REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Portfolio Assessment Criteria:
Goals for education have substantially changed during the last decade, altering assessment practices, curriculum, teaching methods, and students' understanding of the meaning of their work. Performance-based assessment using the portfolio approach judges student achievement based on performance of complex tasks and the selection of work over time. The view of assessment carried over from the last century is that each student possesses basic underlying mental traits, and that a test is simply a sample of behavior which provides an imperfect measure of the mental characteristics the test was meant to assess. Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks; conducting research, writing, revising and discussing papers, oral analysis of a recent political event, collaborating with others on a debate, etc. Authentic assessment establishes whether the student can craft polished, thorough, and justifiable answers, performances, or products. Conventional assessments typically only ask students to select or write correct responses. Authentic assessment achieves validity and reliability by emphasizing and standardizing the appropriate criteria for scoring (Rubrics). Test validity should depend upon whether the test simulates real-world ability of adult and professional life where essential challenges are known in advance; the upcoming report, recital, board presentation, legal case, book to write, etc. A known challenge also makes it possible to hold all students to high standards. Multiple-choice type tests mislead students to believe that right answers matter more than habits of mind and justification of one's approach and results.
How does technology figure in to this process of reconfiguring the way students are assessed? Much of current instruction in America is focused on transferring information, facts, and procedures into stored knowledge which can be recognized and used to solve problems. Research indicates that American students have significant difficulties in reasoning and putting what they have learned in school to use in problem solving. It appears children often learn to more effectively apply knowledge to problem solving when they experience the information, facts, and procedures in videotape movies, interactive videodiscs, and video arcade games which simulate real-life adventure and exploration situations.
Video aided instruction may be more effective than traditional school instruction because the video media can be replayed and reviewed as often as necessary to achieve the desired outcome or goal. Video technology provides rich sources of information with opportunities to notice sensory images, dynamic features, relevant issues, and inherent problems.
Video technology allows students to develop skills of pattern recognition which are related to visual and auditory cues rather than events labeled by a teacher. Take for example a teacher reading the story Swiss Family Robinson to one group of preschool students and another group viewing the story on videodisc. Both groups learned from the story. However, the students who had the story read to them had no experience with storms on the ocean, huge waves, or large sailing ships. The teacher could only describe what it must have been like for the Robinson family. The video group, by contrast, could experience the storm vicariously through the video. Similar studies have shown that older student groups, instructed by video, tend to use targeted vocabulary spontaneously and their writing shows better recall of story elements and character motives. Merging this recent knowledge about student cognition and instruction with American cultures' love of video technology can significantly change the teaching and learning process in American schools.
Using paper and pencil tests, multimedia computer presentations, and video observations can give three very different views of what students can do. It's as if there are three different camera angles focused on a student to create one complete picture. You can't reconstruct the total person from just one angle, but with three different views you can triangulate, and discover a much richer portrait of the student's abilities.
A key part of portfolio assessment is developing tasks that will enable students to use and demonstrate a broad range of abilities. Essential to authentic assessment is discovering what kind of records most efficiently represent target abilities. Successful tasks will be complex enough to engage students in real thinking and performances, open-ended enough to encourage different approaches yet sufficiently constrained to permit reliable scoring, allow for easy collection of records, and exemplify "authentic" work in the disciplines.
Student performances that require targeted skills might include: design a device that performs a particular function, mount an argument supported by evidence, explain ideas and procedures, formulate and test a hypotheses, work with other students in a productive manner, ask penetrating questions, make helpful comments when you listen, choose interesting problems to work on, design good experiments, or demonstrate understanding of theories and questions in a particular field.
Students' final products, which may include oral presentations or explanations, teacher-student interviews, and in-progress problem solving projects, are collectible using video technology. Paper and pencil testing emphasizes two abilities; recall of facts and concepts and ability to solve short, well-defined problems. Oral presentations should include the presentation period and an answering questions period. Student's oral presentations can be judged in terms of:
¥ Depth of understanding
¥ Clarity
¥ Coherence
¥ Responsiveness to questions
¥ Monitoring of their listeners' understanding
Paired explanations involve one student presenting to another student a project or a concept. The explainer is evaluated with the oral presentation "attributes" or guidelines. The listener can be evaluated in terms of:
¥ The quality of their questions
¥ Their ability to summarize what the explainer has said
¥ Their helpfulness in making the ideas clear
¥ The appropriateness of their interruptions
Student-Teacher Progress Interviews are videotaped during the stages of development of a project. Assessment attributes would include:
¥ Depth of understanding
¥ Clarity of explanations
¥ Justification of decisions or degree of reflectiveness
¥ Use of good examples and explanations
¥ Degree of progress made relative to where student started
¥ Understanding of the bigger picture of the project
In videotaped demonstrations, students present their work or end product and explain how and why they made their decisions. Assessment attributes include:
¥ Degree to which there was an economical use of materials
¥ Over-all craftsmanship
¥ Aesthetics
¥ Creativity or novel accomplishment
¥ Written descriptions, analyses, and progress journals
Multiple intelligences portfolios based on the seven intelligences outlined in Howard Gardner's books Frames of Mind (1983) and Multiple Intelligences- The Theory in Practice (1993) could include the following types of assessment attributes:
¥ Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence: samples of students reading what they have written.
