Notes that portfolios are a valuable classroom practice and one with many applications to the world students will enter when they leave the classroom, but the use of portfolios to assess distorts the concept and weakens its effectiveness. Discourages the use of portfolios for assessment. Concludes that portfolios are not about assessment; they are…

Student cohort groups, intensive education, portfolio assessment, teacher coaches, student workers, and powerful learning are integral to San Jose State University's newly restructured Preliminary Administrative Services Credential Program for prospective school administrators. The program grew out of students' dissatisfaction with the previous…

Provides an introductory discussion of important issues in career development concepts and outlines the main features of career counseling from a constructivist perspective. An overview of assessment procedures in career counseling is also provided. (SR)

Tells the story of how two new English education professors attempted to introduce alternative methods of writing assessment to their education students. Explains the beliefs the professors brought to the experience and how these beliefs were altered by the resistance the professors encountered from their students. (TB)

This article presents vignettes to illustrate responsive reading assessment, an approach to assessment that focuses on the context and the questions that need to be answered to guide instruction. A variety of assessment techniques are described and the use of student portfolios or organizing assessment data are discussed. (Contains 16 references.)…

This article describes the use of an admission's portfolio by the graduate degree program in gifted education and talent development at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The benefits of the admission's portfolio are discussed, including retention of students and insights that assist with guiding students toward meaningful graduate products and…

Describes some of the history of portfolios and how to develop a portfolio to assist learning or for professional development purposes. Discusses some of the current thinking about the use of portfolios for formal assessment. Contains 29 references. (DDR)

In Indiana's system of performance-based licensure, beginning teachers must submit portfolios within 2 years of teaching for a 5-year, renewable license. University teacher education programs have implemented portfolio assessment to prepare future teachers for licensure. (SK)

Studied the long-term influences of portfolios on professional development with three samples: (1) 15 Israeli school principals; (2) 26 senior nurses in The Netherlands; and (3) 33 nurses from the staffs of the senior nurses. Findings show that portfolios are used mainly for documentation, but have high potential as mirrors of competence when used…

Two groups of education majors--23 undergraduates and 14 educational technology graduate students--provided perspectives about their electronic portfolios. Two investigators independently directed them, evaluating the process from students' perspectives, including holistic evaluations by departmental faculty. Survey data were framed within…

Educators are faced with developing performance indicators for reporting to state and national agencies on pre-service teacher candidates' ability to teach using innovative pedagogy as well as content- specific standards. Portfolio assessment has gained momentum as a standard in assessing student-learning outcomes. This paper is a discussion of…

Maintaining a high-quality professional portfolio is important for both preservice and inservice physical educators because a portfolio serves as a comprehensive representation of an individual and his or her accomplishments as a professional. For this reason, it is important that physical educators take an active role in updating and maintaining…

Multiyear study of a small school district in Virginia finds that portfolios enhance the accountability and professional development purposes of teacher evaluation. While finding portfolios to be fair and accurate measures of teacher performance, teachers and administrators expressed concern about the time required to develop them. (Contains 3…

Although most portfolio evaluation currently uses some adaptation of holistic scoring, the problems with scoring portfolios holistically are many, much more than for essays, and the problems are not readily resolvable. Indeed, many aspects of holistic scoring work against the principles behind portfolio assessment. We have from the start needed a…

This qualitative study is intended to illuminate factors that affect the generalizability of portfolio assessments of beginning teachers. By generalizability, we refer here to the extent to which the portfolio assessment supports generalizations from the particular evidence reflected in the portfolio to the conception of competent teaching…