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Educators Toolbox > Curriculum > What Is a Portfolio?

A portfolio is an organized, purposeful collection of student work that displays knowledge, understanding, skills, accomplishments, interests, and achievement over a specified time. When used as an assessment, portfolios provide an overview of a student's abilities, and help to determine the strengths or weaknesses of the student. The assessment purpose of a portfolio must be clearly defined, and correlated with the Pinellas County School Expectations, and the Sunshine State Standards.

Visit Glossary of Portfolio Assessment to research classroom uses for student portfolios.

To get a good overall view about portfolios visit Technology Support for Alternative Assessment.

For a comprehensive page of links to anything you want to know about portfolio assessment, visit Portfolios in Education.

An excellent source of information can be found on Creating and Using Portfolios on the Alphabet Superhighway.

Portfolios combine curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Teachers and students develop a shared understanding of what constitutes quality work, and acquire a common language for evaluating accomplishments. The emphasis is placed on the students' strengths. Students self-evaluate to monitor their own progress. Parents, students, and teachers conference together to discuss strengths and areas for improvement. Portfolios enhance student-centered classrooms. Students acquire more responsibility for their own learning.

Visit Advantages of Portfolio Assessment and Assessment & Evaluation on the Internet for more information.

How do I create a Portfolio?

There is no single correct way to develop a portfolio. The content of the portfolio is built from the curriculum content. Portfolios may contain work samples, other forms of assessment, peer evaluations, and student evaluations. Portfolios may contain information regarding a single grading period while others will be an overview of an entire semester or a year. Some portfolios may be subject specific. General steps to portfolio creation are listed below. Follow the links to build a background understanding.

• Determine the goal of the portfolio. See Pieces of a Portfolio to get a good foundation. Student Electronic Portfolios and Assessment and Standards on the WWW provide links to many good assessment sites. Also, Sterling Assessment Pages provides links to Rubrics and how to create Rubrics, along with other portfolio information.
  
  
• Set up a sample portfolio to show students how to organize their materials, and explain the process involved in working with portfolios.
  
  
• Provide time for portfolio evaluation by student, peer, and teacher. The evaluation process increases student ownership. Visit Student Portfolios & Self-assessment Rubrics for information on how portfolios and rubrics are used in conjunction. Self-Assessment in Portfolios provide additional ideas and strategies. View a sample completed Assessment Log which is placed in the front of the portfolio to see the information inside the portfolio.
  
  
• Presentation of the portfolio to parents during student-led conferences, peers, and teachers provides opportunities for students to practice oral presentation skills. Practice with a teacher or peer is essential.

Examples of criteria, artifacts, selection process of material and use of portfolio by grade level and subjects are found in Student Portfolio.

Portfolio Assessment in the Reading-Writing Classroom provides a list of possible contents for a reading-writing portfolio.

Portfolio Assessment Lesson: Constructing a Theme Portfolio gives a Theme Portfolio for students to use to help them reflect upon and assess their own learning.

Performance and Portfolio Assessment for Language Minority Students shows how well-designed assessment procedures are essential to meeting the needs of language minority students acquiring English as their second language.