Home About LEARN Services and publications Contact us Help Site map Français
Learn Logo

Portfolio definitions

"A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of a student's personal self and a student's achievement or growth characterized by strong vision of content, skills and processes addressed, built on student selection of work going in and referenced to criteria.

Comprehensive portfolios, maintained over a period of time, can exhibit comparisons of student work and illustrations of growth. Portfolios can grow and carry into the learners work life beyond the school environment. An increasingly self-reliant work force is evolving at an ever-increasing pace. Modern technology allows electronic portfolios to be a career tool for life long learners in today's workplace. "

Todd Bergman
Global Networking for the Self-Directed Learner in the Digital Age

 

"Portfolios help redress the imbalance of current assessment procedures by placing more emphasis on student's work samples from the regular curriculum."

Lambert N.,M.& McCombs B.(1998).
  How Students Learn.
  Reforming Schools Through Learner-Centered Education.

 

"The portfolio is a record of the child's process of learning: what the child has learned and how he has gone about learning; how he thinks, questions, analyzes, synthesizes, produces, creates; and how he interacts - intellectually, emotionally and socially - with others. "

Cathy Grace (1992).
  The portfolio and Its Use: Developmentally Appropriate Assessment of Young Children

 

"Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits to the student, or others, his / her efforts or achievements in one or more areas."

Arter, J., & Spandel, V. (1991).
  Using Portfolios of Student Work in Instruction and Assessment.
  Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

The philosophy / values behind portfolio usage:

  
  • a constructivist approach to understanding learning
  •  
  • an approach that respects individuality and diversity
  •  
  • authentic assessment & emphasis on naturalistic process
  •  
  • incorporates approach to learning that is 'socially mediated'
  •  
  • a formative process of assessment
  •  
  • avoidance of labeling and negative self-fulfilling prophecies
  •  
  • observational / interview / data analysis based system involving qualitative methodologies
  •  
  • consistent with setting that integrate children with special needs
  •  
  • concepts of validity / reliability viewed individuality, not collectively
  •  
  • the valuing of reflective processes / critical thinking
  •  
  • emphasis on the process as well as the products of learning
  •  
  • sensitivity to the need to contextualize learning and appreciate it as a culturally shaped
  •  
  • a view of the child as 'competent': recognition of the need to for open-ended assessment that focuses on what children can do rather than where they fail
  •  
  • encourages accountability in schools that employ active learning techniques, projects approaches and individuality developed curriculum
  •  
 

Sue Martin, (2000).
  Portfolios: Philosophy, Problems and Practice

 

 

Different kinds of portfolios  

  • individual developmental portfolios
  •  
  • subject' group / class portfolios
  •  
  • individual learning portfolios
  •  
  • learning log portfolios
  •  
  • home-school communication system
  •  
  • portfolio record-keeping systems
  •  
  • professional / career portfolio
  •  
 

Sue Martin, (2000).
  Portfolios: Philosophy, Problems and Practice