THE USE OF PORTFOLIO

A student portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that tells a story about the student’s efforts, progress, or achievement in one or more academic disciplines.  This collection must include student participation in the selection of portfolio content; guidelines for the selection of that material; criteria for judging the value of the work collected, and evidence of student self-reflection.

In my opinion, using portfolios can be an important tool to encourage students to be more active in their learning process, since they are able to have a record of the important things they learn, and this makes them feel more motivated and responsible. Moreover, it can promote student´s critical skills, as they will have a voice and their perceptions will be reflected in the portfolio. However, this is not that easy to carry out, even though it has a great purpose its effect is reduced when students do not make part of the decision-making, as it usually happens in schools where the teachers just worry about getting another way to grade, which just makes students have a portfolio in order to please the teacher or to get a good grade that will help in the average to pass the subject.

 An additional aspect that limits the sense of portfolios is the fact that teacher´s subjectivity sometimes plays a role when it comes to grading different student´s assignment, so they will vary according to the teacher´s personality or ideas. Then it is important that teachers receive training on how to know if students achieve the expected goals.

As well, I think that it would be more meaningful if we could teach students that having a portfolio is not a matter of getting grades, but improving and coming up with other strategies; besides if we really help them see the purpose, giving them constant feedback ( meaning that both teacher and student get involved), they will be willing to do their portfolio just for the benefit of learning from their own process.