Portfolios

My first encounter with portfolios happened in my sixth grade Language Arts class. Mrs. Marsh was my teacher. What I remember about our portfolios then was that we did not have access to them. Mrs. Marsh was afraid we would lose the pieces. Portfolios were these coveted manila folders that each of our Language Arts teachers seemed to get year after year. I hated writing with a passion in middle school. I never felt like I was a good writer and I was that student in the class doodling or staring at the paper not knowing what to write. Mrs. Marsh would come over at the end of the hour and would look at my blank paper and me and just sigh. Sometimes I think back to myself in Mrs. Marsh’s class when I have a bad day with students and I hear the old adage “what goes around come around”. Sometimes I think God has pointed me on the teacher path just because He knew it was the only way to get back at me and make me pay.

Back to portfolios. So, we would write in Mrs. Marsh’s class and then every once in a while she would hand out “reflection” sheets. She would then pass out the manila folders with our work for that quarter or grading period and our job was to reflect on which one we liked the best and why and which one we liked the least and why. I remember hating these activities. I knew I had to pick one to be the “best” and another to be the “worst” when I knew that all of them were fairly atrocious. I knew the quality of my work was poor and yet I felt like I was phoning it in just to be done with the activity.

My next big encounter with portfolios was in college. We had to create a portfolio that would be reviewed by the School of Ed people. If they deemed it quality enough they would admit us to the School of Ed. If it wasn’t good enough they would ask you to revise it and set up another interview. For weeks before the interviews and the portfolio presentations every student hoping to get in the School of Ed. was in a flurry. People were printing, cutting, pasting, drawing and printing. Advisors were booked solid and the library was in tatters as the students hoping to get into the School of Ed. prepared their portfolios. The day of the interviews came. We all dressed up. I probably even wore a skirt. We were armed with the portfolios that would show the evaluators that were READY to be teachers. One by one people were called in and a few minutes later they would come back out. Those of us standing in line were starting to feel a bit nervous. Why was the line moving so fast? Soon it was my turn and I walked into the room and sat down. I then noticed something strange about my evaluators. They were all professors, but only one was a professor from the School of Ed. They took my portfolio that I had so laboriously prepared, flipped through it quickly to make sure it had all the required items. Asked me a few questions about why I should be admitted to the School of Ed. and then said “congratulations”. I felt cheated. I was angry. I walked out of there with this huge portfolio that I had really worked to showcase my worth as a future teacher and all I got was a 5 minute audience with the basketball coach. I didn’t have the heart to throw my portfolio away. I still have it in the back of a closet at my mom’s house.

The point I’m trying to make is that just because we use portfolios doesn’t mean that they are effective. In the first instance, I was unmotivated to write and the reflection aspect of the portfolio felt forced and fake. I did not see an improvement in my writing. It had all seemed the same to me. I did the reflection activity, the “biggest” activity associated with the portfolio not because I really wanted to explore the areas I had improved on but because Mrs. Marsh was requiring it for the class and if I came home with any more bad grades my dad would be M-A-D! In the second instance I had put a lot of time and effort into creating the portfolio only to find that the evaluators weren’t even interested in examining the portfolio or asking me any questions related to the portfolio. I felt I had invested a lot of time and the final evaluation was a let down.

As I was reading this chapter I kept envisioning myself implementing portfolios in my classroom. They are a great idea but in all honesty, seems like it will take a lot of work and dedication to put into effect into my classroom. The benefits of portfolios greatly outweigh the work and I am convinced that I need to focus more effort on developing portfolios in my classroom.

I currently use a writing workshop that I found randomly online. I chose that particular format because it was designed to be a 10 day workshop. I know, I know, I know. I should have researched more formats and given more time to choosing the one that I thought would work the best with my learners. The “10-day” portion of the title flashed before me like a neon sign and since the greatest need at that time was to get students through writing pieces as quickly as possible. After using the writing workshop though I really, really found out how much I had lucked out.

This particular writing workshop sets up guidelines and criteria for each piece the student writes, has students set goals, asks students to respond to each other in a peer group and uses mini-lessons to help students achieve the goals that they have set for themselves. The whole purpose of the writing workshop is that students were taking ownership for their writing and moving themselves through the writing process.

As I continued to read this chapter it became evident to me that I already have the structure for using portfolios in place in my classroom. The students have already become accustomed to the format of the writing workshop and at this point I could introduce portfolios into the mix without it being too much.

There are so many different ways that teachers can implement portfolios in their class. I love that this chapter highlighted ways to use the portfolios in math and science classes as well. As a math teacher I often struggle to show my students of the progress they have made. A portfolio would be a perfect way to do this.

I am particularly interested in creating ePortfolios. I have done some research on this subject and would like to begin using them. Since most of my students’ parents have internet access I think this would be a perfect way to showcase what we are doing in school and get parents involved more. It would also allow students an opportunity to readily go back through their pieces and reflect on their writing. If anyone has any ideas or websites they would like to share for ePortfolios I would be happy to have them!