The document discusses guidelines for developing effective student portfolios. It recommends that teachers clearly state objectives, provide guidelines for what to include, and communicate assessment criteria to students. It also stresses the importance of self-assessment and feedback from both teachers and peers. Teachers should designate time for portfolio development, establish review schedules, and provide qualitative evaluations instead of grades. Following these guidelines can help create reliable portfolios while maintaining their authenticity.

1. “portfolio”

2.  At the same time, care must be taken lest
portfolios become a haphazard pile of “junk”
the purpose of which is a mystery to both
teacher and student. Portfolios can fail if
objectives are not clear, if guidelines are not
given to students, if systematic periodic
review and feedback are not present, and so
on. Sometimes the thought of asking
students to develop a portfolio is a daunting
challenge, especially for new teachers for
those who have never created a portfolio on
their own.

3. Successful portfolio development will depend
on following a number of steps and guidelines.
1. State objective clearly.
2. Give guidelines on what materials to
include.

4.  3. Communicate assessment criteria to
student.
 This is both the most important aspect
of portfolio development and the most
complex. Two sources self-assessment
and teacher assessment – must be
incorporated in order for student to
receive the maximum benefit. Selfassessment should be as clear and
simple as possible.

5. Portfolio self-assessment questions
(O’Malley and Valdez Pierce(1996)
1. Look at your writing sample.
- What does the sample show that
you can do?
- Write about what you did well.
2. Think about realistic goals. Write one
thing you need to do better. Be
specific.

6. Genese and Upshur (1996)
recommended using a
questionnaire formal for selfassessment, with questions
like the following for a
project :

7. Portfolio project
self-assessment questionnaire
1. What makes this a good or interesting project?
2. What is the most interesting part of the project?
3. What was the most difficult part of the project?
4. What did you learn from the project?
5. What skill did you practice when doing this
project?
6. What resources did you use to complete this
project?
7. What is the best part of project? Why?
8. How would you make the project better?

8. The teacher’s assessment might
mirror self- assessments, with similar
questions designed to highlight the
formative nature of the assessment.
Conferences are important
checkpoints for both student and
teacher.

9. In the case of requested written
responses from students, help your
students to process your feedback and
show them how to respond to your
responses.
Above all, maintain reliability in
assessing portfolios so that all students
receive equal attention and are assessed
by the same criteria.

10. An option that works for some contexts is to
include peer-assessment or small group
conferences to comment on one another’s
portfolios.
Where the classroom community is relatively
closely knit and supportive and where students
are willing to expose themselves by revealing
their portfolios, valuable feedback can be
achieved from peer reviews.
Such sessions should have clear objectives
lest they erode into aimless chatter. Checklists
and questions may serve to such an eventuality.

11. 4. Designate time within the curriculum
for portfolio development.
5. Establish periodic schedules for review
and conferencing.
6. Designate an accessible place to keep
portfolios.
7. Provide positive washback-giving final
assessments.

12.  One could argue that it is inappropriate to
reduce the personalized and creative
process of compiling a portfolio to a
number or letter grade and that it is more
appropriate to offer a qualitative
evaluation for a work that is so openended. Those final evaluations should
emphasize strengths but also point the
way toward future learning challenges.

13.  It is clear that portfolios get a relatively
low practicality rating because of the
time it takes for teachers to respond and
conference with their students.
 Nevertheless, following the guidelines
suggested above foe specifying the
criteria for evaluating portfolios can raise
the reliability to a respectable level, and
without question the washback effect,
the authenticity, and the face validity of
portfolios remain exceedingly high.

14.  In the above discussion, I have tried to
subject portfolios to the same
specifications that apply to more
formal test: it should be made clear
what the objectives are, what tasks
are expected of the student, and how
the learner’s product will be
evaluated. Strict attention to these
demands is warranted for successful
portfolio development to take place.