It could be argued that much assessment in today’s schools is not relevant to the students being assessed. As such it is necessary to attempt to find a more authentic means of assessment. Portfolio is one such means which can be used in a variety of ways for the student, teacher and parent. It is suitable for use in any subject and is an excellent means of showing the progress of students learning over a period of time. But what makes this mode potentially so much more useful than the exams or tests used in mainstream schools today?One important question being debated today in educational circles is the nature of authentic assessment. But what does the word ‘authentic’ really mean? In education terms this generally refers to how applicable something is to the ‘real world’ (Hay & White, 2005, p75). That is, how much are the assignments and exams we are setting our students really emulating forms of skill assessment they are likely to encounter in the work force or in everyday life? As a student myself I always believed exam conditions to be completely false and constructed and since leaving school have never encountered a constructed situation quite like that of an exam. The stress of exams, and the reliance on memory, creates an environment in which many students struggle. Such assessment may make it easier to produce a consistent, objective grading system, but it does not assess students in an authentic or necessarily fair environment. If exams are creating unnatural environments and are testing students in a decontextualised way then the assessment of student learning can not be considered authentic (Brady & Kennedy, 2004, p7). As the statement below highlights, it is necessary for the assessment of students learning to be such that the learning itself is not interfered with. Catering a unit of work to the fact that students will be tested on it, rather than developing a broader and potentially more qualitative unit, is potentially reducing the educational value of what is being taught (Godhino and Wilson, 2005).
“Making assessment meaningful for students and relating it to their interests and cultural backgrounds are ways of integrating assessment into the teaching/learning process. This is as important for large-scale assessment as it is for classroom assessment. Contexts may shape assessment practices, but they should not be allowed to determine forms of assessment that have little educational value (Brady & Kennedy, 2004, p18).”
If this is the case it is clear that authentic assessment would have much greater educational value. However, what constitutes an authentic means of assessment?
There are a number of definitions of the term ‘authentic’. One, as outlined above, refers to the relationship between assessment and how applicable it is to the ‘real world’ (which we may take to mean the work force). Darling-Hammons, Ancess and Falk refer to authentic assessment as involving the development of ‘ways to focus student energies on challenging, performance-oriented tasks that require analysis, integration of learning and invention – as well as highly developed written and oral expression – rather than focusing merely on recall of facts (1995, p2).’ As such it offers both students (and teachers) a means of developing and demonstrating learning in a more useful and ultimately applicable way than exams and tests. An assessment which allows for the different skills of an individual and shows how they think and work in a holistic way, is what makes something an authentic reflection of an individuals learning (Godhino and Wilson, 2005, p18). One type of assessment which allows for both of these definitions of authenticity is that of portfolio. As each person has different skills, portfolio gives them the freedom to use (as Gardner would put it) different intelligences (Kearsley, 2004). Portfolio offers a great opportunity for showing the development of an individuals learning, as well as a means of tailoring this learning to in some way reflect the ‘real world’. There are many different types of portfolio, however. For example, professional teacher portfolios have been identified by Wolf (2000) as coming in three different categories: learning, assessment and employment (Godhino and Wilson, 2005, p2). There have been many names used by a variety of researchers and theorists to define the different styles of portfolio; however they often contain an assortment of common features. These include that they are; evidence based, evolving over time, dynamic, current, reflective and metacognitive (Godhino and Wilson, 2005, p3). These are features which are often not found in the tests and exams that students undertake as part of their standard school assessments. The use of portfolio as a means of assessment is much more student centred.
As learning is an ongoing thing it is necessary for its assessment to be similarly continuous and flexible. In order to see how a student learns, how they assimilate information and transform it so that it can be used as an influence in their own work it is necessary for assessment to take into consideration not only the final product (for how are we to know that the student was able to produce this final product because of our unit of work?), but the way in which the students thinking progressed over time. Portfolio, being unlimited in the ways it can be presented, offers teachers a means of assessing a students development without relying on the teachers memory or notes. Students are able to show what they do outside of the classroom, and in the process are encouraged to reflect on their own work during its development rather than only after its completion, either for an individual project or an entire unit.
Perhaps most commonly portfolio consists of a variety of complete works which are accumulated and presented as a whole entity. In such cases it is the process of selecting work for a specific purpose and audience which is important. Students who put together their own portfolios, for English for example, should be able to justify what pieces they choose to include. This requires reflection on their work and the final product will often show the development of their thinking and skills over the year. Work provided for the portfolio will also include a range of complex and relevant tasks as opposed to standardised tests. Student portfolio can be useful both as a means of assessing what a student has learnt at the end of a unit of work, and as a way of determining how the student is learning which can be useful in helping a teacher to shape and refine their unit (Godhino and Wilson, 2005, p4). Not only can portfolio be useful for both teacher and student, but parents are also able to more clearly see the progress of their child.
