The EduGals Podcast

From The Archives: Using Portfolios in the Classroom - E074

• Rachel Johnson, Katie Attwell

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This week, we are talking about the use of digital portfolios in the classroom. We'll explore why you would want to use portfolios, how to assess or evaluate portfolios, and our best tips and suggestions to make portfolios a success in your classroom.

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Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/74**

  • Why Use Portfolios?
    • Fits well with ungrading or mastery-based grading
    • Demonstrates the learning journey by student-selected work
    • Great as a final performance task
    • Works best as a semester or year-long project
    • Focus on reflection, student voice & choice, ownership
    • Any grade, any subject
    • Rachel's blogging assignment
    • UDL - buffet of multimedia options (Katie Novak)
  • Curriculum
    • Select work from each strand (ESL)
    • Explaining misconceptions (Science) or lab notebooks
    • Regardless, it develops thinking, metacognition, problem solving skills
  • Useful EdTech Tools
  • Tips/Strategies for Implementation

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Rachel:

Welcome to the Edge U Gals podcast. We are your co-host Rachel Johnson

Katie:

and Katie Atwell. We are here to bring you tips and tricks to help you integrate technology into your classroom.

Rachel:

In this episode, Katie and I are talking all about digital portfolios. We're going

Katie:

to share the why You should include these in your classroom, as well as some tech tools and some different structures. To help students put them together.

Rachel:

Let's get started. This week Katie and I are gonna go down our journey ar around un grading a little bit more. And what we wanna talk about this week is how to use portfolios in your classroom.

Katie:

Yeah. And arguably it's not just on grading, it's also mastery based. Because it's really a great way for them to kind of demonstrate that. But yeah, so it's this idea of student created portfolios that shows their learning. Students get to choose what they include in it. They can do, you know, a whole range of assignments from beginning of the semester to end to show that skill progression. Uh, there's just so much flexibility in what they choose and how they kind of put it together, that it's a great topic to kind of delve into a little bit and, uh, consider especially, As we shift to another round of virtual and who, who knows what's next, right? So why not consider changing it

Rachel:

up? I was just gonna bring that up too. We, as we're recording, we've shifted into virtual learning. Who knows how long it's gonna go for? It's supposed to be till January 17th, but we'll see. We'll see. So, you know, we might be back in the classroom face-to-face by the time this episode's out. No, no. Cuz this episode's coming out next week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's a really, really great time to, for us to be talking about portfolios because we're in that season where our secondary students are into their final performance tasks, and a lot of teachers, especially with the shift of virtual, are gonna have to rethink what they're doing for that final thirties. So, you know, it's, it's kind of timely that we're talking about it now. I do think portfolios are a much better semester long or year long project, but in a pinch they can do a really great job for even end of semester and being able to structure some of that consolidation of learning.

Katie:

Yeah, totally. Like even when we, if and when we do go back to in-person, there's gonna be a lot of isolation cuz there's a lot of rules right now about. Self-isolation and, and when you can go somewhere if you've been exposed, et cetera, et cetera. So like, we really do need to rethink this. So even if you have students taking evaluations that they did throughout the semester, looking at the feedback they were given and then reflecting on how did I move forward with that feedback? Was it seen in the rest of my assignments or in the rest of my work? What do I still need to work on? Like, these are still things that we can do and, and. Put together kind of a body of work along with reflections, um, to really, I. Help them explain their learning and see their

Rachel:

learning. Yeah, so what I really, really like about this is portfolios are great for any grade, any subject. It doesn't matter. Like you can do portfolios for anything. And so I'm, I'm reminded of. My time as an e-learning teacher when I was doing kind of something similar with my blogging assignments. So I had students creating blogs, which was a way for them to reflect on their learning as we went through the course and gave them an outlet to be able to express that. So portfolios can be, Something as simple as a blog or they can be something that's, I guess, much more multimedia. No,

Katie:

it can be, you know, maybe they wanna do a video where they're explaining some of their learning and how they've developed throughout the semester or you know, maybe they wanna whole bunch of images to kind of help express that. Like it could be such a multimedia piece. Like it doesn't just have to be one format. And I think I like that about

Rachel:

portfolios. I do too. And I think it really kind of speaks. To that udl, the Universal Design of learning kind of framework as well. Because when you set up a portfolio assignment, you're essentially setting up a buffet of choices. And I say buffet of choices because I've read a few books by Katie Novak in particular, who talks a lot about U D L in the classroom, and I think that's. Kind of the analogy she likes to use, but you can set out this buffet of choices in terms of how students want to represent their work. And then students can pick based on their strengths or how they're feeling that day or how they wanna showcase their work. And so it gives them a lot of voice and choice and autonomy in demonstrating their learning through a process. Yeah. And it also

Katie:

gives them the ownership of it. Which sometimes some of our students really need that because then they feel like they can just go with it and be as creative as they want, or be as analytical or, you know, logical as they want. Like they can really kind of just be themselves.

