management can be effectively handled with digitally maintained portfolios that are simpler to organize.

Additionally, conducting training sessions for the evaluators guarantees that a consistent standard is maintained during the assessment process. To prevent biased evaluations, the institution of multiple independent reviewers can be beneficial.

Finally, to ensure the portfolio’s authenticity, individuals can be asked to orally defend their portfolios or provide written explanations detailing the learning process involved in each piece of their work.

When undertaken with meticulous planning and careful execution, portfolio assessments can act as a potent tool, enabling and monitoring growth and learning while providing invaluable insights for future pursuits.

Real-Life Portfolio Assessment Examples

A classic example of the use of portfolio assessment is in the field of education.

For instance, a student portfolio may contain essays, projects, examinations, and other types of work carried out over the semester or academic year. Such a portfolio would demonstrate a student’s growth and achievement, as well as their critical thinking skills, creativity, and level of effort.

Through these assessment portfolios, teachers can evaluate student’s learning progress compared to the curriculum standards and objectives. Notably, teachers also provide feedback and offer minibreaks to guide students in the learning process.

Portfolio Assessment in Clinical Training

In the medical field, portfolio assessment is widely used in clinical training. Medical students are often required to maintain a portfolio of the procedures they carried out , observations made , case reports , reflective pieces , and supervisor’s feedback throughout their clinical training. This allows the instructors to assess their competency, readiness and performance progress in the clinical environment. Portfolio assessment gives a more comprehensive analysis of clinical competency compared to traditional assessments, such as multiple-choice tests.

Portfolio Assessment in Job Application Process

In the professional arena, portfolio assessment is commonly used in the job application process. A job applicant’s portfolio could include a resume , samples of work , letters of recommendation , certifications , and diplomas . An applicant may also add reflective narratives to explain the context of their work and what they were able to learn or achieve. This provides the hiring managers a comprehensive view of the applicant’s skills, achievements, and experiences, enhancing the likelihood of fair candidate assessment.

Portfolio Assessment in Art and Design

In the field of Art and design, portfolio assessments are absolutely critical. An artist or design professional’s portfolio can include sketches , paintings , designs , photographs , and other creative works. The works in the portfolio stand as a testimony to their creative and technical skills, their unique style, and their visual communication capabilities.

Portfolio Assessment in Real Estate

In the context of real estate, a portfolio assessment might involve the extensive analysis of a set of property investments. An investor might compile a portfolio containing details about property values , rental income , property conditions , locations , market trends , amongst other aspects. The assessment of this portfolio helps to determine the feasibility, profitability, and risks associated with each property, enabling wise investment decisions.

Overall Conclusion

Overall, portfolio assessment stands as a versatile method that gives a holistic picture of an individual’s abilities, growth, and achievements over a certain period. Whether it’s in a learning environment, during a job application, or within different professional fields, portfolio assessments can serve several purposes and offer insightful results.

Employing portfolio assessment in various fields stands as a testament to its adaptability and efficacy. It is not without its challenges, of course, but the array of advantages it offers is undeniably valuable.

Portfolio assessment amplifies the learning experience, fostering deeper understanding and encouraging self-directed learning. Explicit real-life examples gathered across multiple disciplines delineate the versatility of its application, illuminating its potential as a key tool in learning and professional development.

A thorough comprehension of portfolio assessment bolsters the journey of continuous learning and growth, paving the way for a more comprehensive and engaging educational journey.

At this point, portfolio assessment is no longer alien to you. On my part, I realized that this performance assessment presents a whole new world of possibilities in my teaching profession. It’s not too late to use portfolio assessment as an alternative to common assessment tools that we used to apply in imparting knowledge and learning to the students, and even in evaluating ourselves as we ponder how far we have gone in our professional development journey.

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Humanities LibreTexts

7: Portfolio Assignments

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  • 7.1: Writing Assignment: Fiction Portfolio
  • 7.2: Rubric: Fiction Portfolio
  • 7.3: Writing Assignment: Poetry Portfolio
  • 7.4: Rubric: Poetry Portfolio

Create a portfolio assignment

For this type of assignment, a student creates a portfolio based on criteria that you specify.

To create a portfolio assignment:

  • Click Create Assignment under Manage Assignments on the Home page.
  • Click the Assignments tab. Then click Create Assignment .

The Assignment Builder now displays the Step 2: Set Titles and Dates page.

When you complete the Step 2 entries, the MyLab creates the assignment and displays the Confirmation page, which shows the assignment details. You can edit the assignment now by clicking the Edit button or later from the Assignments page.

  • Click the View All Assignments button to go to the assignment list on the Assignments page.
  • Click the Create New Assignment button to add another assignment.

Create assignments | Edit an assignment | Delete an assignment | Activate and deactivate assignments

Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Design a Writing Portfolio Assignment: 6 Steps

    1 Choose a format The first step in designing a writing portfolio assignment is to decide what format you want your students to use. Depending on your resources, preferences, and expectations,...

  2. Portfolios

    Portfolios can be assigned for semester-long courses, or for longer term capstones like certificate programs, across a range of fields. Why use Portfolios? Portfolios can be assigned as an alternative to a traditional final exam or paper, and can be especially effective at meeting some or all of the following goals: encouraging student agency;

  3. Portfolio Assignment

    Title Page. You should title the portfolio in a way that captures your sense of yourself as a writer and critical thinker at this point in your educational journey. You can include a picture and/or quote on the title page as well. A quote can come from anywhere (any text, movie, lyrics, etc.) but should illustrate your perspective about writing ...

