Discussion
Portfolio assessment ranges from portfolios that demonstrates the student’s best work to an “expanded student record” that holds a full representation of the student’s work, from math equations to essays on literature. There has been some confusion in the field as to who the portfolio is being kept for. For example, in some cases, student portfolios serve as a replacement for the high school diploma or transcript.

The disadvantage of portfolios is that they’re not as quick and easy to evaluate, plus they’re hard to rank, as with a grade or score. Because portfolios are qualitative, many employers find them difficult to use as a determinant of a candidate’s skills. Often, employers would rather see a quantitative demonstration of a student’s best skills and work.

Some schools create portfolios that serve as a representative sample of a student’s work, showing the range of performance and experience. Such records usually hold far more information than employers need. Other schools want to use portfolios as an assessment tool to provide an alternative to standardized or teacher testing.

In some schools there has been much discussion on who “owns” the portfolio, the student or the school? Ownership implies who gets to decide what goes into the portfolio, where the portfolio is stored, and what happens to the portfolio after graduation.

Let’s look at the implications portfolios have on the following elements of education:

• Curriculum–Some people believe that using portfolios will enable teachers to broaden their curriculum to include areas they traditionally could not assess with standardized testing. How well this works depends on how much a curriculum is developed “to the test,” in other words, how much curriculum is geared towards achieving high test scores rather than learning for learning’s sake.
• Instruction–Portfolio assessment appears to compliment a teacher’s use of instructional strategies centered around teamwork, projects, and applied learning. Portfolios are also compatible with more individualized instruction, as well as strategies focused on different learning styles.
• Assessment–A portfolio can be used as an assessment tool. External assessors–employers, evaluation panels, and so on–can benefit from them. Teachers can also utilize them to judge student performance. Plus, students can use their own portfolios for self-assessment and reflection.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

Basic Elements
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), also known as Classroom Research or Action Research, are a series of tools and practices designed to give teachers accurate information about the quality of student learning. Information gathered isn’t used for grading or teacher evaluation. Instead, it’s used to facilitate dialogue between students and teacher on the quality of the learning process, and how to improve it. As authors Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo state in their book Classroom Assessment Techniques, “Teaching without learning is just talking.” CATs provide both teachers and students with “in process” information on how well students are learning what the curriculum intends.

The three basic questions CATs ask are:

1. What are the essential skills and knowledge I am trying to teach?
2. How can I find out whether students are learning them?
3. How can I help students learn better?

The classroom assessment process assumes that students need to receive feedback early and often, that they need to evaluate the quality of their own learning, and that they can help the teacher improve the strength of instruction.

The basic steps in the classroom assessment process are:

1. Choose a learning goal to assess
2. Choose an assessment technique
3. Apply the technique
4. Analyze the data and share the results with students
5. Respond to the data

CATs provide teachers with a “menu” of evaluation tools that:

1. Check for student background knowledge
2. Identify areas of confusion
3. Enable students to self-assess their learning level
4. Determine students’ learning styles
5. Target and build specific skills

Reading
Classroom Assessment Techniques, by K. Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

Simply testing an isolated skill or a retained fact does not effectively measure a student’s capabilities. To accurately evaluate what a person has learned, an assessment method must examine his or her collective abilities.This is what is meant by authentic assessment. Authentic assessment presents students with real-world challenges that require them to apply their relevant skills and knowledge.

Basic Elements

Authentic assessment accomplishes each of the following goals:

Requires students to develop responses rather than select from predetermined options

Elicits higher order thinking in addition to basic skills

Directly evaluates holistic projects

Synthesizes with classroom instruction

Uses samples of student work (portfolios) collected over an extended time period

Stems from clear criteria made known to students

Allows for the possibility of multiple human judgments

Relates more closely to classroom learning

Teaches students to evaluate their own work

“Fairness” does not exist when assessment is uniform, standardized, impersonal, and absolute. Rather, it exists when assessment is appropriate–in other words, when it’s personalized, natural, and flexible; when it can be modified to pinpoint specific abilities and function at the relevant level of difficulty; and when it promotes a rapport between examiner and student.

Authentic assessment is designed to be criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced. Such evaluation identifies strengths and weaknesses, but does not compare or rank students.

Authentic assessment is often based on performance: Students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, or competencies in whatever way they find appropriate.

There are several challenges to using authentic assessment methods. They include managing its time-intensive nature, ensuring curricular validity, and minimizing evaluator bias.

Recommended Reading

Fourth Generation Evaluation, by Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

• Authentic Assessment
• Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Portfolio Assessment