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. P