Good afternoon class!
I loved that we got to listen to Ms. Creech at the beginning of class and that she was so kind to come to visit us on campus. Afterward, we covered different types of assessments and that’s when my brain really got thinking. I was fascinated by all the different ways in which students can be assessed because, for the majority of my high school experience, I was assessed via group projects or multiple choice/matching tests. The only time I experienced variance of assessment was for my AP 2D Design class where we had to create a portfolio to turn in to College Board.
Because I had only experienced a portfolio-style assessment once in my life, I was most intrigued by it. Here are some resources I looked through in order to become more familiar with the topic:
a. The Purpose of Building a Portfolio Assessment (thoughtco.com)
b. 17.7: How can portfolios be used for assessment? – Social Sci LibreTexts
c. Student Portfolios as an Assessment Tool | Education World
Some key points I gathered from these sources were:
- Portfolio assessments are very subjective in nature. Even if the teacher utilizes a rubric, the individualized nature of a portfolio makes it difficult to remain objective and stick to the rubric. In order to avoid this, teachers need to make sure they are checking their biases and getting second opinions if needed. – link a
- There are showcase portfolios (ones that “display the candidate’s depth of knowledge and is a compilation of successfully completed work” (King 2008)) and formative portfolios (“illustrates a student’s learning processes over time and demonstrates growth” (King 2008)). – link b
- It also is important that you allow students a choice what is placed in their portfolios. You might have a few specific pieces you require, but permit students to include two or three pieces of their own choosing. – link c
Not only did these different assessments make me reflect on my own experiences, but they also made me think about which techniques would be best for me to use in my classroom. Given what we have learned in class, which type of assessment do you see yourself using? Why? Would you change assessment types based on the subject you’d teach? How many different assessment types do you see yourself using at any given time? Which techniques can you not see yourself using? Why?
I look forward to reading your responses!
Warmest Regards,
Carstyn K
Hey Carstyn K,
Thank you for your response this week!
I too loved learning about the museum, especially since I had never heard/seen anything about it before. I love that we are learning about these awesome places right here in Richmond that we have access to using as future teachers. I hope to visit them in person to see some history and their exhibits.
I too do not know a lot about portfolio-style assessments because I feel as though when I was in school we just did a lot of writing and testing. I have had an extensive amount of working with DBQ’s, I began writing those in middle school. I love how we are learning about these differentiated types of assessments, because I am not a strong test taker, and feel that I would have been more confident in my own skills if my own teachers had offered more types of assessments like these.
I can see myself using a lot of writing, journaling, as well as portfolio work. I am going to hopefully be teaching younger ages, where assessments are less frequent, however, it’s important that the students have ample amount of time writing/drawing, so journaling as assessments would be a great tool to use. I really like the idea of pre-assessments, especially if I am teaching such young students, because I can use that to base my lesson around and see what my student’s know prior to the lesson. I think pre-assessments were my favorite type of assessment that we learned about, and I feel like they could be made very fun for my student’s. I would have loved to play in a mock store in kindergarten or first grade.
I feel like the rest of my types of assessment use will just come naturally once I begin teaching. I would like to use a variety of assessments and performance assessments. This is definitely a topic that I will continue to think about.
Thank you for your response, Carstyn!
Like you, I didn’t experience many non-traditional assessments before college. I would often receive tests and presentations to prove my knowledge in a unit or subject. The idea of portfolios is very interesting!
In at least one subject in the school year, I want to do either an exhibition or a portfolio with my students. I want to give them the chance to express their knowledge in a content area through their own interests and creative ways. Presenting these projects will help them work on their presentations skills, consolidating this information will work on their research skills, and often projects such as these include a lot of writing and reading that they’ll work on throughout the school year!
When it is important to check that students know the facts of certain subjects, I still wish to use traditional tests. However, I don’t want that to take up most of my assessments! I want to spread my metaphorical wings and try out different and engaging ways to gauge student knowledge and skills.
