EDC 668--Blog 2

Why do educational organizations choose to employ portfolios? What value does the use of rubrics in evaluating activities and portfolios bring? How can peer review affect learning progress and growth?

Educational institutions are not the only organizations that use portfolios to showcase work. Models and artists use portfolios to show potential employers their accomplishments, their capabilities, their particular growth within the industry, and what they have to offer their future employer. A portfolio not only shows off an artist's or model's best work, but work throughout their careers. It is also important for employers to see the potential of their employee.

An educational portfolio is quite similar to that of a model or artist. Educators employ portfolios as a means showcases the work of a student over period of time. These portfolios contain pieces of work from throughout the school year that usually show a student's growth. Oftentimes portfolios are used as a means for a child to reflect upon the work that is done. A student will then have a more thorough picture of their growth within a subject over a particular time period.

According to Dr. Helen C. Barrett's article "The Research on Portfolios in Education" portfolios are often a means of assessment. http://electronicportfolios.com/ALI/research.html

"In their synthesis of "Portfolio Research: A Slim Collection," Herman and Winters (1994) note the following:

Well-designed portfolios represent important, contextualized learning that requires complex thinking and expressive skills. Traditional tests have been criticized as being insensitive to local curriculum and instruction, and assessing not only student achievement but aptitude. Portfolios are being heralded as vehicles that provide a more equitable and sensitive portrait of what students know and are able to do. Portfolios encourage teachers and schools to focus on important student outcomes, provide parents and the community with credible evidence of student achievement, and inform policy and practice at every level of the educational system. (Educational Leadership, October 1994, pp. 48-55)

Rubrics are a great way to assess learning and give students an understanding of how they will be graded prior to completion, whereas tests can be a hit or miss. Rubrics also give the instructor an idea to which degree a student has mastered a concept and allows a child to present these concepts in a variety of ways. Howard Gardner is a known researcher of learning and says that there are 8 different ways students learn. It is important to hone in on the skills that students have a strength in and allow students to learn through these new lenses.

Peer review is method by which a person's peers scrutinize the work that you have done. I feel that peer review is a very practical way to learn. It is important to get insight from the "equivalents" within your industry or field. As a student, and a teacher, I feel that I often learn a lot more from my peers. They often give me insight into something that I would not have thought of. To me, peer review is more of a less threatening atmosphere, than that of a review of experts.