Portfolios Across Educational Contexts: issues of Evaluation, Teacher Development, and System Validity

Abstract

We report here a case study of literacy portfolios across 2 different settings. Specifically, we investigated (a) how well portfolios document literacy learning that is both authentic and aligned with curriculum, (b) teachers' ability to interpret and evaluate portfolio evidence from more than one site, and (c) what teachers learn about literacy instruction and assessment as a result of cross-site collaboration. Results suggest that portfolios contained authentic artifacts of students' literacy experiences, although a substantial amount of evidence was judged to be missing from the portfolios Nevertheless, with a shared understanding of literacy learning, teachers were able to reach a high degree of agreement when rating portfolios from different sites and enhance their understanding of both learning and assessment through the cross-site evaluation process. We suggest that the results should not be interpreted simply as findings on portfolio assessment. They must be interpreted in light of a complete portfolio system in which attention is given to generating and collecting artifacts, supporting collaborative evaluation, and providing ongoing professional development. Supportive internal and external conditions must be present if portfolios are to become effective tools for literacy assessment and professional development.