  4. PDF Assignment Introduction Description of Portfolio Assessment

    A portfolio includes a students' revised work of their major assignments, early drafts of those assignments, and their reflection on the revision process in the form of an end-of-semester essay.

  5. Using Portfolios in Program Assessment

    There are two main types of portfolios: Showcase Portfolios: Students select and submit their best work. The showcase portfolio emphasizes the products of learning. Developmental Portfolios: Students select and submit pieces of work that can show evidence of growth or change over time. The growth portfolio emphasizes the process of learning.

  6. How do I create a Portfolio Assignment?

    Using a Canvas Web URL Assignment. Canvas assignments can be used for graded portfolio submissions. Details on creating "online submission" assignments in Canvas are available in the Canvas Online Assignment Guide. The "Text Entry" or "Website URL" submission types are great choices for portfolios.

  7. Portfolio Grading

    See also Randy Fetzer's "Portfolio Assessment: Is It Right for CSU's Comp Program?" available in Steve Reid's office. Most importantly, be warned that portfolio grading can be treacherously time-consuming (it doesn't have to be, however!). Choose a grading method that will work for you.

  8. 17.7: How can portfolios be used for assessment?

    D. Terrible and Good. 3. Which assignment listed below could a portfolio and portfolio assessment be used in to effectively grade a students learning: A. A study of painting and growth of students painting technique. B. Doing a collection of history maps and reflecting on old maps versus new maps. C.

  9. WR 112 Portfolio Assignment and Rubric

    Assignment. Writing is a process of discovery, drafting, and revision. WR coursework is distinct from other writing-intensive classes because it places a unique emphasis on that process. For instance, all major assignments in WR coursework require that students develop drafts as well as participate in other key activities within the writing ...

  10. 9.1: Portfolio Assignment

    Portfolio Assignment. Authored by: Jason Brown. Provided by: Herkimer College. Project: AtD OER Course. License: CC BY: Attribution. 9.1: Portfolio Assignment is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

  11. Portfolio Assignment

    Digital Portfolio Assignment: An Overview. Portfolios have been shown to help students transfer skills from one project to the next and/or from one learning context to another. Further, digital public-facing portfolios have been shown to motivate and engage students (Vetter et al., 2019). A Personal Portfolio Website is a great way to teach ...

  12. Types of Portfolios

    Assessment Hybrid Let's take a look at these four types of portfolios 1) Showcase or Presentation Portfolio: A Collection of Best Work These types of portfolios focus on the portfolio as a product and are also typically called professional portfolios, formal portfolios, or career portfolio.

  13. Student Portfolio

    Dependent on the type of portfolio a student is creating, it may include various work samples, projects, photographs, writing pieces, reflective journaling and artwork. How do I write a student...

  14. Portfolios

    Portfolios include work that is produced over an extended period and should require a wider range of skills in its production. As a result students may view it as a fairer form of assessment. Given the opportunity to be involved in. designing of the individual tasks. deciding the criteria to be used.

  15. Portfolio Assignments

    Three kinds of digital portfolio assignments: ... Remediation; a well-established assignment type in digital rhetoric, remediations ask students to transform a completed project for a new medium and new audience, fostering greater audience and genre awareness along the way. A faculty member might, for example, ask students to take a thoroughly ...

  16. PDF Using Portfolios To Assess Student Writing

    Three excellent resources on the use of portfolios for assessment of either programs or individuals are Assessment in Higher Education: Politics, Pedagogy, and Portfolios by Patrick L. Courts and Kathleen H. McInerney, Portfolios: Process and Product, edited by Pat Belanoff and Marcia Dickson, and 1-3 Portfolios in the Writing Classroom, edited ...

  17. Portfolios (Authentic Assessment Toolbox)

    All decisions about a portfolio assignment begin with the type of story or purpose for the portfolio. The particular purpose(s) served, the number and type of items included, the process for selecting the items to be included, how and whether students respond to the items selected, and other decisions vary from portfolio to portfolio and serve ...

  18. Portfolio Assessment: Meaning, Types, Benefits, and Examples

    Examples of elements included in an educational portfolio could be a series of writing assignments that demonstrate the progression of writing skills, ... Identifying the Ideal Portfolio. Deciding the right type of portfolio hinges upon the primary learning goals and the level of understanding needed about a student's educational pursuits and ...

  19. 7.3: Writing Assignment: Poetry Portfolio

    It is listed in the order that the portfolio should be organized. Title Page. Title the portfolio with a creative title representing the entire collection of poems you've written. Example: Poems: Word Pictures. Include your first and last name. Include the name of the class: ENGL 1465-Creative Writing. Include the due date.

  20. 7: Portfolio Assignments

    7: Portfolio Assignments - Humanities LibreTexts. search Search. build_circle Toolbar. fact_check Homework. cancel Exit Reader Mode. school Campus Bookshelves. menu_book Bookshelves. perm_media Learning Objects. login Login.

  21. Create a portfolio assignment

    Create a portfolio assignment. For this type of assignment, a student creates a portfolio based on criteria that you specify. To create a portfolio assignment: Do one of the following to display the Assignment Builder: Click Create Assignment under Manage Assignments on the Home page. Click the Assignments tab. Then click Create Assignment.

  22. PDF Portfolio Assignment 3 Example (95%)

    Portfolio Assignment 3 Example 1 Portfolio Assignment 3 Example (95%) This is an actual portfolio assignment from 2006, submitted by a second year student. First, the assignment is reproduced as it was submitted by the student.

  23. Portfolio example

    assignments belonging t o 2016 fir st year O T students who obt ained a HD for their work. They ha ve given me permission to shar e their ex amples with you. W e will go through the t emplate in mor e deta il in the W eek 13 workshop.