PORTFOLIOS ASSESSMENT

Portfolio Assessment is a term used to describe a collection (or portfolio) of a student's work collected over time, so that teachers, school administrators, and parents can view a student's progression in a given content area (such as math or reading). Students usually have some hand in choosing the work that goes into their portfolio, often choosing work that is most representative of their abilities. Significance Portfolio Assessment grew out of the desire to find another way to measure academic success other than standardized, norm-referenced, multiple-choice style tests. While a standardized test can measure what a given student knows "at the moment", portfolio assessment can measure a student's cognitive process. Advocates of portfolio assessment often point to the disconcerting trend that, given the high stakes of standardized, and more recently, state testing, curriculum is often more geared to the test rather than providing opportunities for broad edu