The Portfolio Process
The process of facilitating successful student portfolios can be broken into four steps: Collection Selection Reflection Connection Collection Although the first step, collection, is straight-forward, it is not always an easy step to facilitate successfully. It simply requires students to collect and store all of their work. Three challenges at this step are common. One, most students and many teachers are not accustomed to documenting and saving all class work. Two, there is seldom an obvious place to put the work as it is collected, particularly when artwork or lab work is involved. And three, it is not always obvious how to generate artifacts from things like field trips, community service projects, jobs, and sports. The key skill in this step is to get students accustomed to collecting and documenting whenever possible.. Selection How one facilitates the second step, selection, depends on the kind of portfolio (process or product oriented) and to what degree a teacher stipul