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<< back to Early Education/Cognitive Development Portfolio Assessment: Children Talk About Their Own Learning How can schools evaluate the successes of each student and define the areas of concern that will assist in planning an effective program of instruction for each child? And, more important, how do we coordinate the act of learning and the assessment of learning so that the evaluation phase is not separate from and unconnected to the children themselves? School communities all over the country are talking about assessment and there is much attention being focused on testing and evaluation practices. Amidst the heated debate about how best to assess the developmental learning of young children is a growing recognition that numbers generated by standardized testing is not enough information to provide to parents. There's a need to balance the numbers with more qualitative and descriptive information about a child's learning. Proponents of what has been called the authentic assessment movement pro-pose a simple but powerful recommendation--that children can play a major role in the assessment of their own learning. At Crow Island School, we know this proposition is true, as the children here participate in the assessment process. For the past six years, our students have been compiling portfolios of their work that document their learning benchmarks chronologically and, more important, encourage a direct involvement and ownership in their learning that is simply not possible with standardized tests. Portfolio assessments incorporate children's thinking. The collection of their schoolwork is influenced by reflective conversations with teachers and peers and provides a direct mechanism for children, teachers and parents to understand the evolving process of a child's learning and the level of success achieved. Portfolios tell the story of a child's learning. The specific contents of the portfolio's collection is far less important than the children's thought process as they construct and assess collections of their work over time. We have learned that children's understanding of portfolio becomes a part of their learning as we provide opportunities for them to be "in charge" and to articulate the link between past and present learning. Last spring, a group of second grade students visited a first grade class to help the younger students prepare for their very first "Portfolio Evening." This is a time for children to present their portfolios to their own parents. All of the second graders summarized the contents and structure of their collections and explained why they have included each piece. The second grade students' conversations shifted naturally from the "what" to the "why" of their portfolios. Tim plucked out his writing journal from the early weeks of first grade. He then thumbed through his portfolio telling the group how he needed to find something he had just finished the other day. He then held up both pieces of writing--one in each fist--to the upturned faces of the first graders and said simply, "See?" His teacher, sensing a magical moment, asked Tim what he wanted the first graders to see. "Well," Tim answered, "There are more words on this page. I use upper and lower case letters here. This is words, but this is a story." This story about a young child's learning cannot be assigned a number or a letter grade. It is what Pat Carini, former director of Prospect School in Bennington, Vermont, refers to as "that in learning which is immeasurable." Tim's breakthrough comment allowed all of us to share in his insightful description of his writing. At his young age, he already knows the significance of collecting work over time and organizing his thoughts about his own growth. Our challenge is to bring powerful qualitative anecdotes such as Tim's to be valued as examples of a child's self-evaluation process at work. |
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