Student Eportfolios as Formative Assessment

Students’ eportfolios can become formative if your students work on the eportfolios throughout the semester or year. If students just put the eportfolio together the last week of class, then the eportfolio cannot serve as formative assessment.

During the first Eportfolio Review Day which may be at the end of five weeks or ten weeks of school, students select which assignment (evidence, artifact) they will use in their eportfolio. As they share their choice with you, you can assess how well they understand the standard and how well their select assignments demonstrate the standard. You can offer assistance if they demonstrate a need.

During the subsequent Eportfolio Review Days, the students compare the most recent assignments that they have done to the ones they have already selected for the eportfolio. They self-assess their own work in terms of the standard. They begin to think of how they can do better future work to be more completely or more in depth demonstrations of their progress in the standard. As they share their decisions with you, you can assess how their understanding of the standard has increased and how much more discriminating they are in selecting good evidence for their eportfolio.

As students develop their reflection on the standard using the what “I learned previously, what I learned in the course, and what I still want to learn” about the standard model, they share it with you. You can help them develop in-depth reflections that truly illustrates their higher-level thinking about the standard.

When students do peer-evaluations of each other’s eportfolio based on the rubric, their formative assessments allows each student to grow

So how else do you use eportfolios as formative assessment?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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