Susan Boone Westside High School Houston Independent School District

Project Description: –The final exam in my class consists of students presenting their final portfolio and includes a peer evaluation. –The content in the portfolios is built from class assignments. Each student creates a CD with the work completed throughout the year.

The content of each students’ portfolio includes the following: –First Web Page –Fun Photo (PhotoShop) –Math Lesson –Flash Project –Presentation Web Site –Flash Intro

Portfolios are derived from the visual and performing arts tradition in which they serve to showcase artists' accomplishments and personally favored works. What Are Portfolios?

I have found that a digital portfolio of student work provides an excellent tool to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each assignment. It also gives the students an opportunity to have evidence of their web skills to solicit job opportunities while providing documentation of each major assignment completed throughout the year.

…an excellent tool to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each assignment.

Why Portfolios? Portfolios are useful as a support to the new instructional approaches that emphasize the student's role in constructing understanding and the teacher's role in promoting understanding.

For example, in web development, portfolios can function to illustrate the range of assignments, goals, and audiences for which a student created the web site. In addition, portfolios can be a record of the software learned over course of the year to use in the development of the web site. They can also be used to support cooperative teaming by offering an opportunity for students to share and comment on each other's work.

Assessment Portfolios are valued as an assessment tool because, as representations of classroom- based performance, they can be fully integrated into the curriculum.

Flash Intro The introduction can include a splash page, and should introduce the work completed throughout the year. This gives the student an opportunity to showcase the Flash skills developed throughout the year. Students are required to create a Flash Intro to their portfolio.

Administrative Support Teachers need administrative support to initiate a portfolio program. They need support material such as server space, adequate software, and time to plan, share ideas and develop strategies.

All portfolios--across student populations, and administrative contexts--involve students in their own education so that they take charge of their personal collection of work, reflect on what makes some work better, and use this information to make improvements in future work.

WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY? Research shows that students at all levels see assessment as something that is done to them on their classwork by someone else.

Beyond "percent correct," assigned letter grades, and grammatical or arithmetic errors, many students have little knowledge of what is involved in evaluating their classwork. Portfolios can provide structure for involving students in developing and understanding criteria for good efforts, in coming to see the criteria as their own, and in applying the criteria to their own and other students' work.

Research also shows that students benefit from an awareness of the processes and strategies involved in writing, solving problems, researching a topic, analyzing information, or describing processes.

WHAT ARE THE DRAWBACKS? Good portfolio projects do not happen without considerable effort….

Research shows that portfolios place additional demands on teachers and students as well as on school resources. In addition, teachers may need extra space on school servers to store students' portfolios or expensive equipment such as video cameras.

Is the Effort Worth It? YES!

On-Line Lessons for Web Mastering at Westside High School

Portfolio Examples from ’03-’04 Students present their Portfolios at a Digital Fair in the Spring. Parents, teachers and community are invited. Student Portfolios are online at the following URL:

First Web Site Students begin the year learning html code. The first web site they create is a personal web site. Three files are included. –A personal biography –& Two topics of their choice Links to each page are required on all pages.

These files are static; however, the navigation buttons work.

Fun Photo Students develop skills using PhotoShop by manipulating scanned images, resizing, working with light levels and colors to create a ‘Fun Photo’. They are required to describe the steps used to create the image.

Students are encouraged to include lessons and practices they have completed. These files can be used as references if they forget certain steps as they are using the software with the development of other projects.

CLICK

Choose a bullet at the bottom of movie. Right click and select “play’ to view the movie

Students develop a web site that is a math lesson

(Continued below.) Sample Grading Rubric

Research documentation Susan Boone Westside High School Houston I.S.D.