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A student portfolio is a
purposeful collection of student work that tells the
story of the student's efforts and progress over a
period of time. The portfolio includes the student's
best work, but it also reflects the total learning
process. Creating a portfolio gives a student the
opportunity to set goals and then think about the
ways he or she learns. The contents of a portfolio
focus on a student's achievements rather than on his
deficiencies. Unlike a work folder in which the
teacher files an assortment as the semester
progresses, the students will also collect pictures,
graphics, and audio/video clips to include in their
HTML portfolios. These records will be archived on a
disc as part of the student's permanent record. This
record of work in the course will help provide a
cumulative record of the student's growth over the
years. This record provides other teachers each year
with continuity and valuable knowledge about the
particular student's strengths and needs in a very
portable and space-efficient storage medium. The
student and teacher work together to determine
guidelines for selection of samples and the criteria
for judging merit. The portfolio also features
samples of student self-reflection on their work.
Students will create their portfolios within a
hypertext environment. Keeping an electronic
portfolio will enable the student to organize their
work in a manner that demonstrates their progress
towards the achievement of writing goals for the
semester. On an individual paper the student will
trace the development of a finished piece of writing
by showing the stages their thinking has gone
through in the writing process. In successive papers
students will create similar threads, but they will
also be able to link key moments in the writing
process, charting the "A-Ha!" moment. For instance,
a student might link together portions of rough
drafts from different papers to demonstrate that
moment in the writing process in which their main
ideas come clear. Perhaps in the second paper, the
main idea came clear during a peer revision session;
then the student would link that document in a
series of key moments. By thinking about the way
that they think, students will learn how to improve
the efficiency of their writing process.
Creating web pages will also enable the student
working on research papers to include the full texts
of important sources. Instead of footnoting a
specific source, the student will link their paper
to the relevant section of their source. This
capability will not only teach the students about
academic honesty but will also encourage them to
remember the context of ideas drawn from a writer"s
full argument.
Electronic portfolios will also enable the
student to collect aspects of their educational
development that have been influenced by group
performance projects. These multimedia documents
might include renderings of original visual
projects, recordings of student performances of
speeches, poems or musical compositions, even video
clips of student performances.
Portfolios collected within hypertext
environments will enable the student to publish
their work for the general public on the Internet.
The prospect of sharing their work with others will
inspire students to their best efforts. Their pages
might inspire feedback from visitors such as
parents, teachers, other students or members of the
Gilman community at large. These responses could be
included on the pages themselves.
Finally, the electronic portfolio can be saved to
a disc upon which portfolios from other courses
could be inscribed. This disc could provide an
ongoing collection of the student's progress through
several years of development. Not only could
portions of it be used as an aid in the application
process, but the disc will become a priceless record
of the student's development in a particular time of
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