Rachel:

So I think we talked a lot about the why. Yes. Like I, I, I think we've got the why established in terms of why you would wanna do portfolios. They are so great, they're so flexible and there's just. So much creative freedom and student ownership and autonomy, that all goes into it. So we've got that covered. So I guess we can kind of talk a bit about the structure of portfolios, what you might wanna consider having your students choose as evidence as well as like how we're going to assess these. Cuz I think that's the hardest part of doing portfolios in a classroom. Definitely.

Katie:

And it really does depend on your curriculum area. Right, like, so for me teaching English as an additional language, I want them to choose something from each strand. So I want them to talk about reading, so, Writing, speaking, and listening, and talk about how they've developed throughout this semester in each of those strands. So for me, that's going to be, it's gonna look different in my classroom than it would in a science classroom, for example.

Rachel:

Yeah, I would, I would almost err on the side of. Having my students explain their misconceptions as they're going through. Cause there's a lot of misconceptions in science, especially chemistry, especially when you're trying to visualize something that you can't see. Like it's really, really easy to. Have these misconceptions in science and, and that kind of doesn't really help with your understanding and learning of the content itself. So having students reflect on their mistakes and their errors and. Making connections back to the curriculum and why those errors have occurred. Like I think that's really, really valuable in science. Definitely. No, that

Katie:

makes a lot of sense. That's very

Rachel:

logical. It's logical, eh? Oh

Katie:

yeah. But how they present it might not be, who knows? But it make like, it really is logical, like looking at mistakes like, what did I do wrong?

Rachel:

Yeah. And, and I think back to when I was doing, I. Grad school and my PhD and, and all of the fun research that I did, we would have to keep lab notebooks. And so my lab notebooks exist somewhere in a lab in downtown Toronto in a hospital. I won't, I won't name the hospital that I did my PhD at, but it's really cool because a lab notebook is not just about writing down procedures and like kind of the um, The very logical kinds of pieces. It's not just about writing that stuff down, like you do wanna capture that, but then my notebooks were filled with all of my thoughts and all of my, basically my hypotheses, right? Which end up, you know, when you're doing grad school, they end up being just these big. I don't know, ideas and don't, don't really kind of have the structure that we teach in high school, but I'm, I'm kind of segueing a little bit here, but it's, it's really cool to like kind of go back and look and read and reflect on that cuz you can really see how the thinking goes and, and how your project and how your research develops. So that's a skill that I know is important later on if my students ever pursue that kind of pathway in. You know, maybe, maybe only 1% of them do, but it's still a great skill to have. No,

Katie:

I agree. Like actually giving yourself some credit for your thoughts and your thought process and your ideas and kind of talking about those things. That's, that's

Rachel:

important. And I think that's where I get a lot of my problem solving skills now in education. It's all, you know, even if, if my students are not going on in science and not, I. Doing research at a university laboratory, they're still gaining those problem solving perspectives and understanding how to write down their thinking and, and work through a thinking process. And that's what I really, really love about portfolios. I think being able to kind of like mirror. What you do in a, in a science lab, I think is really, really helpful. No, that's,

Katie:

um, yeah, you kinda hit it on the, uh, hit the nail on the head there. Hit the nail on the head. Is that right? Yes. That's the right turn of phrase.

Rachel:

It is the right turn of phrase. Yeah. You can tell I've had a lot of time to think about, about this sort of topic because I've always wanted to design. A high school science course that really kind of simulates what the research world is like because high school science, like, that's not the research world at all. And I, I think that would be really fun. So yeah, keeping that kind of journal as you're going through would be a big piece of it. So

Katie:

maybe next we can talk about some of the tools that students can use, uh, to build a digital portfolio. So right off the bat, what would be I. The most promising tool for you, like the one that has the most potential? I don't

Rachel:

know if it has the most potential, but I would say the easiest one to get started with is Google sites. Like for me, if you're a Google Workspace board or a district, that one makes the most sense to start with because it's super easy for students to build. Websites, there's, there's not a lot of technical skills. It can work well in younger grades. In older grades, and there's a lot of flexibility in terms of what you can embed within a Google

Katie:

site. And if you wanna go even simpler, I would say Google's slides. Like if you don't wanna have to worry about having the skills, like Google Slides is easy too. Like you can put videos, audio, images, et cetera. So that could potentially

