Unit IV: Assessment Strategies for Mathematics in the Intermediate Grades
Lesson 17 – Designing Learning Portfolios
Portfolio assessment is a detailed, unique, and personalized evaluation of what
the learners know and can do. A portfolio is a collection of pieces of evidence of
efforts, learning, development, growth, and achievement. It emphasizes a
learner’s milestone in his/her development of concepts and skills. It contains not
only output and works-in-progress, but also reflections on the learner’s strengths
and progress toward the learning goals.
Portfolio assessment is an example of authentic and nontraditional assessment of learning. the use of portfolio
assessment is an answer to the need for continuous assessment in the course of day-to-day instruction that
traditional assessment, like standardized testing, cannot address.
The portfolio assessment can measure a variety of skills that is not measureable by single testing of traditional
assessment. the portfolio can be written, oral, and graphics outputs set and developed by the learners
themselves. These outputs have some degree of quality that cannot be measured by traditional tests.
Portfolio develops awareness of one’s own learning. knowing the criteria of the content and assessment, the
learner can always refer to these in each stage to verify the progress in achieving the set of objectives and goals.
Furthermore, it also aims to develop independent and active learning.
Portfolio assessment can address the heterogenous groupings of the learners because part of the objecties is to
exhibit the unique and personal efforts, development, and growth of each learner. This flexibility is also a way to
provide opportunities to demonstrate their abilities in a personal preferential manner.
Implicitly, engaging in learning portfolio promotes social interaction between the learner and the teacher and
the learner and other learners. An additional interaction is between the learner, the teacher, and the parent
during the output presentation and feedbacking where the collaborative comments of the parent and teachers
are important for future performances. The collaborative approach of portfolio assessment is an important
element of the process.
Since a learning portfolio is anshored on the theory of self-determination (Deci and Ryan, 2004), students have
the liberty to design it according to their preference. This results to higher student engagement to the task which
in turn improves learner motivation and achievement. Active engagement to exhibit pieces of ecidence of
growth can enhance an individual’s sense of independence, competence, and self-empowerment. These basic
psychological needs, if satisfied together, can improve the learner’s motivation, achievement, and future self-
options.
Purposes of Learning Portfolio
• Portfolio guides the learner and the teachers to set and establish goals aligned in the laerning objectives.
• The process of portfolio ensures the active participation of a learner and helps the learner to examine his/her
growth and development over time.
• The portfolio processes provide chances for self-evaluation and reflection.
• Portfolio enhances the student’s learning and current achievement and showcases and documents the
debelopment and growth in more of a contextualized approach.
• Portfolio can evaluate teaching effectiveness. Portfolio provides flexibility in curriculum and instruction
planning because it highly considers the developmental domains of the learners and the contents of the
subject matter.
• Portfolio can help evalaute and improve the curriculum.
• Portfolio reinforces hands-on and concrete experiences.
• Portfolio can moticate parents and other stakeholders to become involved in the learner’s evaluation plan.
Types of Learning Porfolio
• Documentary Portfolio
This involves a collectyion of work over time, showing the growth and improvement reflecting the students’
learning and identified outcomes. It is also called growth portfolio. The collection and exhibit of items can
be based on specific educational goals or experiences of particular learning area.
• Process Portfolio
This demonstrates all facets or phases of the learning process, hence the arrangement is based on the
elarner’s stages of metacognitive processing. This portfolio contains reflective journals, think logs, and other
related pieces of evidence.
• Showcase Portfolio
This is the kind that shows only the best of the students’ outputs and products.
• Evaluation Portfolio
This includes some works that has previously been submitted.
• Class Portfolio
This contains a student grade and evaluative assessment of the student by the teacher.
• Ideal Portfolio
This contains all the work a student has completed.
In deciding the type of portfolio, the teacher needs to consider the level of the course, the age of the student,
and the portfolio that will be ised and evaluated.
Essential Characteristics of Portfolio Assessment
1. Portfolio is an assessment that is done together by the learners and the teacher. The teacher guides the
learner from planning, execution, and evaluation of the conents of learning portfolios, hence the
interaction and discourse are important elements of the process. Together, they formulate the objectives
that are based on the learning standards. The teacher shall assist the lerner in choosing the conternts or
items to be included in the portfolio based on the objectives, but the learner has the final say on the
selection because the portfolio is supposed to be representing the unique and perdonal preferences of
the lerner.
2. The portfolio is an opportunity to exhibit the samples of work or output that show the student’s
growth,development, and achievement over time. In this purpose, the learner shall reflect or do self-
assessment of his/her own work to identify the strengths and weaknesses so that the weaknesses can
become improvement goals.
3. The criteria for selecting and assessing the portfolio especially the contents must be clear both to the
teacher and students at the outset of the process. The set of agreed criteria can be referred to by the
learner in each step of the process to avoid inclusion of unessential components and to avoid resorting
to what is only available at the time. Necessary planning in each step of the process of portfolio
development can also be done especially by the learner.
The Basic Elements of Learning Portfolio
Cover Letter This part contains th “About the Author,” a brief context of what the
portfolio shows about the progress of development of skills, abilities, and
learning and summarizes the pieces of evidence of progress and learning.
the Table of Contents with
numbered pages
Entries (both the Core and •
The Core Items are the mandatory items based on the assessment
Optional items) criteria
• Core items are • The Optional Items will be included to show the uniqueness of the
those
necessary to be included learner’s output, it may be the “best pieces of work” or “the trouble”
• Optional items are those or “the less successful” with a respective explanation but ultimately
based on the learner’s choice shall be based on the objectives set during initial stage.
Dates on all entries This is to document the proof of development or growth over time.
Drafts of initial oral and written
The first drafts abd the corrected versions – to highlight the changes,
output and the revised versions
identify the improvement, and explain the context.
Reflections The reflections can be at different stages in the learning process,
subjective because it depends on the learner’s unique experiences.
For each item in the core and Provide a rationale on why the item was included as evidence of growth,
optional entries development, and learning. What did the learner learn from it? What
went well for the learner? What needs to improve? What were the
problem areas? What is the feeling of the learner on his/her
performance?
Learning portfolio is one of the authentic assessments that DepEd recommends.
A portfolio is a collection of pieces of evidence of efforts, learnings, development,
growth, and achievement.