Using Portfolios to Assess Student Work more Effectively

10% homework, 40% quizzes, 20% participation….. sound familiar?

The result seems to be students working to achieve a grade as close to 100% as they can, while being confused about how they can even calculate their own grades. Teachers want students to realize the power of a strong work ethic and develop intrinsic motivation necessary for deep learning, however, we often use an enigmatic grading system rather than meaningful feedback. The focus is on the grade achieved rather than the learning. This is problematic and all too common. Learning is not simply an end goal but a process as well.

I use portfolio assessments in my world language classroom according to the following general guidelines.

1. Change the vocabulary to assessment and performance-based assessments. It more accurately describes what we, as teachers should be doing.
2. Start with the end in mind. The ultimate goal for our students is to develop a certain skill or content knowledge. Therefore, we need learning targets, both a mixture of skills and content, in relation to which we can assess a student’s current ability and progress towards their goal.
3. Assessment needs to happen early and often. Students need feedback immediately to know where they stand and specifically where they can improve.
4. We don’t need to “grade” everything. If the purpose is to give feedback, then everything does not need to be recorded. Nor is it practical to record grades as much as they could be given.
5. Not all grades need to be numerical. What’s wrong with meets standard, approaches standard, exceeds standard with narrative to go with it?
6. Informal assessments are as useful as formal assessments. They often take less time, and specific feedback can be given quickly and easily. They serve to guide instruction and student work.
7. Grades should be disaggregated. What do you do if a student turns in a project that completed all the requirements and has acquired all the content but turns the project in one day late. Some teachers would take 50% off the total score. So instead of a 95, that student now has a 47. What does that tell the student when factored into the 20% category of projects? When a parent looks at the 45%, is it clear what the student could or couldn’t do? Have categories that represent specific skills: work ethic (turning assignments in on time and completion), collaboration, content, critical thinking, etc.
8. Metacognition should be a part of all major assessments. Students need to reflect on the quality of their own work and the contributions they made to a project.
9. Open-ended performance assessments that show what a student can do rather than what they can’t, perhaps given freedom to display their achievement of skills as content through the platform of their choosing.

10. Involve your students in the grading process. They can help to choose the wording of the rubrics or alter the categories. They can also peer and self-assess. Rubrics and feedback should be put in kid friendly terms, so they know what they can do to improve.

Here’s an example:

My French II students were doing a unit on French cinema. The goal was for students to gain an understanding of the place the cinema holds in French culture and how that differs in products, perspectives and practices of Americans. The main project was to create a whole class blog for the local community to encourage the viewing of French films from the library. The performance assessments were as follows. They had a conversation with a friend deciding what movie they wanted to see that night and why. They took a description about the movie Les Misérables that we watched that was very short and choppy and made it made it more complex using object pronouns. They chose their own French movie to watch and created a blog post about it, including brief synopsis, general opinion and recommendations. Each student then had to choose one other movie to watch based on the description of their peer and leave a comment to their review.

Each assessment was designed to show what a student was able to do with the language in order to elicit meaningful feedback. I also designed smaller assessments along the way to be informally assessed by peers or the teacher in order to check for progress.  All assessments used the same or similar rubrics with shared vocabulary. Each had component of proficiency, content and, if it was a group task, collaboration. The language of the rubrics were put in student-friendly terms, and modified based on student feedback. Each item that was formally or informally assessed was numbered and placed in the portfolio with a note from the students about the success they achieved and an area of improvement to focus on.

At several points along the way, we as a class stopped so the students could reflect generally on where they were in the process and write something longer than they did in the quicker checkpoints. This reflective process was also assessed using a rubric. These reflections can be used to create individualized work for students or serve as a general temperature check for the teacher in scaffolding the work. The half-year reflection point is especially useful for setting goals, and involving parents. With the use of rubrics, students stop discussion around topics like “getting As instead of Bs” and move to using specific language about their own proficiency and work style. This does have to be modeled in the beginning.

Portfolios give students an individualized targeted method of focusing on what they can do with the language. They analyze their own strengths and weaknesses with the help of the teacher and peers to continually improve on specific areas. They can be either housed in a paper folder in the class or digitally on-line. In my world language class, I prefer the digital version, so we can include speaking, writing, and tech-based assessments, like Voicethread, podcasts or blogs. The students are excited to have, virtually or physically, tangible evidence of their success.

My ultimate goal would be for reported “grades” to be a narrative and based on meeting a standard. This however is a larger school or district decision.  Therefore, when using a portfolio assessment, a teacher will have to decide for themselves what it would look like as translated into a numeric grade.

I hope we can all begin to contemplate the power of this type of assessment. Think about when you were in school and received grades you did not understand, that did not in actuality assess what you knew or were able to do with the skills and content that were acquired. In most classes, grades are an end result. Learning should be the end result with grades a way to focus the students and give them direction on how to create an individualized implementation plan.

Get Real!: Cultural Literacy through Authenticity – Part One: The Whys

“Culture is an abstraction; it cannot actually be seen or touched…. We see people acting in agreed-upon ways in the face of similar situations…we notice people moving their bodies in certain ways – making choices in their lives about where to live, what to eat, how to learn, how to work and love – in response to similar events and experiences, and  say: “oh, these people belong to the same culture”.  (H. Ned Seeyle)

Our recent #langchat inspired me to blog about something which I am truly passionate, using authentic texts in the world language classroom.  We discussed the definition of culture and how to teach it.  Because culture is fluid and amorphous, it is difficult to define.  The website http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/ expands upon culture as a skill.