Rachel:

work as well. It could work actually. There's some really nice, I, I was just thinking about some of the really nice templates from slides mania. Especially the ones that are like lesson plan, unit plan type ones that have the navigation back and forth between different tabs. So yeah, I, I think something like that could add, add a little bit more to the Google slides. You, you could just set up Google slides and students are journaling and, and doing their reflections as they go through, but if you wanted to add an extra layer of. Of, I don't know, fun visual appeal. Then I would say investigating some of the slides, mania templates would be also something

Katie:

I would do. Another one, and I didn't really think of it until fairly recently, is book creator, because you can put so much there, like once again, video, audio, et cetera, images, like there's so much potential with that as well. I

love

Rachel:

that and. As soon as you said that I, so in, in our, in our board, we are not allowed to use book grade or with students unless they have a, uh, special education accommodations and they have a prescription for it, then they're allowed to use it. But otherwise we're not allowed to use it with our classes. So that makes me really sad. I know, but I

Katie:

still had to mention it cuz it's an awesome tool.

Rachel:

Yeah, for sure. And. If we could use it, I would say that that would be a really neat one cuz you could then even lay out a table of contents at the beginning and have that navigation built right into the book and you can create a library for your class. So it's a really easy jump off point to go into each of the different portfolios. For students to see each other's portfolios too, if you choose to do that.

Katie:

No, it's great. And then if they wanna share it with their families, uh, et cetera, like it's, it's kind of the way that it presents as an actual book where you're turning pages with that motion. It's really exciting. It's, it's a neat tool.

Rachel:

It is. It's lovely. And yeah, so. If you can use Book creator, use book creator, cuz I think that's gonna be a really fantastic choice. Yeah. So another one I have, which maybe is not like your go-to kind of app, but Wake Lit could be a really interesting option because with Wake lit you could have your students create a wake lit collection or awake is what they call them. But then they can also create other wakes and then embed wakes inside wakes so you can get all, I know it, it gets ridiculous, but you can get all of this nested kind of ability and you can customize in terms of layout a little bit and different sort of. I don't know. I, I don't even know how, how many different sort of layouts they have. They've added a few extra recently, but I think that's a really interesting option too.

Katie:

And then I have to be the boring one and say, what does your LMS offer? Um, that being said, I do like the Brightspace portfolio. And if you're using Brightspace, you may as well take advantage

Rachel:

of it. Yeah. Sometimes simple is good, right? And so if you have a tool built into your lms, so Brightspace by D two L has a portfolio tool and it's already there and you're already using the LMS anyway. Why not try it out and see if it fits your needs? I personally haven't used it very much though, so I'm curious what your thoughts are, Katie.

Katie:

So I've just kind of had students play with it a little bit. I haven't used it intensely yet because I haven't actually had them do portfolios and. I'm not gonna lie, when we're in person, I prefer being in person and not using Brightspace. So, so I kind of just use it as like a storage right now for my courses, like that's where I put our slide decks or whatever our lessons, but I, I don't. Use Brightspace very much. Well, now that I'm online, I have to, but yeah, and

Rachel:

that's really interesting, right? Like the use of your lms, it changes depending on whether you're face-to-face or virtual, and the needs change whether you're face-to-face or virtual. I know I would be using. Both very, like it vary differently in one sort of situation versus the other as well. Yeah, and

Katie:

like my, as much as I, I don't know, it's not very user friendly for my English language learners and so it's very frustrating to watch them struggle through it. I don't know. I want Google Classroom back. They get Google. Google's easy. It's user-friendly. I'm

Rachel:

sorry, I was gonna say, let's be honest here in that. I've been in a number of classrooms this year and I have had a ton of experience with Brightspace, no matter how much you simplify the platform. And I like, yeah, I, I know this opinion may not be popular if anyone from our board is listening to this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's still not like students still struggle with it, even though they've been using it for the past couple of years now. They still really struggle with it. And I think I, I remember back in the fall, I was in one classroom and we. Didn't get a link posted before the class, and so it took, I think 15 minutes out of our class time just to get this link and get all the students on it because it was a jam board and we needed it. And so it was a bit of a disaster. Agreed.

Katie:

Uh, yeah. We could talk

Rachel:

for hours about that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think we're digressing a little bit. Yes.

Katie:

Yeah, so you can use your LMS is the message here. So no matter what you're, what LMS you're using, take a look and see if there is a tool on there that would allow for the creation of a portfolio.

