PORTFOLIOS ASSESSMENT:

by STUDENTS, by TEACHERS

Dr. ELVY USMIRAWATI, Dipl., TESOL, M. Pd.

English Teacher of SMANU MH. THAMRIN, JAKARTA

ABSTRACT

Some new ideas in the teaching of English become quickly established in practice because they are so right, so timely, and so useful. The portfolios assessment is one of the prominent way to picture the progress achieved not only by students but teachers as well. By implementing portfolios assessment, students may recognize their needs, achievements and also the weaknesses in their learning process and product. For teachers, it can be used as a medium to reflect and evaluate all their teaching performances for period of time. In turn, it supports teacher’s professional development.

For many years, portfolios have been used by architects, designers, and artists to show the range and quality of their work. Lately, accompanying the product-process shift in teaching the four-skill of language, especially writing skill. For students, the portfolio concept has also become widely held as a means of monitoring and assessing students’ work in first and second or foreign language classroom. For teachers, portfolios used to demonstrate the up and down of the efforts in developing professional competence.

Portfolios Assessment of Students

Applebee and Langer in Richards and Renandya (2002: 347) define portfolios as a cumulative collection of the work students have done. Some of the most popular forms are the following:

1. A traditional “writing folder” in which students keep their work.

2. A bound notebook with separate sections kept for work in progress and final drafts.

3. A loose-leaf notebook in which students keep their drafts and revisions.

4. A combination folder and big brown envelope where students’ writings-exercises, tests, composition, drafts, and so on-are kept.

5. A notebook divided into two sections: one for drafts and the other for final copies

Porter and Cleland in Bailey and Nunan (2001: 223) also define a portfolio as “a collection of artifacts accompanied by a reflective narrative that not only helps the learner to understand and extend learning, but invites the reader of the portfolio to gain insight about learning and the learner.”

Portfolios assessment can be implemented not only to assess the overall students’ performance, but it may also assess only a selection of works. The selection works can be chosen by teacher based on certain things such as: certain essential material based on syllabus or the best students’ composition in each meeting or lesson plan. The works can be completed individually or in group.

Portfolio collections may also serve as responses to student productive skills, writing and speaking. Conferencing is an important component of portfolio assessment. Farr and love in Richards and Renandya (2002: 348) are of the opinion that students, thought conferencing and keeping a portfolio, experience making real-life decisions as well as decisions about schoolwork. In order for students to take responsibility for their learning and their lives, ownership of their own choices an actions is an all-important consideration.

The ownership of their own choices leads the shift of old paradigm to new paradigm in learning process. That is student–centered approach. This is the real step toward learner autonomy. In the traditional approach, ownership of work and learning is looked upon more as the responsibility of the teacher than of student. But when students actively participate in the selections and discussion of their work, they again a true sense of ownership, which results in personal satisfaction and feelings of self-worth.

In relating to the term autonomy of learner above, as the new paradigm of education took place, the term autonomy should be used to describe a capacity of the students. Dickinson in Benson (2001: 13) defines autonomy as the situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all of the decisions concerned with his learning and the implementation of those decisions’ and also used the term “full autonomy“ to describe the situation in which the student is entirely independent of teachers, institutions or specially prepared materials. By implementing portfolios assessment, students’ autonomy can be gained.

Portfolios are to meet the goals of literacy assessment, they must be developed as follows:

· Teachers and students both add materials to the portfolio.

This can be seen as collaborative way in learning process that the learning goal can’t be gained only by one contributor. Teacher can be a motivator to stimulate students’ work, teacher can be a facilitator to ease students’ performance by eliciting students’ ideas.

· Students are viewed and owners of the portfolio.

This shows students as subject of the learning and they must be responsible what they have done.

· Conferencing between students and the teacher is an inherent activity in portfolio assessment.

This shows that the communication is a tool to gain things optimally. Communication leads to the harmoniously engagement done by the two perspectives.

· Conference notes and reflections of both the teacher and the students are kept in the portfolio.

This shows that the process is important as a part of achievement. This talks not only about the success, but the ways and strategies to reach. As the education goals stated, the ways students taken leads to mature students’ behavior.

· Portfolio need to reflections a wide range of student work and not only that which the teacher or student decides is the best.

Students’ autonomy is a key point in learning process. Every single work they have done is a valuable thing that the teacher must recorded and judged it.

· Samples of the student’s reading and writing activities are collected in the portfolios, including unfinished projects.

This to show students’ progress. As an entry point to step ahead.

Applebee and Langer in Richard and Renandya (2002; 348) believe that portfolios of student’s work offer one of the best vehicles for assessment of writing for two reasons : 1) They typically contain a variety of different samples of student works, and 2) they make it easy to separate evaluation from the process of instruction. Can be summed up that portfolios can be used for the whole language skills.

No system of assessment is as perfect as portfolio assessment, according to Gallehr (1993), because students as required to write, but within this requirement, they can choose the topic, audience, responders in the class, revision strategies, and so on. It is also done in other skills of language. They are also free to select from their works the pieces they one to include in their portfolios. This show that portfolios may be used as a holistic process for evaluating course work and for promoting students autonomy. Portfolios provide a sound basis on which to document individual student progress because they incorporate a range of assessment strategies over an extended period of time.

