Tips for college students to write a portfolio, taking the most of their experiences and building significant knowledge for them.

1. Writing interconnected and
powerful learnings in a
Portfolio
by Jordi Díaz Gibson
@jdiazgibson

2. Ok wait, but what exactly is a portfolio?

3. A PORTFOLIO is an assessment activity that helps each student to
CREATE SENSE between all the work done in a class and beyond,
INTEGRATE KEY IDEAS and develop meaningful and SIGNIFICANT
KNOWLEDGE.
So, every PORTFOLIO is different as we all have different experiences,
interests, ideas, perspectives and perceptions as well. To develop your
own portfolio you need to take a few steps.

4. Steps to develop your portfolio
First gather your work EVIDENCES or what is the same: the whole work done by
you during the semester such as activities, discussions, videos, books, theories
and practice, your own ideas, ideas shared by others, always from a critical
perspective. A PORTFOLIO FOLDER will help you to gather and take into all this
information account.
Then you need to take an all-embracing view of all the evidences, searching for a
comprehensive perspective. Once you have done that, you can start to write
crossing edge ideas as a draft doc. This means GLOBAL IDEAS that are shown
in several evidences and make sense to you. Drawing a MIND MAP is really
helpful.

5. Once you have a map of key ideas and crossed connections, you can ADD
EXTRA evidences that are connected to your thoughts and ideas. This could be
related work done by you in different years, classes or course books, videos,
personal research work, or other extra documents that can enrich and support
your ideas. This may complete your mind map. Explaining this map to someone
can help you to make sense of it.
Finally, with a final version of the mind map you can start to write POWERFUL
AND INTERCONNECTED arguments that explicitly show what is important for
you in your learning process, and how you link contents to create knowledge.
This requires complex writing skills.

6. Sure, but how can I write powerful and
interconnected arguments?

7. How to write powerful and interconnected
argumentsDescribe a crucial and global thought or idea from the whole
class experience
Example 1
‘The most important learning I take with me is: how to prevent bullying, and the
values related to this topic such as inclusion and respect’...
Example 2
‘Schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual,
emotional, social, linguistic or any other conditions’...

8. Show how your idea comes up across several activities from
the course (presentations, reflections, discussions,
videos...). Use hyperlinks that lead us to the connected
document.
Example
‘We talk about this topic in two different classes of the last semester. The first one
was when David showed us a video of two kids singing against bullying. And the
other one was for the project of Education today of Júlia and Tomàs, they
explained us the post of the kid that killed his teacher in his school in Barcelona’...

9. Ground the key idea with the educational theories worked in
class or other university classes/subjects (books, articles,
experts...). Use hyperlinks that lead us to the connected
document
Example
‘I also learnt about the idea of inclusion in the book “The Element” which was
written by Ken Robinson. He is also the author of the Ted Talk: “Do school kills
creativity?”. Here, the author shows the importance of adapting educational
resources to individual needs and interests of each child in the school’...

10. Search for extra information around the idea to complete the
evidences (surf the web, interview an expert, go to the
library…). Use hyperlinks that lead us to the connected
document
Example
‘I wanted to relate this way of working to the idea of Self-Organised Learning
Environment (SOLE) posted on a blog from a teacher. This environment can exist
anywhere if there is a computer, Internet connection and students who are ready
to learn. Within a SOLE students are given the freedom to learn collaboratively
using the internet. An educator poses a Big Question and students form small

11. Relate the argument to your own practice using examples
(educational practices, school visits, you as a student,
professional experience...). Use hyperlinks that lead us to the
connected document
Example
‘My experience in the Institut Guttmann is also an incredible one to learn about
inclusion and acceptance. For this activity we, by groups, had to prepare some
physical education exercises that we could practise with the kids, they told us that
some of the children might be physically disabled so we prepared the activities
according to the limits they told us’...

12. Explain your own perspective around the whole idea taking
into account previous evidences (analyzing, critical thinking)
Example
‘I personally think it was a good activity because we could see that all the other
classmates accepted Mario, and if he had any trouble they would help him. But at
the same time, we also experienced how when we want someone to feel “normal”
and talk in front of the class, we could be doing the contrary and make him feel
even worse. In my opinion we need to be more natural in accepting differences as
a lifestyle’...

13. Jordi Díaz Gibson
@jdiazgibson
jorgedg@blanquerna.url.edu
Ramon Llull University, Blanquerna.
Barcelona