A stand on the adoption of portfolio assessment in classes.

1. Gervy James N. Gumarit BSEd III-C 11 April 2017
PORTFOLIO: Not Just About the Collection
As an excerpt from the NSW Department of Education and Training implies and which states that,
“Assessment is the process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about students’ learning.
The central purpose of assessment is to provide information on student achievement and progress and to
set the direction for on-going teaching and learning”, that portfolio will always continue to prove its worth
to both teaching and learning and will become an integral part of the process.
I believe an assessment strategy which best encapsulates this understanding of assessment is
the portfolio. Specifically, a process portfolio provides a wealth of information about a student’s progress
in literacy and not only allows a teacher to assess the learning that has taken place but also helps them to
identify the areas in need of improvement. Additionally, the crucial element of the student’s self-
assessment and self-reflection in the process of creating the portfolio also allows both the teacher and the
student to understand the progress, strengths and weaknesses of their writing.
There are some advantages of portfolio assessment. Firstly, portfolios, when compared to written
testing, provide teachers with a more complete picture of a student’s progress. Portfolios exhibit a
student’s ability to solve problems and to reflect on the work that he/she has done. They also give
students the opportunity to tangibly track their progress in a class. When implemented, portfolios can also
encourage a school system to work towards a more “collaborative evaluation environment”. This indicates
that the portfolios are not only tools for teachers to assess a student’s progress, but also for
administrators to monitor a teacher’s classroom management.
So, in using portfolios with your future students it may change the way you teach. You will learn to
become an observer, to take notes and reflect, to view teaching as your own personal portfolio to revise
and refine. You will also have the opportunity to discover that, although reflection and the selection of the
contents of the portfolio certainly belong to the students, reflection can be taught. It works proportionally:
the more ownership the teacher will give the student in self-assessment, the more critical the teacher role
becomes. It is the teacher who sets in place the conditions and the structures for what will eventually
become a portfolio culture.
Moreover, Portfolios represent a more ‘qualitative’ form of assessment, as against the more
‘quantitative’ forms of assessment that other methods such as essays, structured essays, multiple choice
questions, long cases and short cases represent. The dichotomy is perhaps analogous to quantitative
and qualitative research. Hence, portfolios offer more formative information (for example information that
can be used as feedback to improve the ability of the candidate) as opposed to more summative
information (for example information used to pass or fail a candidate). It is noteworthy, however, that
portfolios can be used for both formative and summative purposes.
Portfolios are not just about checklists, record sheets, and file folders. The preparation for
portfolio assessment is much more than a two- or three-day process of review and selection. Preparation
begins the first moment of teaching. This type of assessment belongs to the student, yet the teacher has
never had a more important, active role in setting in motion the structures that support a portfolio
classroom. Therefore it is time to fulfil that important and active role in moulding a great and inflictive
portfolio assessment.