Purposes of Portfolio Assessment
As an alternate assessment strategy, the portfolio provides students with the opportunity to select a progression of work to demonstrate knowledge of a topic. For example, in an English course, a student may collect essays over the series of a semester to demonstrate increased writing capability and to showcase favorite pieces of writing. In a science course, a student may keep a portfolio for the duration of an experiment, demonstrating results and tracking hypotheses. Types of Portfolios Although the purpose of the portfolio is to provide a means of assessing student learning and understanding, a portfolio can take on a variety of forms. The growth portfolio is used over an extended period of time as students collect samples of their work to demonstrate their understanding of concept. Additionally, focusing on end products or a demonstration of a student's best work takes place in a presentation portfolio. In this second format, the student tries to select work that best show