Tag: ePortfolios

School districts around the country are rethinking how they deliver instruction.

“The current system of public education in this country is not working” said Superintendent John Covington. “It’s an outdated, industrial, agrarian kind of model that lends itself to still allowing students to progress through school based on the amount of time they sit in a chair rather than whether or not they have truly mastered the competencies and skills.”

Here’s how the reform works:

Instead of moving students from one grade to the next as they get older, schools are grouping students by ability. Students, often of varying ages‚ work at their own pace, meeting with teachers to decide what part of the curriculum to tackle. Teachers still instruct students as a group if it’s needed, but often students are working individually or in small groups on projects that are tailored to their skill level. [Source]

I applaud Kansas City Schools for taking this step. I believe this is the first innovative step school districts need to make to meet the needs of today’s children. The industrial model is broken and needs to change NOW. We are losing children in every school in the US. What this means is that teachers need job-embedded professional development, students need a different form of assessment, and everyone in the school community needs to communicate with each other. Change is difficult. It is difficult to envision that the education that parents received isn’t working for their children. All they know now is that assessment means testing — testing means focusing on facts — and it’s important for their students to get high scores on these tests so they get into college. It is going to take the whole school community to embrace the change to ability grouping and then change how they measure learning.

This is the next thing that will have to change. For today’s jobs and future jobs, our children will not need to know facts. All they need to know is available on the Internet. They need critical thinking skills so they can find the information, determine its authenticity, validity, and appropriateness, and then how to use that information in problems, discussions, debate, and written form. It would be cool to work with them designing student ePortfolios. That’s the next step!

I believe all children are unique and smart in their own ways. Allowing ability grouping gives children the opportunity to spread their wings. I cannot wait to see how they fly!!!

I believe that each learner is unique. If you look at a classroom with everyone the same age, the children are diverse. They may speak different languages, learn at different levels, and be almost one year different in age. Schools group them by grade level and test them thinking that each student has the same understanding of the concepts. Not so! I’m into individualizing learning and assessment. One way to do that is ePortfolios supported with individual learning plans.

We are not going to stop testing even if it drives you crazy. It’s just the way it is. There are several types of ePortfolios: assessment, showcase, and resume. I don’t recommend replacing testing with ePortfolios. That’s one way to kill the excitement about them. Using an ePortfolio for assessment and/or evaluation can impact how the learner presents it. There is no risk-taking, creativity or innovation. Everything follows the rules similar to testing. Okay – so use the tests to determine if students are learning at grade level. Personally I don’t believe students have to learn at a specific grade level. That’s following the industrial model that’s been dead for years. We are in a very weird place – a transition to a new type of learning environment. We are stuck in the same old traditional school model: teachers in front the room as the all-knowing expert, schools open 9 months from 9-3 for 5 days a week, and with students grouped by age.

I had lunch with Helen Barrett at ISTE 2010 where we talked about ePortfolios. Helen knows everything about ePortfolios (www.electronicportfolios.org) and she and I agree about keeping ePortfolios as a separate entity from assessment and evaluation. Before you start your ePortfolio, determine your purpose, goal, and audience. If you decide you want to create an assessment ePortfolio, then design it for your target audience. Is it to meet graduation requirements? If so, start collecting evidence of learning right from the beginning of your freshman year. To do that, then create a separate digital file cabinet for collecting that evidence. Collect whatever you think might demonstrate understanding. Then select the most effective artifacts for your ePortfolio.

Okay – back to the showcase ePortfolio. You can create either a personal or professional showcase ePortfolio that provides a forum for reflective writing where learners respond to key questions like:

• What? What have you done well?
• So what? What difficulties did you have?
• Now what? What can you do next time to improve?

Reflection encourages learners to think critically about their own thinking. This process allows learners to take responsibility for learning how to think not what to think.