The Pros and Cons of an Assessment Portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of work, accumulated over a period of time. In the classroom, a portfolio provides a student with the chance to show off his best work in one place. It also provides a teacher with the chance to keep track of student work samples and assess students individually based on their strengths. Portfolios have drawbacks as well, and cannot usually stand alone as the sole assessment tool in a course.
Pro: Individual Talents
Every student in a class has individual talents; some students may thrive in the area of composition while others do better with audiovisual presentations. Having a portfolio as an assessment format allows each student to display his strongest work in one place for evaluation. It provides the teacher with a way to differentiate her assessment based on individual student strengths while still assigning one assessment to the whole class. It lets the students choose their very best work to showcase and allows every student a chance to shine.
Pro: Progressive Assessment
Teachers often have to demonstrate student growth in a course. A portfolio provides a way to do this in an easily portable format. A strong portfolio will include work that the student produced early in the course as well as work he produced near the end. By including these two types of work, it can showcase how a student has grown in his knowledge and skills throughout the course. A portfolio provides a cumulative way to show what a student has learned rather than taking a single assignment from one day out of an entire semester or year.
Con: Grading Challenges
Grading a portfolio can be difficult since each one is going to be different. A strong rubric helps a teacher grade a portfolio's content, but even then, there is a lot of room for subjectivity when looking at one portfolio versus another, making it difficult to assign grades fairly. Another grading challenge with a portfolio is that it usually lets a student show off her strengths, but often hides her weaknesses, so it provides an incomplete picture of what a student knows or understands. Portfolios usually do not incorporate a student's ability to recall facts either, so they cannot stand alone without other more traditional forms of assessment to go with them.
Con: Timing Issues
Teachers have so many things to fit into a class schedule that it can be daunting at the best of times. Using portfolios as an assessment is a major time commitment; not only do the students have to have time to work on the individual portfolio assignments, but they also need time to put them together. Teachers need extra time to grade portfolios since each one will include several items as well. The time constraints of fitting these assignments into the class schedule may lead some teachers to assign the portfolio work outside of class for homework, but this opens up several opportunities for academic dishonesty, which can be difficult to identify.
Pro: Individual Talents
Every student in a class has individual talents; some students may thrive in the area of composition while others do better with audiovisual presentations. Having a portfolio as an assessment format allows each student to display his strongest work in one place for evaluation. It provides the teacher with a way to differentiate her assessment based on individual student strengths while still assigning one assessment to the whole class. It lets the students choose their very best work to showcase and allows every student a chance to shine.
Pro: Progressive Assessment
Teachers often have to demonstrate student growth in a course. A portfolio provides a way to do this in an easily portable format. A strong portfolio will include work that the student produced early in the course as well as work he produced near the end. By including these two types of work, it can showcase how a student has grown in his knowledge and skills throughout the course. A portfolio provides a cumulative way to show what a student has learned rather than taking a single assignment from one day out of an entire semester or year.
Con: Grading Challenges
Grading a portfolio can be difficult since each one is going to be different. A strong rubric helps a teacher grade a portfolio's content, but even then, there is a lot of room for subjectivity when looking at one portfolio versus another, making it difficult to assign grades fairly. Another grading challenge with a portfolio is that it usually lets a student show off her strengths, but often hides her weaknesses, so it provides an incomplete picture of what a student knows or understands. Portfolios usually do not incorporate a student's ability to recall facts either, so they cannot stand alone without other more traditional forms of assessment to go with them.
Con: Timing Issues
Teachers have so many things to fit into a class schedule that it can be daunting at the best of times. Using portfolios as an assessment is a major time commitment; not only do the students have to have time to work on the individual portfolio assignments, but they also need time to put them together. Teachers need extra time to grade portfolios since each one will include several items as well. The time constraints of fitting these assignments into the class schedule may lead some teachers to assign the portfolio work outside of class for homework, but this opens up several opportunities for academic dishonesty, which can be difficult to identify.
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