What is a Portfolio Assessment?

Portfolio Assessment

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What is a Portfolio Assessment?

Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress and achievements in one or more areas. It is a form of assessment that students do together with their teacher.

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10 Purposes of Portfolio Assessment

These are some of the reasons why it is good to use portfolio assessment in your class. Doing portfolio assessment may benefit both the student and the teacher to achieve the learning objectives.

1. It matches assessment to teaching.
2. It has clear goals.
3. It gives profile of learner's abilities in terms of depth, breadth, and growth.
4. It is a tool for assessing a variety of skills not normally testable in traditional testing.
5. It develops awareness of student's own learning.
6. It caters to individuals in a heterogenous class.
7. It develops social skills.
8. It develops independent and active learners.
9. It can improve motivation for learning and thus acheivement.
10. It provides opportunity for student-teacher dialogue.

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6 Essential Elements of Portfolio

When making portfolio, there are specific elements that must always be present. It is important not to miss these essential elements of portfolio.

1. Cover letter, About the Author, and Preface
2. Table of Contents
3. Entries (Core and Optional)
4. Dates of all Entries
5. Drafts and Revised Versions
6. Reflections

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6 Stages in Implementing Portfolio Assessment

When employing a portfolio assessment, it is good to follow the stages. These will help the students have a systematic procedure and an organized working process. It will help them in making their portfolio easier and faster.

1. Identifying goals to assess through portfolio.
2. Introducing the portfolio assessment to the class.
3. Specifications of portfolio content.
4. Giving clear and detailed guidelines for the portfolio.
5. Informing key officials, parents, and stakeholders about the portfolio requirement of the students.
6. Development of the portfolio.

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3 Types of Portfolio

Documentation Portfolio

This approach involves collection of work over time showing growth and improvement in learning of identified outcomes. This portfolio is also called "growth portfolio" in the literature.

Process Portfolio

This demonstrates all facets of phases of the learning process. It contains extensive number of reflective journals, think logs and other related forms of metacognitive processing.

Showcase Portfolio

This only shows the best of the student's outputs and products. It is best used for summative evaluation of student's master key curriculum outcomes. In this, only completed works are included.

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How to Assess and Evaluate a Portfolio

When assessing a portfolio, the teacher usually looks for these 5 qualities of an excellent portfolio:

1. Thoughtfulness
2. Growth and Development
3. Understanding and application of key processes
4. Completeness, correctness, and appropriateness
5. Diversity of Entries

Read more about portfolio assessment.