Documenting Learning with Digital Portfolios

Olivia, a sophomore at Ponaganset High School in North Scituate, Rhode Island, sat down last June with two of her teachers in front of her digital portfolio—a multimedia, Web-based collection of her best schoolwork. A menu listing the school's nine graduation expectations, including Effective Expression, Research Skills, and Critical and Creative Thinking, appeared on her portfolio's home page. The school's faculty had worked for a year developing these expectations and aligning them with the state's standards. Clicking on the link to Effective Expression, Olivia and her teachers reviewed the list of learning outcomes associated with this expectation, including the ability to express ideas for various purposes and audiences and the ability to use communication skills in each subject area. The screen also contained links to about 20 entries, each showing a sample of Olivia's work that reflected this graduation expectation. During the last two years, Olivia had entered diverse work samples into her portfolio, including a sonnet, a solution to an open-ended algebra problem, and an audio file of her flute performance at the school's winter concert. For each entry, Olivia had written a summary of how her work met one or more of the school's graduation expectations. Her teachers had assessed each entry using an online rubric and given her feedback, so that Olivia could review her work and the comments from her teachers at any time. This end-of-year review was a chance to look at the portfolio as a whole. By this time, Olivia's portfolio contained two to four artifacts for every course. The review focused on a few artifacts that she had selected, each linked to one of three reflective prompts: Where have you done your best work? Where have you grown as a learner? What is your academic plan for next year? Because Olivia's teachers had been able to look at and comment on her selected work online before meeting with her in person, they used this meeting to discuss with her what she had done well and what she needed to accomplish during her next two years to meet Ponaganset's graduation expectations.