Portfolios inform teachers and students of progress toward established goals. Offers tips for helping students create their own portfolios and suggests criteria for assessment and self-assessment. (MKR/SW)

Describes how one English teacher used experience as a professional writer to change how she approached writing instruction in a seventh-grade English class. Outlines a method centered on extensive revision and the submission of writing portfolios. (HB)

The use of portfolio assessment in special education is considered. Initially it is important to decide on types of work samples, who selects the samples, and how they will be evaluated. A list of 34 possible uses of portfolios and a 42-item bibliography on portfolio use are included. (SW)

Describes the use of portfolios in college-level physics courses. Includes sample student materials, student reactions to portfolios, and portfolio assessment scoring criteria. (MVL)

Discusses the theory behind portfolio assessment, and portfolios and student learning. Responds to three questions to address the growing interest in portfolios and the natural skepticism of teachers about them. (SR)

Advocates the use of portfolios for educational assessment of college developmental learners. Discusses recent development of portfolios, factors influencing their use, literacy-based portfolio assessment, sample contents, managing the portfolio, and portfolios as collaborative reflection. (SR)

Uses examples from preschool teachers' classroom experiences to present suggestions for improving portfolios as an assessment tool. Issues discussed include distinguishing work that shows a child's learning progress, types of portfolios, and collecting work with a particular purpose in various curricula. Argues that portfolios should be…

Describes how a teacher of an English-as-a-Second-Language conversation class used portfolios to have students document their progress in learning English via audio- and videotapes. (SR)

The ways that portfolio evidence of student competence in the writing processes is created and interpreted were studied in four classrooms during the preliminary trials of the California Learning Assessment System portfolios. Data from interviews with six students and two elementary school teachers are used to explore student portfolios and…

Describes the ways two second-grade teachers implement portfolio assessment in their classrooms. Emphasizes multiple purposes for evaluation. Suggests that portfolio use can have a direct influence on teachers' instructional practices and beliefs. (RS)

Explores how a portfolio assessment project in the University of Cape Town's Chemistry Department developed (within staff) new understandings of the role of writing as a vehicle for learning, which resulted in a reexamination of the relationship of the written assignments to the existing curriculum. Discusses challenges of designing assessment…

Applies to the reading of student texts in a college composition portfolio assessment the notion that evaluations of text vary because readings take place in specific contexts and are shaped by cultural and historical exigencies. Concludes that in every reading of a text, readers posit an "implied author" that can strongly influence the reader's…

Details the three major forms of evaluative authority (administrator, teacher, outside instructor) in the portfolio program at a large, urban, Midwestern university. Documents and theorizes the rhetorical and political dynamics by which the three forms of authority interact. Explores and maps the contested borders of authority among outside…

In a program on creative thinking and technology, 56 low-achieving Israeli 10th graders constructed portfolios of project work. The Creative Thinking Assessment Scale was developed to evaluate awareness of thinking, observation of thinking, strategy, and reflection. (SK)

When carefully conceived, portfolios can significantly advance a teacher's professional growth and preserve evidence of exemplary teaching. More than a scrapbook or steamer trunk of eye-catching materials, a teaching portfolio is an ongoing, collaborative process that carefully and thoughtfully documents a set of accomplishments attained over an…