-> Quotes are taken from a message written by Sheila to Charles on
-> 08/11/96...
-> SK>Of course, the College Board spends an enormous amount to train
-> SK> these teachers on specific questions each year (I think 1.5
-> SK> days out of 2 work weeks is spent on the training before
-> SK> the actual grading of the exams begins). What state is
-> SK> going to be able to give that much training time to all the
-> SK> teachers in their state?
-> What college admissions officer wants to pour over volumes of essays
-> and interdisciplinary projects to determine if a student has basic
-> skills? What employer would do it?
Although I agree with you, that it is not likely that college admissions
personal, nor employers wish to even glance through multitudes of
portfolios to decide on their candidate selections, the point I was
(trying to) make was not quite related to that.
I was suggesting some way of evaluating a portfolio down to a grade in a
consistent fashion, similar to what is done in scoring the free response
sections of the AP examinations.
They do have a Studio Art AP course, in which the students submit
portfolios of their work. I have no idea how this subject area is
scored, but if it is similar to scoring in the other areas, grades are
awarded very consistently.
When a college receives a score from the College Board for a student who
submitted a portfolio for the AP Studio Art course, the college does not
see the student's portfolio, only the grade. (I believe it is possible
for the school to order the students portfolio, or in some manner,
borrow it for viewing, if they desire, but that requires some additional
effort on the part of the university.)
An additional barrier I see to achieving consistency in scoring
portfolios across an entire state, is that the instructors will not all
give similar assignments, they will not all have samples of the same
type of work in their students portfolios. Unless, beforehand, the state
gives some sort of detailed outline as to what type of work should be
represented in the portfolio.
-> How much does it tell the prospective college that the child was able
-> to put together 3 well done essays and 4 projects - it says nothing
-> about the student's average work or daily effort.
True. I don't know. I can tell you that I personally am disenchanted
with the idea of implementing portfolios. I see the arguments that
advocates mention, about the student being able to see growth over time
in their assignments. I do think that is valuable. However, it is SO
much work. I tried to dabble a bit with portfolios last year in my
Intermediate Algebra class (being reasonable, I selected only a single
course to implement them in). Unfortunately, these were remedial
students who were not well adapted to doing non-routine assignments.
They didn't like writing essays or reflections. I had them do one
project early in the year, which I liked, where they selected magazine
articles or newspaper articles, etc.. in which they noted that math was
being used. I felt that for this particular group of students it was
important that they see math being used all around them.
But all too quickly, I noted that I was falling behind in covering the
curriculum. I had to keep pace with the other instructors teaching the
same course. The students needed more intensive work in basic math
skills that they should have had before my course. I got bogged down
with the other courses I was teaching, the general rat-race of trying to
keep up with grading papers, etc..., and the portfolios fell by the
wayside. :-(
At the workshop I attended in July for the Geometer's Sketchpad software
from Key Curriculum Press, one of the presentors did give some very
detailed suggestions on how she implemented and graded portfolios.
Perhaps, in a couple of months when I have some time I might type up
something about how she suggested using portfolios in a math class.
Sheila
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