I hope that when I eventually lead my own classroom, I don’t find myself falling back on the same traditional assessments, because there are so many more out there!
Thanks again! What a great response.
Ashley
Greetings, Carstyn! Thanks for raising these questions.
There are some obvious advantages to using portfolio assessments as opposed to traditional tests. The most significant of these advantages, I think, is probably that, as the ThoughtCo article you linked notes, portfolio assessments show a student’s learning and growth over the course of a long period of time, rather than their performance on a particular day; it is not possible to cram the night before or to cheat off another student or to make mistakes because of sickness, loss of sleep, or distraction during the testing period. Additionally, portfolio assessments encourage student self-direction and critical thinking and allow for a great deal of differentiation.
HOWEVER, despite these advantages, I think that I, like most teachers, will probably fall back on traditional tests most of the time, and will make little or no use of portfolio assessments, for no reason other than that they take much more time and effort than traditional tests do! I’m not happy about that—of course I would like all of my teaching methods to be fun and interesting for students, to encourage creativity and critical thought on their part, to be differentiated according to each individual’s talents and areas of potential improvement, and so on. But I think that is just not possible most of the time. The reason that teachers tend to fall back on dry, impersonal, less effective teaching methods as opposed to the many more engaging, creative, personal, highly effective methods for which educational theorists advocate is that one teacher does not have enough space in their brain or time in their day to use the second kind of teaching method most of the time—right??? I have little actual experience in classrooms, so maybe this assertion is baseless. But it seems hard to believe that when I have charge of my own classroom I will find myself thinking “Wow, I have so much extra time in the schoolday, I could cover all of these topics much more in-depth and give much more individual attention to students!” Rather I think I will find that I never have quite enough time or energy to give every student in a class of 20-30 everything that they need. Surely that is every dedicated teacher’s experience….?
Nonetheless I shall resume a more optimistic tone for the conclusion of this post. It occurred to me while reading these articles that one excellent way of letting a student show their growth over time in a portfolio would be to encourage them to redo assignments on which they initially received poor grades, and include both the original and the revision in the portfolio, along with a reflection paragraph explaining what they learned and why they changed what they changed. We were allowed to do this in our end-of-year portfolios for my Animation major in college. I can’t think of any better way to ensure that students learn from their mistakes and feel that they are capable of improvement in areas that are initially difficult for them.
Hi Carstyn!
Thank you for your thoughtful reflection on assessments! I am glad that you were able to experience a new type of assessment in your own education, and I love the idea of using portfolios as an assessment.
When thinking about my own experiences with assessments, I was always given the standard multiple choice and writing assessments. I did not have very creative forms of assessing what I was learning, which tended to not be the best way for me to demonstrate my knowledge. I also started focusing more on the grades I was getting rather than the content I was supposed to be learning. This started the cycle of me memorizing content to know it for assessments, and then immediately forgetting what I had “learned” after the assessment was done.
Having this as one of my own experiences, I do not want my students to ever feel the same. I am planning on teaching lower elementary grades and I love the idea of observing how students play as a pre-assessment to see what students know and don’t know before planning my lessons. I also like the idea of creating student portfolios as assessments to compile writings and drawings throughout the year. This is a great way to see student progress without creating test anxiety for my class.
I do not plan on using the traditional ways of assessments that were used for me, and I will always strive to be creative with assessments when I have a classroom of my own.
Thank you again!
– Alexa 🙂
Hi Carstyn, I’m so glad you provided these great links regarding portfolio assessments. As I read over the articles, it came to mind that our commonplace book is sort of a portfolio assessment for this class. I plan to teach second graders, so it seems the single unit portfolio assessment assignment would be the most useful and easily adaptable for these students. As new teacher, I would feel more comfortable starting with more standard assessments, such as quizzes, tests, etc. Students need to have clear directions on what is required whenever they are assigned a task and for me, I’m not sure I could provide that as I am still not clear on how I would incorporate it within my grading structure. However, I was very glad to get the assessment examples from Dr. Stohr and Dr. Bland, I think these are great examples of what I could use for the younger students. The exercise we did, going through the assessments to review for clarity and construction was really good. By the way Carstyn, I too enjoyed the presentation by Ms. Creech about the VA Museum of History & Culture. The information on field trip options, such as scavenger hunts and sensory programs, as well as virtual programs was very helpful to learn about. The brain break activity she provided was excellent and I am excited to incorporate it into my curriculum. Finding out about these great hands-on resources right here in the city for our students to take advantage is invaluable.
