Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

Questions to Consider:

Select and evaluate a national, state, or district standardized test in your content area.

1. What types of questions are being asked?


2. In your opinion, are the content and level of difficulty appropriate to the grade level of
   students being assessed?
   3.If you were on a committee of teachers invited to submit questions for the test, what
   kind of questions would you add? Why?

SECTION E: WHAT DOES A STUDENT PORTFOLIO LOOK LIKE?

Student portfolios have been offered as a way to more effectively evaluate the full range of a
student’s mastery of a subject or a skill. A portfolio can include different types of writing,
projects, reports, presentations, and even tests, but it is not simply a collection of student
work. For it to be a useful document, it should be integrated into the instructional and as-
sessment fabric of a school’s program and provide students with opportunities to reflect on
their growth and learning and explain why they selected a particular piece for inclusion in
their portfolio. Effective portfolio programs also need to provide students and teachers with
specific guidelines for creating, assembling, and evaluating student work.
A multitude of questions have to be addressed when a teacher or school establishes a
portfolio program:

·Who defines what goes into a portfolio—individual students and teachers, the academic

department, school or district administrators, or a state’s regulatory body?

·Can portfolios accurately measure the full range of skills, attitudes, content knowledge,

and conceptual understanding developed during a course or multiyear program?

·Will students be involved in defining portfolio topics and projects, deciding on the prod-

ucts that will be evaluated, and the evaluation process itself?

·Are portfolios comprehensive documents showing the full span of a student’s work, or do

they contain a selection of typical, or perhaps exemplary, efforts?

·How much weight will be given to effort, the process of creation, and the final product in

assessing student work?

·Does individual growth count or only a student’s final achievement?

·How will growth, the process of creation, and effort be measured?

·Can portfolios include group as well as individual work? If they can, how will a student’s

participation in a group project be evaluated?

·What standards should be used to evaluate the quality of work at different points in a stu-

dent’s secondary school career?

·Can evaluation be objective or even systematic?

·How do programs avoid the mechanical application of portfolio design and assessment?

·Will schools and districts sacrifice student experimentation and creativity as they try to

ensure that minimum guidelines are met?

·Can portfolio assignments and even entire portfolios receive meaningful number or let-

ter grades?

The Center on Learning, Assessment, and School Structure (Wiggins, 1996–1997; Wiggins
& McTighe, 1998) addresses some of these questions in proposals for integrating portfolio

ASSESSMENT 217