Portfolios

and

Conferences

Diego Acuña

Lorena Peña

AGENDA

1. Portfolios (Definition and benefits)

2. General guidelines for using portfolios

3. Guidelines for using portfolios interactively

4. Conferences (Definition and benefits)

5. General guidelines for conducting conferences

6. Record-keeping.

7. Activity

8. Conclusions

Portfolios

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of students´

work that demonstrates to their peers and others their

efforts, progress, and achievements in given areas.

The primary value of portfolios is in the assessment

of students achievement.

Classrooms in which portfolio assessment plays a

major roles are more student-centered, collaborative

and holistic.

Benefits of

Portfolios

A continuous, cumulative record of language development

A holistic view of students learning

Insights about progress of individual students

Opportunities for collaborative assessment and goal-setting with students

Tangible evidence of student learning to be shared with parents, other educators and other students

Opportunities to use metalanguage to talk about language.

Portfolios provide

Students involvement in assessment

Responsibility for self-assessment

Interaction with teachers, parents, and students about learning.

Students ownership of and responsibility for their own learning.

Excitement about learning.

Students 'ability to think critically about schoolwork

Collaborative, sharing classrooms.

Portfolios Promote

General guidelines for using portfolios

Getting started

Teacher plays a

leading role

Teacher must guarantee that portfolios are used actively

& interactively

The implementation

of portfolios takes time.

It is a matter of negotiation

between teacher and students.

What are portfolios?

File Folder Box Any

expandable container

Work kept in portfolios

Samples of writing

List of books

that have been read

Book reports

Tape recordings

of speaking samples

Favorite short stories

Amount of work kept in portfolios

The number of

pieces should be

limited

portfolio of

current work

Portfolio of

completed

work

It is necessary

to review and

update the

portfolio

periodically.

Decisions should be

shared by teacher and

students, so that students

maintain ownership of

and responsibility for

their work

Systematic review

and analysis of

portfolios should

be carried out on

regular basis

Teacher

Students

Parents

Other teachers

Educational

professionals

have access to

portfolios.

Keep the

portfolios in a

common readily

accessible area to

which students

have easy access.

Guidelines for Using Portfolios Interactively

The sense of responsibility and excitement for learning can result from the use of portfolios and critically depend on :

1• Portfolios being used interactively

2

• Students’ assuming ownership of their portfolios

3

• Students’ controlling the review process.

Suggestions for making portfolios interactive

vehicles for promoting student involvement in

learning

Include students as much as possible in decision making about their portfolios.

Students choose the pieces to be included in their portfolio.

Negotiation about how work will be assessed and which criteria will be used for assessment.

Plan portfolio conferences periodically.

With school-aged students, include parents in reviewing portfolios

Encourage students to review and share their portfolios with other students

Organize reviews of individual student portfolios by small groups or the whole class

Ensure that the discussions of portfolios are positive and collaborative and under the control of SS.

Adopt always a positive collaborative and supportive attitude .

Portfolios & Student Self-Reflection

Be agents of reflection &

decision making

Have control of their own learning.

Reflect on their own learning.

Assess their own

strengths & weaknesses

Identify their own goals for learning

By using portfolios Students (SS) can

Specific ways of Accomplishing

Reflections

Brief describing

note

Allow SS to control the review

process

Compare pieces of

work

Select their most

improved and most difficult

work

How can they

overcome strengthen weaknesses?

Set goals for language

development

Encourage SS to reflect on their work in front of their

peers.

To ask SS write or give a

comment about usefulness of portfolios for

learning.

Guidelines for using portfolios to plan

instruction

Teachers can use portfolios to plan instruction that is responsive to students needs.

Plan regular conferences

Review SS´work after major units or periods

of instruction

Look for recurrent and persistent SS’ difficulties and keep a record.

Listen carefully SS´ comments about difficulties they have faced during the process.

Engage SS in joint a goal setting and instructional planning, and ensure that these goals and plans are

incorporated into teachers’instruction.

CONFERENCES Are used to review the content of portfolios

Conferences can be used more widely as part

of evaluation, and generally take the form of a

conversation or discussion between teachers

and students about school work.

Conferences can include individual students,

several students, or even the whole class

CONFERENCES AND

INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING

Identify successful and problematic learning strategies or

styles that students are using.

Identify aspects of instruction that students have and have

not successfully mastered.

Identify problematic aspects of language performance for

individual students.

Understand students’ motivations and interests.

Benefits of

Conferences

Teachers direct questions to their SS

to gain insights about:

1. Their application of skills and knowledge taught in

class.

2. Specific difficulties they have when doing schoolwork

and how they resolve them .

3. The processes or strategies they use in the performance

of certain language-based tasks.

4. Their understanding of or beliefs about certain aspects

of language, such as reading and writing.

5. Their interestand goals with respect to language.

6. Their understanding of and responses to intructional

activities.

Additional Benefits

To be self-reflective

To assume responsability for their own learning

To collaboratively set individual learning goals

To assume ownership of learning

To recognize and enjoy their accomplishments

To communicate orally in one-to-one conversations

with their teachers about schoolwork in ways that are

important to them.

GUIDELINES FOR CONDUCTING

CONFERENCES

CONFERENCES

Students must

feel that the

conference is

under their

control and for

their benefit

Having students

review the work

for you

Teacher must

permit students

to comment on

whatever is

important from

their point of

view.

WHEN TO CONFERENCE?

Conduct the conferences with each student on a

regular basis throughtout the year or course in

order to monitor progress.

When the conference is used at the end of a

major unit, conferencing can help assess learning.

Conferences that are conducted irregularly and

infrequently are not useful for instructional

planning, nor does this allow students to become

familiar so that it is maximally beneficial.

CONFERENCING AND GRADING

RECORD KEEPING

It is also useful to record observations and

insights arising from the review.

Recording comments about conferences is

especially useful and important because the

conferences do not provide a written record.

Specific ways of

accomplishing

record keeping

Conference and

portfolio notes

Teacher

Journals

Checklist

Rating Scales

Activity

http://lopeflo25.wix.com/lorena-

http://dilicing.wix.com/diego-

CONCLUSIONS

Portfolios and conferences are innovative and valuable methods of collecting information for evaluation..

They give SS opportunities to use language with teachers in ways that rarely occur duringclass time.

When both portfolios and conferences are used interactively, they give SS a sense of involvement in, control over, and enthusiasmfor learning.

Bibliography

Geneese & Upshur (1996) Classroom-basedevaluation in second language acquisition. p. 98-117