Rachel:

Yeah, it does look like Canvas has. An e-portfolio tool. So that's something that you could look into for Canvas, I'm sure the other ones do as well. Or they have some kind of tool that you could leverage in a way to create those digital portfolios. And, and that's

Katie:

just it. Like you don't need a specific portfolio tool to make a portfolio like Brightspace. Happens to have one, but that doesn't mean that you need one that says

Rachel:

portfolio. Exactly. And so that actually brings up my next suggestion. And this one's gonna seem really outfield and it's something I've just started exploring and that's

Katie:

notion. Yes. And you shared it with me and I've been taking a peek every once in a while. It's very, what are my words? It's a little bit bare bones.

Rachel:

Is that fair to say? It can appear to be kind of bare bones when you first open it up, and I think, I think maybe it's not maybe the best for us. It, it's definitely not the best for younger students. Let's put it that way. I would say your secondary grades nine through 12 could probably handle working and notion, but I think it comes across as being a bit bare bones because it's so customizable. And so the problem with that is it does come with a bit of a learning curve. Yes. Like

Katie:

D's powerful, there's a lot that you can do with it. Like in my, what I have done, which is very minimal, but um, There. Yeah. It's just, it would take a while to learn it.

Rachel:

It would, so, yeah. Uh, it's, it's an interesting one though. I've actually seen, and so I've, I've kind of been diving into this further, further and further, and I've even seen people doing their resumes on notion and doing all these really cool things, so, I think coming up, we are gonna dedicate an episode to Notion because this could really, really change your life in terms of your organization and. Getting stuff done, but I, I thought it might be an interesting one to kinda throw in there for the portfolios as well. Um,

Katie:

another thing that I saw, and it makes sense, but using different tools to create the different pieces. So using Flipgrid, if students wanna use Flipgrid to do some videos, um, using Screencastify, et cetera, whatever really tools you're allowed to use, whatever's out there. Um, but for compiling. I mean it, you could use anything. It could just be a video. They could be creating a video. I. A video alone and just kind of showing physical pieces of work and talking about them, like it doesn't have to be

Rachel:

complex. Yeah, and I think we probably have some really good suggestions in our curating videos episode that we did fairly recently, and so. You might wanna go back and take a listen to that because a lot of those ideas for teacher curated videos could also work, especially if your portfolios are more video

Katie:

based. Yeah, and I could see that for some students. Like some of my students I think would want to just be in front of a camera talking, maybe showing their screen every once in a while, but, But like for a lot of my students, I think that would

Rachel:

be a good fit. Yeah. And then I would say kind of exploring even some of the audio tools. And so we've talked about audio tools as well before. We talked about several of them in our podcasting episode. So things. Like Moat. I would say Moat is probably my number one, especially if you're having students creating their portfolios and Google Slides. That integration is just so nice and you can get them reflecting and recording audio in very short snippets too, which is kind of nice because you don't need to listen to something that's super, super long.

Katie:

No. And. It's so complicated to record something that's super, super long. So recording in like shorter spurts is actually probably easier for students

Rachel:

too. Yeah. But then there's also things like Vocaroo, you could record your audio there. You could also record your audio using Google Read and write. So there's, there's a variety of options to get audio as well. All right. We, we've given you a lot of tools to think about and I think that's enough tools. Really it's, it's about picking what's going to work for you and what's going to work for your students, and kind of giving them options I think is gonna be really, really useful. But in terms of structuring the portfolio assignment itself, like this could become quite a beast. So what do you do? What are, what are some of our tips and ideas for making it, I guess, not so overwhelming? I think you

Katie:

wanna figure out the number of either assignments or pieces of work that you want students to incorporate. You don't want them taking every single quiz and assignment and test and evaluation project, et cetera, because that's way too much. Uh, but have them pick ones that they are proud of, ones that they feel really allowed them to demonstrate their learning and their progress in

Rachel:

that course. Putting a number on it is actually a really good idea. So say you say, I want three pieces of evidence for this unit that demonstrate your learning through this journey. And by putting a number on it and putting an A limit on it, you're creating what I like to call creative constraints. And so what that's gonna do is it's gonna have your students. Naturally kind of working through that self-assessment and self-evaluation process in order to come up with what they think are their three best pieces. And then that also then gives you a bit of balance cuz then you're not looking at all the work. No, it can't

Katie:

be everything. So yeah, pick a number. Give them flexibility as to what they can choose, but I do think there needs to be a reflection

Rachel:

piece. Absolutely. And I, I agree with the reflection as well. So when I did my blogging assignment, I would give a list of prompts and so I think that's really useful. Or a portfolio as well as giving a list of possible prompts that your students can then choose from, and maybe they pick one or two of the prompts for each piece of work that they're highlighting and showcasing to do that reflection.