One more specific type of portfolio, which assesses how a student is learning, is sometimes called a Process Portfolio (Godhino and Wilson, 2005, p12). This often requires the student’s ongoing accumulation of information and reflection in order to show the development of one final piece. For example, an assignment required of Year 12 media students in Victoria involves the production of a piece of work (this could be a short film, a magazine or a series of photographs). The production of this work was supported by the ongoing development of a portfolio (Media Study Design – VCAA). Whilst a student may be able to sit an exam where they discuss the aspects of magazine making and page layout, the process of actually developing their own magazine and the solving of problems associated with this will ultimately teach them much more. There are often problems which cannot be predicted which students may never learn about except through the act of physical development. As such, the portfolio and the project associated with the assignment is useful in that it not only shows the development of the students thinking processes, but it provided them with notes to look back over and visual samples of their own work which will aid them in the development of the final project. Students who complete the Year 12 media folio have both their own fully developed magazine (or other form of media project) and a record of what troubles they encountered, how they overcame them, what research they did etc. This use of portfolio could also be taken further. If students were to produce a number of final projects throughout the year which could be put together as a separate portfolio, it would show students progress not only in the development of a single piece of work, but in the refining of their thinking and design and consideration of audience in a more long term and holistic way.
As the above example show, portfolios need not be word based. The beauty of this form of assessment is that it can be used in a range of ways and can include a variety of mediums. In the art classroom, portfolio is often used to visually show research, experimentation and development of a final product. These three categories most often are depicted in pictorial form with annotation. In the drama classroom portfolios could be used in a huge number of ways, from writing down notes about character development, to recording rehearsals, including snippets of fabric for costumes and samples of sound or lighting gels. As drama itself includes such a variety of forms, portfolio is an excellent way of allowing for this diversity and offers a means of recording the developmental process (and the final product) using more then just words. This is not to say that written assignments and reflection have no merit in the classroom, rather that these reflections can be best understood and appreciated when coupled with evidence of the developmental process and learning being discussed.
Part of what makes portfolio a much more authentic means of assessment is that it does not necessarily rely on a student having a high level of language literacy. Many students are imaginative and creative in ways which they cannot communicate through writing. For these students written assignments (particularly essays) are unlikely to be an authentic form of assessment as it is not their thinking which is being assessed but their grasp of written language. As portfolio can include anything from video to drawing it offers students a variety of ways to communicate their learning which is meaningful to the student. This is not to say that there need not be any written component to a portfolio, or that writing is a poor means of assessment. Often heavily visual portfolios will require written reflections and notes to help explain what the assessor is looking at. Rather portfolio is authentic in that it offers students some freedom to communicate imaginatively and to construct meaning in a way they consider best conveys their thinking and learning (Brady and Kennedy, 2005). Portfolio also provides students with something they can keep and easily look over to refresh their memories or further build on their learning.
It is clear that portfolio, which comes in more forms than those discussed here, is flexible enough to allow for the individuality of each learner. It can be used not only as a mode of assessment, but as a way of aiding in an individuals development, or as a means of tracking this development. The authenticity of portfolio does depend, in part, on the way in which it is applied, however on the whole it is a considerably more useful and ‘true to life’ means of assessment than the controlled conditions of school examinations. As long as students are assessed using quantitative rather than qualitative means, the authenticity of their assessments will remain minimal.
Resources
Brady, L. & Kennedy, K. (2005), ‘Principles of Assessment’ in Curriculum and Assessment – 476-101 2004, Pearson Education Australia, NSW
Darling-Hammond, L., Ancess, T. & Falk, B. (1995), Authentic Assessment in Action: Studies of Schools and Students at Work, Teachers College Press, New York
Godhino, S. & Wilson, J. (2005), ‘Portfolios for a Purpose’ in Portfolio’s, Performance and Authenticity, ed. Hay, T. & Moss, J., Pearson Education Australia, NSW
Hay, T. & White, J. (2005), ‘Beyond Authenticity’ in Portfolio’s, Performance and Authenticity, ed. Hay, T. & Moss, J., Pearson Education Australia, NSW
Kearsley, G. (2004), ‘Multiple Intelligences’ at Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory into Practice Database, Available: http://tip.psychology.org/gardner.html, (Accessed 2005, May 23rd)
‘Media – Victorian Certificate of Education Study Design’ on Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/media/media-sd.pdf, accessed 18.9.05
