A portfolio assessment is a collection of student works that are associated with standards you are required to learn. This collection of work is often gathered over a long period of time to reflect what you have been taught as well as what you have learned.
Each piece in the portfolio is selected because it is an authentic representation of what you have learned and is meant to demonstrate your current knowledge and skills. A portfolio by nature is a storybook capturing a student's progression of learning as they move through the year.
What Goes Into a Portfolio
A portfolio can include classwork, artistic pieces, photographs, and a variety of other media all demonstrating the concepts that you have mastered. Each item that is selected to go in the portfolio is chosen within the parameters of the purpose of the portfolio itself.
Many teachers require their students to write a reflection that correlates with each piece in the portfolio. This practice is advantageous for the student as they self-assess their work and may set goals to improve.
Finally, the reflection helps reinforce the concept for the student and it provides some clarity for anyone reviewing the portfolio. Ultimately, the most authentic portfolios are built when the teacher and student work collaboratively to decide which pieces should be included to demonstrate mastery of a specific learning objective.
The Purpose of Developing a Portfolio
A portfolio assessment is often deemed an authentic form of assessment because it includes authentic samples of a student's work.Many advocates of the portfolio assessment argue that this makes it a superior assessment tool because it is demonstrates learning and growth over an extended period of time.
They believe it is more indicative of what a student's true abilities especially when you compare it to a standardized test that provides a snapshot of what a student can do on a particular day. Ultimately, the teacher guiding the portfolio process helps determine the purpose of the final portfolio.
The portfolio may be used to show growth over time, it may be used to promote a student's abilities, or it may be used to evaluate a student's learning within a specific course. Its purpose may also be a combination of all three areas.
The Pros of Using a Portfolio Assessment
- A portfolio assessment demonstrates learning over the course of time rather than what a student knows a particular day.
- A portfolio assessment provides an opportunity for a student to reflect on their learning, to self assess, and to formulate a deeper understanding of the concepts they are learning beyond a simple surface explanation.
- A portfolio assessment requires a great level of individual interaction between the student and teacher wherein they are always collaborating about the requirements and components going into the portfolio.
The Cons of Using a Portfolio Assessment
- Developing and assessing a portfolio is time-consuming. It takes a lot of effort from both the teacher and the student and is a demanding endeavor in which you can quickly fall behind.
- Portfolio assessments are very subjective in nature. Even if the teacher utilizes a rubric, the individualized nature of a portfolio makes it difficult to remain objective and stick to the rubric. Two students working on the same learning standard may have two totally different approaches thus learning may not be the same.
FAQs
In portfolio assessment, students' skills are much better represented, beyond just memorization skills. Skills like creativity and innovation, which are just as important, can be effectively demonstrated by students in the assignments or projects that they complete (Cunningham et al., 2016; Rodriguez et al., 2022).
Why is portfolio assessment important in assessing students' learning? ›
The most important advantage of portfolio assessment is that it allows learners to participate actively with their teachers in the evaluation process. This gives them the opportunity to reflect on their progress and growth in order to accept co-responsibility for their learning.
What are the 5 advantages of portfolio assessment? ›
Advantages of Portfolio Assessment
Assesses what students can do and not just what they know. Engages students actively. Fosters student-teacher communication and depth of exploration. Enhances understanding of the educational process among parents and in the community.
What is the portfolio a tool for? ›
Portfolios are often used as a formative assessment tool to track student development, promote self-reflection, and demonstrate learning outcomes.
Why is it important to build a portfolio? ›
Portfolios are a great way to demonstrate the competencies and accomplishments you would list on a resume or talk about in an interview – they allow you to show, not just tell. Your portfolio helps you showcase your proven work to potential employers. It presents evidence of your relevant skills and abilities.
How does portfolio help students? ›
Student portfolios can help students develop adaptable skills that are essential for success in the future. By curating their work and reflecting on their experiences, students can identify their strengths and areas for improvement. They can learn from their past projects and apply those lessons to future endeavors.
What is the role of portfolio in assessment? ›
A portfolio is a collection of projects and/or programmes used to structure and manage investments at an organisational or functional level to optimise strategic benefits or operational efficiency. They can be managed at an organisational or functional level.
What are three purposes of a portfolio? ›
Additional purposes of portfolios include: Demonstration of student growth over time. Identify specific skills to show improvement. Creation of a tangible body of evidence to show to parents.
Why portfolio assessment is better than traditional assessment? ›
Portfolio gives an insight into the progress the child is making and reveals the strength and weaknesses of the child unlike traditional assessment. It is clear that both performance and portfolio assessment provide feedback to students whereas traditional assessment do not.
Which is a strength of portfolio assessment? ›
A key strength of utilizing a portfolio assessment is that the portfolio provides insight into student learning over time. Portfolio assessments gather artifacts throughout the course of a school year or multiple school years, so each artifact captures a student's performance at a particular point in time.
Advantage of the portfolio analysis:
1) It defines the financial stability of the organization, along with the performance of the products. 2) It acts as an analysis of the trends for the various products and aids in forecasting.
What is portfolio assessment for students? ›
Portfolio assessments ask students or teachers to collect work products that show growth over a specific period of time. Examples of work products include collections of student essays, artwork, lab reports or reading logs. We use scoring guides and rubrics to score portfolios.
Is portfolio a self assessment tool? ›
A more important use than storage is the portfolio's function as a self-evaluation tool. Portfolios allow students to reflect on their own work, and, if carefully assembled, portfolios can emerge into a showcase of instruction, learning, and assessment working together.
Which tool is better for portfolio analysis? ›
Sharesight. Sharesight is considered to be the best of the portfolio analyzer tools for dividend-weighted securities. The service has been operating since 2008 and combines data on trades taking place on 40 stock exchanges.
Why is a portfolio evaluation important? ›
Some of the benefits for evaluating the portfolio performance include the following: The return performance of the investment over time (performance measurement) How the observed performance is attained (performance attribution) If the performance is due to investment decisions (performance appraisal)
Why are portfolios better than standardized tests? ›
Pros of Portfolio Reviews
One of the benefits of a portfolio review is that it gives a broader and more natural view of what the student has learned throughout the year. The reviewer can see the student's actual work instead of the artificial picture of learning a standardized test shows.
Why are portfolios particularly appropriate for writing assessment? ›
One advantage cited frequently in the portfolio literature is the notion of student authority or ownership enabled by the opportunity students have to review their writing and decide which pieces they will present to the teachers and what they would like teachers to see in that writing.