Katie:

That's, and those prompt questions are super helpful for kids who are looking at this thinking. What do I have to talk about? So at least it gives them a jumping off point, and if they decide to go a little bit further with it and deeper with it, they still kind of know where to begin. Well, it goes

Rachel:

back to udl, so you're giving them the options, but. They don't have to use the options if they don't want to. If they wanna free kind of structure their reflection, I would allow them to do that as well. But those prompts are there if they need them. Yeah,

Katie:

I think that's, that's perfect. Uh, and then, I almost wonder if it's worth doing like a conversation with them about it. I love doing conferencing with my

Rachel:

ELLs. It always feels like there's just never enough time to do that conferencing, and that's where, and and I hear this time and time again, I. That's where the real learning and the real connection happens with your students. So

Katie:

I'm actually doing interviews for my exam. Nice. So it's, it's a time they're gonna have some prompts and whatnot to kind of prepare and think about, and. Reflect on, and then we're gonna have a conversation about their learning and how it went and you know, what stood out to them, et cetera. And so I find they love that. They love to actually talk about it because I feel like it boosts their confidence and gives them a chance to kind of showcase who they

Rachel:

are. I did, and I, I can't find the document right now, but I came across a structure for conferencing and a structure for getting your students ready for conferencing. So, We'll see if we can pull out some of those links and articles and link them in our show notes for you as well. You know what I really love about putting the limit on the number of pieces of work that students are sharing is that then when you're going to evaluate those reflections and those pieces of work, and maybe you are sitting down with a student and doing that conferencing and. Working together on the grade. I think that's the approach I would take now. Then having that limit is going to help with how much time it takes to,

Katie:

yeah, that's a great way to do it because then you know a kid who wants to take. Their whole, whole semester's worth of work to talk about. Uh, they can't, right. They really do have to key in on some key, like some important work to

Rachel:

them. And then I guess my other piece of advice for. Assessing or evaluating this work is to really focus on the process and, and not on the product itself. So not looking at how pretty it looks or, I know we talk about making stuff pretty all the time, but when it comes to student work and student created portfolios, that does not matter. That is something that students can do at the end if they got time for. It, it, it's not important. So focusing on the process though, and the journey of learning versus what the portfolio

Katie:

is. Yes, no, totally. It's all about that process. I don't care if you just videotaped yourself talking about it and you make mistakes. It's, it's more about what you're talking about and what you're reflecting on, and that process of learning and what you've learned from my course that semester. It's certainly not what it looks like. Yeah.

Rachel:

I always found it really tricky. So I, I keep going back to this blogging assignment that I used to do because I, I've reflected on it a lot as I've talked to others this past year and some of the work that I've been doing. And I would go through and I would give it a grade every month and send that back to students with my feedback and for me. Just kind of going down that road of un grading now, that doesn't sit well with me anymore. And so I think my approach to how this would be graded would be very, very different. Like I wouldn't do a grade every month if I was doing a semester long project. I think what I would do is I would have students collecting that evidence, sitting down and giving them feedback. As we go through each unit, but then we would sit down and have that final kind of one-on-one conference at midterm time and uh, final Marks time, like final reporting period. And those would be the only two times at most that I would assign a grade and. I would want that to be a partnership with my students.

Katie:

And how did they take that feedback into their next piece of work? Right? Because that's where the learning is. Like are you able to recognize a mistake, receive feedback, and then address that and move

Rachel:

forward? Yeah. And so putting a grade on it, it's just gonna stop that. And stop that feedback process and that learning process. So I don't wanna be putting grades on a portfolio unless I absolutely have to. I hope that

Katie:

these ideas kind of help you consider portfolios and how you can use them in your classroom to kind of shift away from, you know, this formal exam or formal evaluation process that we're so used to and more towards. Focusing it on student learning and their process and you know how

Rachel:

they learn. Yeah, definitely. And so I think that's a really great place for us to wrap up our conversation. So what we'll do is we'll include any of the links or resources we talked about here today in our show notes. And you can access our show notes for this episode@edugals.com slash seven four. That's edu G a l s. Dot com slash seven four.

Katie:

And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content. And

Rachel:

as always, we would love, love, love to hear from you. Are you using portfolios in your classroom and how are you using them? So you can go onto our Flipgrid and leave us a message there at edu. gals.com/flipgrid. Or you can go onto our website and leave us a written comment@edugals.com.

Katie:

Thanks for listening and see you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of our edu GS podcast. Show notes for this episode are available@edugs.com. That's E D U. G A l s.com. We'd also love to hear your feedback, so leave us a message on our website,

Rachel:

and if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe and consider leaving a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep being awesome and try something new.