¥ Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: dance steps based on mathematical principals, organization of a cooperative classroom business or bank.
¥ Visual-Spatial Intelligence: art works, projects, constructions.
¥ Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: videotape of dancing, dramatic performances, athletic events (with time and date noted).
¥ Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence: musical performances.
¥ Interpersonal Intelligence: team work; group projects; social work; club activities.
¥ Intrapersonal Intelligence: journal writing, personal artwork, sketchbooks, song-writing.
According to "6 Modes of Visual Learning, Expressing, Communicating, Exploring, Recording, Motivating, and Imagining" by Tom Crocket of the Polaroid Education Program, information comes to us and passes from us through three main channels: the written word, the spoken word, and the realized image. On the successful evaluation of visual information, there are six critical skills:
1. The ability to organize images for effective display; i. e. posters or bulletin boards.
2. The ability to establish visual criteria and arrange images in a visual database; i.e. distance, background, basic elements, colors, etc.
3. The ability to substitute images for words and establish a visual language; i.e. images that function as visual metaphors for abstract ideas, feelings, and emotions.
4. The ability to combine images with text to share ideas more effectively; i.e publications, newspapers, newsletters, year books, reports, etc.
5. The ability to integrate images with live presentations to communicate more powerfully; i.e. student presentation in the form of tri-fold displays, slides, photographs, videotape, overhead transparencies, or on computer HyperCard stacks and other presentation software programs.
6. The ability to alter, manipulate, or transform existing images to envision something new; i.e. collaging, overdrawing, computer manipulation, constructivist techniques- the learner, rather than the teacher, develops or "constructs" knowledge.
Marge Banks (1995) states the first requirement in selecting portfolio assessment strategies for a lesson is that it contain these critical attributes.
The Assessment will:
¥ reflect the objective(s) of the lesson
¥ reflect what has been taught
¥ be of manageable quantity
¥ be developmentally appropriate
It is important students know what is expected when they participate in the assessment strategy. Oral reflection is a strategy where students share their accomplishments and discoveries through conversation with other students, their teacher or their parents. Conversation "triggers" might include:
¥ "Tell your partner how you made..."
¥ "In your group, discuss the different ways you show..."
¥ "Tell me why this is a good..."
¥ "Show your neighbor how you followed the directions on..."
Keeping a group or individual journal during project research and presentation development is also an excellent form of reflection assessment. Written journal entry "triggers" could include:
¥ What do you like most about this...
¥ Describe the process you used to...
¥ Discuss what was most difficult for you...
¥ Describe a problem you found and your solution to...
¥ If you were to do this... again, how would you work differently?
¥ What would you like to do next, using what you learned from this....
¥ What factors do you feel make this a good...
¥ Name three things you learned...
¥ What else did you learn?
¥ List the steps you followed to make...
¥ Describe how your... is different from the teachers example(s).
¥ Describe how your style is similar or different to...'s style.
¥ Describe why your... would be classified as...
¥ Describe how your... shows...
Banks feels it is important that students viewing presentations or demonstrations keep "learning log" notes. Student learning logs could be similar to the following formats:
Another component of portfolio assessment is having students reflect on their learning by filling out portfolio response sheets. They can then read their responses to a teacher, fellow student, or community or parent volunteer while being recorded on videotape. Reflective assessment attributes could include:
¥ Choose a piece of work you completed earlier in the year and compare it with one you have done recently.
¥ How has your work improved?
¥ How do you solve problems now compared with how you solved them earlier in the year?
¥ Choose one item you are most proud of and tell why.
¥ Which is your best piece of work? What makes it your best?
¥ Which piece of work would your family like most? Why?
¥ What do you most want to learn about?
¥ What are one or two of the most important things you have learned and how does your work show this?
Other assessment video taping opportunities might include:
¥ a student's spelling test with the student doing a voice-over reading
¥ a hand written letter with student voice over
¥ samples of a student's math work from the beginning to the end of the year
¥ a student engaged in a seed experiment, explaining what she is doing
¥ a student reading her Spanish vocabulary
¥ a student teacher conference, where the teacher asks questions to assess the student's cognitive level
¥ the student responding to the teacher's open-ended questions.
Teacher and administrator portfolio examples could included:
¥ Professional experience
¥ Publications
¥ Certificates
¥ Goals
¥ Video sample lessons
¥ Instructional philosophy