Thing 16: Digital Portfolios for Students

This tool attracted me, because last year, for the first time, we had our eighth graders create digital portfolios of their work.  They made presentations at the end of the year, to parents, administrators, and a few selected peers, and we all congratulated ourselves on getting them through the process.  

But I was disappointed in the final result, because something was missing.  It seemed that the students were standing in front of an audience, projecting images of art they had created, essays they had written, math equations they had solved, but without showing anything of their understanding of the work.  It was simply: "I did this."  Not: "In this project, I came to understand . . . "  I didn't see any metacognition.

The article, "The Art of Reflection," by Beth Holland, addressed this concern.  She suggests the need to have the students build reflection into their work, but not just during the time that they are working on developing their digital portfolio.  She points out that by having students focus on just a few essential questions from the beginning of the year (such as "What are the characteristics of good problem solvers?") and having them address these as they work, they can begin to incorporate their reflection into their portfolios, and this is learning that they can include in their presentations.

Since my school has spent a long time developing our mission and vision, and the students seem aware of the basic tenets of both, I think driving students to express how they have demonstrated tenacity, purposeful thinking, and self-advocacy in the work they choose to include, can make their portfolios more meaningful as we work on them this year.  We will begin this sometime during the second semester, but I am glad that I read this article in advance, because I am hopeful that this year presentations can be made more meaningful.

Matt Miller and Kasey Bell discuss the use of digital portfolios in their podcast "ePortfolios and Google Sites," (note -- they don't begin talking about portfolios until the 8:00 minute mark) and they talk about how student portfolios can be what are called "Showcase Portfolios" or they can be reflective of ongoing work.  I think that last year, our students' portfolios were definitely "showcase portfolios," because our scholars were only presenting one work for each content area, and they were usually showing only what they felt was their best work.  How much more interesting would the portfolios be, if they instead showed student growth?  

Miller and Kasey talk about how some schools have students develop portfolios in middle school and then continue them through high school.  This would definitely give them the opportunity to show growth.  So what I am having them start now may be continued.  But why I can't I get them to include both the first and final draft of an essay?  They can explain some of the revisions that they made, and why, and this would be another way of having them address the problem that I had mentioned earlier, with the lack of reflection.

Since my students will be using Google Sites, and there are so many things that they can do as a result, I would like to have them create a video that they embed into one of their pages, that includes their reflection.  In "Portfolio-O-Yeah," one physics teacher had his students develop digital portfolios that highlighted their work in his class, but also presented more information about the scholars.  I noticed that in one example, a student had included a video in which he was explaining something.  

I think it would be awesome to have a student include a video explaining some project that he or she had worked on.  I feel like my students would actually be more engaged if they were developing a video, too, and -- unlike a live presentation -- they would be able to come back and revise this video until it met their own standards of excellence.  They could see themselves as others see them, critique themselves, and make it into something that met their own standards for excellence.  And to be honest, my students are much more video savvy than I am.  Just watching them pose for selfies has taught me that!  

In any event, I fully intend to make our digital portfolios into something that carries more resonance for our students than our fledgling effort last year, and I am eager to get started on them next month.