Introduction

The goal of a Professional Learning Community is to ensure that teachers are collaborating with one another to ensure students are learning. One strategy that is used to improve student learning outcomes is to review student work by collecting artifacts and creating portfolios. Assessing student work samples is beneficial for the learning community of students, parents and teachers as it provides opportunities for students to monitor their own learning and gives teachers the opportunity to see growth and development in the form of student projects. Additionally, it also provides parents with evidence of their child’s abilities, strengths and areas of improvement. (Sosnowski, n.d.)

Purpose and Process

A portfolio is a “collection of student work that exhibits the student‘s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas” (ASCD Association for Supervision Curriculum Development, 2011). Portfolios help educators and students document exercises and assignments, track growth, reflect and question this growth, and determine what needs to be worked on, to better plan for the future (Roberts, S. M., & Pruitt, E. Z., 2008, 218). Digital portfolios have some added benefits to regular portfolios. Digital portfolios not only document and promote professional growth, but strengthen educators’ understanding of the opportunities technology brings to teaching and learning (Hartnell-Young & Morriss, 2007, as seen in Roberts, S. et al, 2008, p.224).

How These Items can Be Used

Roberts, S. M., & Pruitt, E. Z. (2008) explain that the core reason for professional portfolios is to improve practice so that the students get the best quality education possible. Portfolios benefit the learning community and education in general because they provide a vehicle for preserving samples of all kinds of work, including outstanding writing assignments and projects, teaching strategies and lessons. Recording and documenting these in a professional portfolio makes it accessible for future use, and prevents it from getting undocumented or lost. It also provides a point of comparison and self-assessment of past works and new works, which allow you to see a student's growth or identify learning gaps, with evidence to support it.  Developing and reviewing portfolios collaboratively helps promote growth, communication, and collaboration skills and helps build learning communities. Evidence gathered from individual portfolios, teachers, students and administration, may be used collectively to provide documentation of teaching and learning in the school as a whole. Professional portfolios encourage reflection and research on the part of educators, which is multiplied when colleagues develop their portfolios together or review one another's portfolios. Collaboration also helps to diminish the isolation of educators as they share their portfolios, discuss their practice, exchange ideas about teaching and learning and help them become a community of learners.(p.220).

Conclusion

The learning community of students, parents, and teachers benefits from the assessment of student work through artifacts and portfolios by providing proof of their child's talents. Through the documentation and promotion of professional development, digital portfolios help educators better appreciate the possibilities that technology presents for both teaching and learning. By serving as a means of storing examples of work, offering a basis for comparison and self-evaluation, and encouraging development, communication, and cooperation skills, professional portfolios are advantageous to the learning community and to education as a whole. Through collaboration, educators share their portfolios, discuss their practices, trade ideas and form a community of learners, which helps to lessen the isolation of educators.

References

ASCD Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (2011). What Are Portfolios. 

            https://pdo.ascd.org/lmscourses/PD11OC107/media/Assessm_Portfolios_M1_Reading_What_Are_Portfolios01.pdf

Roberts, S. M., & Pruitt, E. Z. (2008). Schools as professional learning communities (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.

Sosnowski, Jana. (n.d.). Purpose of Portfolio Assessment. Synonym, Retrieved from http://classroom.synonym.com/purposes-portfolio-assessment-5103845.html