I like the term “cultural literacy” which includes:

• The ability to perceive and recognize cultural differences.
• The ability to accept cultural differences.
• The ability to appreciate and value cultural differences.

In my experience, the most effective way to teach culture is through the use of authentic texts.  They can teach cultural literacy because they contain authentic cultural information and give students exposure to real language.  Ned Seelye writes: “Learning a language in isolation of its cultural roots prevents one from becoming socialized into its contextual use. Knowledge of linguistic structure alone does not carry with it any special insight into the political, social, religious, or economic system.”

What is an authentic text?

A “text” isn’t limited to something written down. A text can be a film, an artifact, anything in a language and culture that conveys meaning.  Authentic texts are print, audio, and visual documents created and used by native speakers. Examples include books, web sites, articles, artwork, films, folktales, music, advertisements, videos, posters, news, songs, food, commercials.  Think of any experience you go through during a normal day in a foreign country.

Follow the Leader

You don’t have to be a school administrator to lead school reform.  My former school principal, @MsKWeldon had a wonderfully positive approach.  She said she was speaking to anyone willing to listen.  (There would inevitably be naysayers who would find problems with anything and everything, and she wasn’t going to twist their arms.)  Her idea was that the enthusiasm of those who were “on-board” would serve as an impetus to those who were not.
Let’s watch this idea in action:

When you are trying to incite a positive change or adjust streams of thought, focus on those who are willing to join.
My last year of teaching, I worked very closely with my colleague @senoralopez designing rubrics to increase proficiency and thematic units based on authentic texts and authentic performance assessments.  The first followers joined because they overheard the enthusiasm in our conversations about planning, not because a new initiative had been forced upon them.  They were embraced!

Voice Thread as an Assessment in the World Language Classroom

Voicethread is a fabulous tool for a world language teacher for several reasons.
1. It is a performance assessment.
2. It can be differentiated to varying levels and needs.
3. The student is the creator and the audience.
4. It can be viewed publicly.

In my French I class, we completed a unit on the children’s story, Il y a un Alligator Sous Mon Lit (There is an Alligator Under My Bed). The students learned the rooms and furniture of the house, prepositions, fears, and how to compose a message before reading the story. Then they listened, read, watched, and acted out the story through various activities. There were many formative assessments along the way to test acquisition of vocabulary, and the summative assessment was to create a unique story based on the format of Il y a un Alligator Sous Mon Lit.

This assessment showed me what the students are able to do with the language. Rather than testing the students for discrete information, in a test or quiz that shows what they don’t know, they took what they learned and produced the best product they could at their proficiency level.

This class is extremely varied in needs and proficiency level and, I was able to modify the requirements to fit each student. Some students had more requirements than others. I provided templates for certain students, while more advanced students were given less direction. I compacted the past tense for one extremely advanced student and she wrote he story using the preterite and imperfect complete with irregular verbs!! Voicethread allows individual needs to be met on both ends of the spectrum!

After the student creates the Voicethread,they were required to view and comment on all of the other students’ Voicethreads. Because they know their project is public and viewed by their peers, the quality is better.

Using this tool in the classroom enables students to become better equipped to use Web 2.0 in a productive and responsible manner.

Below I have included a few examples of varying proficiency levels:
http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=1908951
http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=1908915
http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=1908915
http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=1893226

Mid Year Portfolio Assessment

Before teaching French, I taught science, so the idea of a writing portfolio was something that I never tried before until this year.  The portfolio is simply a manila folder with a cover sheet, filled out by the students, that lists the date of the assignment and notes about what they could do to improve upon their writing.  Each writing performance is scored using a rubric, in most cases the same or a similar rubric.  Whenever the students receive work back, they put it in their folder.  They look at any notes, not corrections, I make on their paper, and then write notes to themselves on the cover page.  Halfway through the year, they take everything out, examine it chronologically and fill out a form that speaks about their success and improvements still needed to be made.

I was proud as their teacher to be able to see the evolution of their work throughout the year.  Never until this year, have I seen such growth in my students in such a short time.

What worked:

For many writing assessments, the class completed collaborative brainstorming.  This took many forms: a scaffolded list of ideas that they shared with the class, stations they used to break the task down into smaller pieces, blog posts that afforded them the opportunity to free-write, i.e.,writing just to write.

Peer proof-reading was a part of many longer, non-timed writing assessments.  The students passed their papers in a group of 4.  1st pass: read for organization, details, effort, 2nd pass: check grammar, 3rd pass: check spelling, accents, 4th pass: check that all requirements are fulfilled

Having a writing portfolio makes students focus on the writing process.  Opening that folder each time gives them the desire to see improvement in their writing and provides them with focus.

Using authentic texts in the classroom shows students what the living language looks like.  They acquire such an abundant amount of vocabulary and awareness of the language that is not actually taught directly.

Grammar is taught specifically with a purpose, not just as the next discrete concept to learn.  Writing is done as a performance assessment and the grammar is necessary for its completion.  Using performance assessments make the writing meaningful for the students.

As a teacher, I am more cognizant of what they are actually able to do with the language.

Places to improve:

I could have the students write what they are proud of for each entry and 1 improvement they have made, so they can reflect on their writing each time, rather than simply citing my suggestions.

I would like to have a true beginning of the year entry to serve as a point of comparison, without using any of the techniques I employ throughout the year.

What techniques do you use to help your students improve their writing, L1 or L2?

Thanks for reading!