The Portfolio Alternative

Lately I have been thinking of new ways to asses student performance. There's always the objective exams but its effectiveness is questionable since it promotes rote learning. Under that system students merely remember lessons they need to pass a test and forget the rest later on.

When students quickly forget what they learned the previous semester no learning occurred. True learning occurs when students are able to get something useful from a class. If they did not then everything was a waste of time.

The problem now is whether there is a method of assessment which will determine if students ACTUALLY LEARNED ANYTHING. Is there such a thing? Can teachers determine if their lessons had an impact on their students?

This is where portfolios come in. Portfolios are students' compilation of their best and meaningful works. It chronicles their development through the duration of the course. This gives the teacher a perspective concerning how far students have grown intellectually and even emotionally.

Portfolios give teachers a unique view into their students' minds. They can see how certain ideas were nurtured or changed as the course progressed. Portfolios are hard proof that at one point in time students were actually engaged in the learning process. How educators can keep students engaged in their studies is another matter.

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Illustrations Cited:

http://zineculturefiles.pbwiki.com/f/cramming.JPG

http://zineculturefiles.pbwiki.com/f/cramming.JPG