Assessment By Portfolio

What are Portfolios?

Portfolios are personalized long-term documentation of student mastery of course material. One essential element of portfolios is student reflection on their own learning and progression towards the mastery of the material documented in the portfolio. As such, portfolios are windows on the metacognitive process of students. (from William Slattery's Assessment site)

• For more information, step-by-step instructions, and examples, see Starting Point: Using Portfolios to Assess Student Learning
• For additional information and instruction, see Classroom Assessment Techniques: Portfolios (more info)

Geoscience Examples

• The Carleton Student Writing Portfolio - Carleton College requires all sophomores to submit a portfolio of writing by their 6th academic quarter. This web page offers a description of the portfolio and how it is implemented and used to assess student and departmental performance.
• The Online Assessment example uses portfolios as an assessment technique in an online course for Earth Systems science courses for K-4 teachers, Middle school teachers and High school teachers.
• The Role of E-Portfolios and Academic Roadmaps (i.e., Concept Maps) in an Outcome- and Assessment-Based Geoscience Curriculum (Acrobat (PDF) 79kB May10 05) - Daniel Murray, University of Rhode Island
  The University of Rhode Island began an electronic portfolio system, as a means to efficiently track the assessment component of the new outcomes-based curricula that was emerging within the college. The school joined a group of schools using TRUE-OUTCOMES, an electronic portfolio program that manages assessment-based science and engineering curricula. This essay refers to several additional files: CE-DPM-COURSE.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 86kB May10 05), CE-DPM-OUTCOMES.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 116kB May10 05), GEO_OUTCOMES_MATRIX.xls (Excel 25kB May10 05), CE-DPM-ROADMAP.xls (Excel 117kB May10 05). Additional information is also on the author's Workshop Poster (Acrobat (PDF) 791kB May11 05).

Additional Resources

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