Portfolios Assessment of Teachers

James Dean Brown and Kate Wolf in Bailey and Nunan (2001: 224) say a portfolio is “a purposeful collection of any aspect of a teacher’s work that tells the story of a teacher’s efforts, skills, abilities, achievements, and contribution to his/her colleagues, institution, academic discipline or community.” It means that the overall performance of teacher can be recorded and evaluated not only by himself/herself but also everyone around him/her.

In order to pursue personal development, in the case of teaching portfolios, reflection enables teachers to:

a. Examine teaching process

b. Take responsibility for teachers’ teaching

c. See gaps in teaching

d. Determine strategies that support teaching

e. Celebrate risk-taking and inquiry

f. Set goals for future experiences

g. See changes and development over time

Robert Yagleski also identifies reflection as a key characteristic of portfolios. He notes that portfolios “encourage on-going reflection and (do) not simply document the students’ work: grow out of and reflect a range of experiences and competencies related to teaching and learning; and include a variety of student-selected materials related to those experiences and competencies.” Yagleski’s comment about students’ portfolio apply to teaching portfolios as well.

Portfolios are not just products, but must be viewed as an on-going process. Green and Smyser in Bailey and Nunan (2001: 224) provide seven rationalities what makes a teaching portfolio a different kind of evaluation:

a. Give teaching a context

b. Accommodate diversity

c. Encourage teachers to capitalize on strengths

d. Allow teachers to self-identify areas improvement

e. Empower teachers by making them reflective

f. Encourage professional dialogue

g. Integrate all aspects of teaching

Those rationalities lead teachers to do reflection in all aspects of their teaching. This reflection, in turn, come up as a strategy to pursue professional competence.

What to include in Portfolio

There are three main thematic categories: documents related to teaching duties, professional development, and administrative responsibilities. The portfolios must tell about teacher’s teaching and learning not only to the teachers themselves but also to the reader of the portfolios.

In terms of what a preserve teacher’s portfolio might contain, McLaughlin and Vogt describe 5 aspects of teachers’ teaching life can be included in their portfolios, namely: 1) educational philosophy, 2) professional development, 3) curriculum and instruction, 4) students growth, and 5) contributions to school and community. Meanwhile, Johnson has identified 4 types of documentation: 1) artifacts, which are produced during the normal course work of the teacher education program, 2) reproductions, which relate to typical events in the work of pre service teachers that are not captured in artifacts, 3) attestations about the work of the novice teacher prepared by someone else, and 4) productions, which are prepared especially for the portfolio.

Based on the ideas above, it can be concluded that the content of portfolios covers three things in teachers’ performance day by day, namely 1) document on teachers’ personal development, 2) document on teachers’ professional development, and 3) document on teachers’ social life development.

Here are the list of ideas about the breadth of items to consider including in portfolios.

NO

PERFORMANCE ASPECT

ACHIEVEMENT TIME

1.

Teaching philosophy

a) What teacher believes in teaching and learning, how they are best achieved, and what factors enhance or inhibit these processes.

b) Monitoring and evaluating journal

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

2

Professional items have written

A range of documents from published journal articles to training manuals to pieces written for in-house newsletters.

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

3

Teaching/learning presentations

Records of workshops or conference presentations have given, from major international events to in-house sessions.

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

4

Conference attended

Summaries of what teacher learned as a participant at professional conference and workshop.

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

5

Details of courses taught

Lesson plan, teaching material, rubric assessment

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

6

Feedback from students

Mid-course (or after each lesson plan delivered) and end of course (institution required and self-designed) evaluation instruments and results

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

7

Examples of students work

Selected students’ portfolios arranged based on class (group of students)

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

8

Peer Observation notes

Including teaching process, peers’ comment on self- performance

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

9

Committee work

Aims of (selected) committees, with a description or particular and responsibilities.

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

10

Additional support

The “above and beyond the call of duty” section, documenting the main additional support provided to students, parents, clubs, colleagues, novice teachers, etc.

Daily/weekly/monthly/

every semester/yearly

Conclusion

Portfolios assessment done by students; portfolios assessment involves the means of obtaining information about students’ abilities, knowledge, understanding, attainment, or attitudes. An assignment in writing, for example will be helpful in assessing a students’ ability in and understanding of the assigned activity. Portfolios assessment can be viewed as process of finding out who the students are, what their abilities are, what they need to know, and how they perceive the learning will affect them. By implementing it, the students’ autonomy can be gained optimally. By enabling students to recognize and assess their own needs, to choose and apply their own learning strategies or styles eventually leading to the effective management of learning. Portfolios assessment places the needs of the students at the center of the teacher’s planning as well.

Portfolios assessment done by teachers; as with all the approaches to professional development, one key purpose of compiling a portfolio is to facilitate development and lifelong learning as teachers. The teaching portfolio as a strategy for professional development is based on the premise that the best assessment is self-assessment. Teachers are more likely to act on what they find out about themselves.

References

Bailey, Kathleen M., David Curtis, and David Nunan. 2001. Pursuing Professional

Development. Canada: heinle & heinle.

Benson, Phil. 2001. Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning. London:

Longman.

Richards, Jack C. & Willy A. Renandya. Methodology in Language Teaching.

Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

BIODATA

Dr. Elvy Usmirawati, M.Pd. is an English teacher in SMANU MH. Thamrin, Jakarta, Indonesia. She has been teaching for 20 years in some educational institutions. After finishing her bachelor degree in 1998, majoring English Education, she continued to get her magister and doctoral degree in 2006 and 2009. She finished all her degrees in State University of Jakarta.