Portfolios

After the discussion from Katie's lesson and then reading the section on portfolios in chapter 6, I can see myself using that type of assessment in my classroom. I think the students would benefit A LOT more if they could do an English, Math, etc portfolio (a portfolio for each subject or even just a few subjects) through their entire hs career! It probably would be hard for the entire English department at a school to go for that, but hopefully once I start doing portfolios for my students then other teachers would want to follow along!

When I first heard about the portfolio idea from Rebecca in class I just thought it would be a good idea for students and parents to keep student's hs work-almost like a good memorable token or something. Then, as I read chapter 6 I realized that it could be used as an actual assessment of the students learning AS WELL AS how the teacher is teaching-the effectiveness of their methods. I believe the best way to asses a students learning is by using authentic assessment and a portfolio does that-students have to reflect on their own work (share what they have done, how they have done it, how they think they did on it). Don't get me wrong, some traditional assessment is totally fine, but then again, are you assessing a student's knowledge or did the student just guess the correct multiple choice?!