Hello Carstyn,
Thank you for your post on this week’s class reflection.
The University of Richmond has provided us with a plethora of information and tools that can be utilized in our educational journey as well as our careers. I agree with you concerning Ms. Creech coming into the class to share with us what is available from the VA Museum of History & Culture, how we can teach our students from the materials available through them.
Learning more about assessments will be truly valuable to our careers and will be important to be able to implement these assessments into our lessons. These assessments will ensure our students are the benefactors of the test and we as teachers can pull from the data and better teach our students. I too was fascinated by the different ways students can be assessed in the educational setting. My early educational journey consisted of k-7 and 8-12, no middle school, and assessments that are forgettable to me at this time, maybe because they were non-existent. Times has changed over the years and I am happy to say they have changed for the better.
As a new teacher I believe I would mirror the assessments available at the school when I begin my teaching career and maybe tweaking the assessments, adding my thoughts to improve the test, but use what is available as a blueprint.
Thank you, Carstyn,
Milton
Hi Carstyn,
Thank you for your post this week! You selected excellent supplemental articles for us to review — I really enjoyed reading them.
I too was very grateful for Ms. Creech’s willingness to come and spend time with our class. Until the class that we’re in now, I was unaware of the extent to which local museums aligned their exhibits and resources with standards of learning. I had never really envisioned museums as extensions of public education before, and I feel like this has opened my eyes to a whole new world of support and opportunities to lean into as a new teacher.
I find the notion of portfolio assessment ambitious but intriguing. The part of portfolio assessments that I find most attractive is that they permit students to assume agency over showcasing their own learning products. I feel like we can really gain depth of insight into our students’ thought processes by being able to ask them questions about their choices, like “what made you choose that drawing/poem/map to include amongst your best work? What do you like best about what you created? What are you most proud of in your portfolio?” This leads to endless probing possibilities that can guide students to reflect about their thinking, their learning, and their choices.
While I can envision myself experimenting with portfolio assessments, I’m most comfortable starting out with using a portfolio as a showcase versus one that’s graded against a rubric. I know that I will need to use traditional quizzes and tests and am thankful that we learned some practical advice in our class for the best ways to design effective questions. I definitely want to experiment with other assessment types, particularly formative assessments using some of the online tools that are out there and gauging what’s most effective for the grade level that I teach.
Thank you, Carstyn, for your post this week, and I hope you enjoy spring break!
Sue Anne
Hi Carstyn,
Thank you so much for your insightful post! I too enjoyed the opportunity for Ms. Creech to inform us about what the Virginia Museum of History and Culture has to offer.
Additionally, I found our discussion on the types of assessments to be incredibly interesting! When we were given the chance to test out some sample exams, it really got me thinking. Never before had I had the skills available to critically view exams given by teachers. It forced me to ponder whether exams I had taken in the past would have followed the guidelines provided to us in class.
The idea of a portfolio-related assessment is still something that I will have to get used to. From my K-12 days, I have grown so accustomed to the routine of learning the content, studying, taking an exam, and then forgetting about a majority of the content all together. Looking back on it now, I’m not sure if that method was truly effective in my learning. Last year in my FYS, instead of a midterm and final exam, my teacher actually assigned us a portfolio. There were a few required assignments, but other than that we could choose what other writing pieces we submitted. One thing I learned from that assignment is that teachers must give clear instructions when asking for a portfolio. Many of my fellow students and I were confused because we were not used to this type of assessment and felt strange holding onto our assignments until the very end/middle of the semester. However, I think with further practice, a portfolio could become a great strategy.
