Portfolio Revolutionized
Renewal and Rejuvenation of a High School Student Portfolio Requirement
Kara Gleason
Final Project, EDC 534: Digital Authorship
University of Rhode Island, May 2022
Introduction
Our career & technical education high school has long had a portfolio requirement. Over their four years of high school, students collect, reflect,and curate academic, career and technical education (CTE) work, along with other materials, into a portfolio suitable for sharing with instructors, colleges, employers, parents, and others as desired.
Despite the benefits of student portfolios, students, instructors, and administrators were growing wary of the portfolio, primarily because of the platform. As a Microsoft/Office 365 school, our portfolio platform (until this year) was Microsoft OneNote. For a variety of reasons, including accessibility, ease of use, and aesthetics, students, teachers, and administrators were ready for a change.
Portfolio Revolutionized stemmed from a school initiative focused on school improvement, teacher leadership opportunities, and integration efforts. A sub-committee of teacher leaders worked to review, revise, and rejuvenate our student portfolio.
A new portfolio manual, a sample student portfolio, a new platform: Adobe Creative Cloud web page, and a variety of training and support materials for teachers and students helped move our program away from complaints over the old platform toward the benefits that portfolios can provide including a more thoughtful, deliberate, and holistic depiction of learning and achievements.
As a result of this project: students will be able to: create (and share) their Minuteman student portfolio as a web page using Adobe Creative Cloud Express. Students and teachers will be able to utilize the library media center web page and library media specialist for training & support in the portfolio creation process, and gain a renewed sense of purpose and enthusiasm for the student portfolio.
Portfolio Curriculum Project Components
LessonWriteUpGleasonPortfolioAprilMay2022.docxTraining sessions drew on the “power of two” as the portfolio lead teacher and the library media specialist offered two one-hour sessions to nearly 200 students and teachers in nineteen different career & technical education programs. These interactive lessons guided students to navigate resources helpful to the Minuteman portfolio process; utilize essential components of Adobe Creative Cloud Express, and create a web page for their student portfolio.
The Portfolio Resource Guide includes the Portfolio Manual, a sample student portfolio, a Creative Cloud Express training web page, portfolio rationale and benefits video and infographic, and references.
A how-to webpage was built using Adobe Creative Cloud Express. This page provides extra support for visual learners and those who would like to review or learn the step-by-step process.
Students completed a survey (Microsoft forms) at the end of the training. A likert scale captured that 92%: somewhat agree, agree, & strongly agree that "the portfolio training helped me learn more about the portfolio requirements and process and helped me learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud to build my portfolio website."
This newsletter was sent to all staff, and posted on the library media center website. It highlighted 9th grade portfolio training, the Portfolio resource guide on the library website, and the how-to materials for working with Adobe Creative Cloud Express.
Wakelet helps provide ease of access to a variety of educational research sources about the benefits and rationale for student portfolios.
Portfolio Samples
Support and training for student portfolios is ongoing. The following are screenshots of student portfolio submissions and web pages in progress.