Digital Portfolios
An increasing number of colleges are using digital portfolios to document students’ personal, academic and professional development. Portfolios can also be used as captsone projects or as part of service learning. In putting together a digital portfolio, students reflect on their goals, learning, and achievements. Audiences for the portfolio may include other teachers or students, family, and employers.
Student Portfolios
Albion College’s digital portfolio project includes discipline-specific portfolios, as well as those from its First-Year Experience program.
Alverno College has pioneered a web-based diagnostic digital portfolio system, based on its assessment-as-learning process, that allows students to assess their learning over the years and receive feedback from faculty, external assessors and peers. Through portfolio development students gain a stronger sense of control over their educational process.
At the Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education's digital portfolio support website you will find definitions, instructions, and sample portfolios.
LaGuardia Community College is another pioneer in developing student portfolios. The college's ePortfolio project "helps students examine and reflect on their learning and career goals, smoothing the transition from LaGuardia Community College to the worlds of work and further education. The ePortfolio encourages students to think about their learning in a broad context of family, career, culture and experience. It provides a record of where a student has been, where a student is, and where a student would like to go." LaGuardia's faculty tutorial and resource section is excellent.
The Coalition for Essential Schools (CES) promotes the development of "personalized, equitable, and intellectually challenging schools" by focusing on "interdisciplinary studies, community-based 'real world' learning, and performance-based assessment.” One of its resources is a section on Getting Started with Digital Portfolios, which provides a step-by-step system for instructors to design and facilitate students’ creation of digital portfolios. CES sponsored a Digital Portfolio Project (1990-93) with several primary and secondary schools, which provide an overview of their school's vision, expected learning goals, portfolio plans, and sample portfolios.
The website also offers links to articles by many educators on the power of portfolios as an authentic tool for assessing students' abilities and accomplishments, including David Niguidula's essay "The Digital Portfolio: A Richer Picture of Student Performance."
Faculty Portfolios
Two faculty members from Borough of Manhattan Community College, Rachel Theilheimer (ECE) and Joe Ugoretz (Writing), completed a digital portfolio, Looking at Learning, Looking Together, collectively analyzing student work.
Karen Warren, English Instructor Gavilan College * 5055 Santa Teresa Blvd., Gilroy, CA 95020 * kwarren@gavilan.edu * 408/848-4850