I hope you are having a great spring break!
– Mimi
Hi Carstyn,
Thank you for your thoughtful post and the helpful resources you provided to further our thinking!
Throughout my K-12 education, I was assessed through written tests, quizzes, or papers. To be honest, oftentimes I was more focused on receiving a high grade on a test than the actual content. As a future teacher, I will certainly give students tests and quizzes. For example, I was given a spelling test every Friday during elementary school, which I think is an effective and efficient way of measuring student’s knowledge. However, I want to reveal to students that their hard work and progress can be depicted through assessments that don’t involve a “grade.” I believe portfolio’s are a great way for students to showcase a wide array of their projects and completed class activities. Although summative assessments are important, I believe formative assessments are much more useful and effective since these allow teachers to evaluate student’s progress over time instead of just simply judging their skills off of one test grade. In my eyes, student’s development and progress throughout the school year are much more valuable than one assessment grade. I’m looking forward to thinking about my positive and negative elementary school assessment experiences while I brainstorm the appropriate ways to assess my future students.
Hi Carstyn!
Thanks for your post, I think you raise some great points and ask great questions.
I love the ideas of portfolios, but I have a hard time seeing the benefits of this type of assessment outside of an artistic, flexible subject, such as math (if someone can see portfolios for math, I would love to hear it!!). I think that language arts/writing would be the best subject to utilize a portfolio for because you can keep students’ writing throughout the year and showcase their growth. However, I think for most subjects I would still stick with a multiple choice assessment, at least for the first few beginning years of my teaching. Multiple choice assessments are really all I know, so it is what I am most comfortable utilizing as a new teacher, but as I grow more confident and capable I would love to incorporate portfolios and multi-week projects that are an accumulation of deep knowledge and researching strategies. In my senior seminar in college, I spent the entire semester working on a term paper and presentation, and the class itself was more so teaching me where I could go to find the research I needed, low pressure mini presentations to figure out the best ways to present to a panel of professors and students, and conferences to check in and get help as needed, and I loved this as a final project that showed off all the skills and knowledge I had gained in my 4 years. I would love to do something like this, but I would need a few years of multiple-choice assessments to make sure I am good at teaching the information and meeting the standards, and then I would begin figuring out how I can change my assessment methods to get away from multiple choice tests.
Hi Carstyn!
I was unable to join in on class today due to being sick but assessment is a very important part of schooling in general. When I was doing my undergrad classes, I took an art class that focused on Asian Art. The majority of the class was us working with India ink to try and create contemporary versions of famous or culturally important pieces. I personally am not the best when it comes to painting as an art form. If was very hard for me to try and recreate these beautiful works of art and turn them in for a grade. This is where portfolio work for me as a student seemed much more difficult because my teacher is a trained professional artist in this specific art form.
In the end, portfolio work worked out well for all of the students who provided the best work that they could. We were told to provide our work in ways in which that show we had tried to improve in the classical concepts.
At younger elementary levels I’m not sure if a portfolio would be the most practical way to assess students just because their growth is not always linear. Often times a student will spell one word right the second time but not always on the third try. I think a broad portfolio could be an efficient way to really dive deep into each Childs long term learning journey but not for short lessons.
Hi Carstyn!
In my experience, I seldom used non-traditional assessments prior to being in college. There was mostly writing, projects, and the standard test. Everyone’s focus was on how well we performed grade-wise, rather than the content itself. There is also the problem of some students being better test takers than others, in other words, tests are not great indicators of a student’s knowledge of the material.
I prefer tests that give students choices that play to their strengths and interests. Some students are more artistically inclined, while others prefer to write. I would not mind creating 2 or 3 assessments and letting students decide which style best appeals to them. I like that portfolios place less stress on students compared to the average summative assessment, so I will definitely try my best to implement them into my classroom!