Portfolios as Learning Stories

Imagine the beauty revealed through time lapse photography. The photographs taken each day do not stand alone with a story, but over time, an image blooms.  The story of growth emerges and it reveals life.  To see what I mean, take a few minutes and enjoy Louis Schwartzberg's TED Talk, Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

A student's learning portfolio is like time lapse photography revealing his/her learning story. I have always valued the portfolio as a demonstration of learning, and I really connect with Sean Grainger's idea for a 13-year learning story.  Imagine if every student traveled through school with a portfolio that demonstrated in the end a 13-year learning story.  A portfolio as a 13-year learning story would be a worthy investment of resources, time and purpose. Not only would the students have an invaluable memory of schooling, but the system would also have the invaluable insight into student identity.

I created an electronic portfolio to express myself as a professional.  I used a Google Site because I wanted to craft it as a model for a student portfolio. Google Sites play well with Google Drive, where many students do quite a bit of school work.  

My Learning Story 

The value of the portfolio multiplies when it is coupled with a student-led conference.  Students own their learning when they are the ones setting goals and sharing progress.  A student-led conference is the bridge from the classroom to the home that teachers spend a whole career trying to build. 

I would like to hear from you. 

Do you use portfolios in your classroom? 

Have you moved your system to an electronic system?

What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?

Could 13-year learning stories emerge at a system level?


References 

Grainger, S. (2010).Personal Learning Stories, KARE Givers. Retrieved from http://www.karegivers.org/2010/02/personal-learning-stories.html

Schwarzberg, L. (2014). Nature. Beauty, Gratitude. TED Talk, Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_nature_beauty_gratitude

More on curriculum and standards

Curriculum and standards have been confused and conflated in recent years.  A simple way to differentiate them is to think of curriculum and standards in terms of cause and effect. 

The curriculum is a guide for a teacher.  It outlines the content and skills that need to be taught.  The curriculum is the cause of the learning. 


The standards are the mandates for a learner.  Standards regulate what the learner must know and be able to do in a public school.  Standards are the effects, or the learning outcomes.  And standards are the law.

I have undergone a few pedagogical shifts since studying Montessori. My practice is now guided by a few beliefs. 

1) Keep it simple and honor the analytical skills of the child.

2) Explore curricular concepts concretely.

3) Learning is a process, not a product.

A curriculum is concrete.  

A curriculum is a concrete outline of what a teacher must cover over the course of a year.  In the Montessori world, a curriculum is found not in lesson plans annotating textbook pages but in a carefully prepared learning environment with materials that span three years of discovery learning.

Standards are abstract.

Standards are abstract learning outcomes.  They are not concrete and are less tangible. Standards are government regulations that reduce knowledge and skills to a bar, a pass/fail result along a sequenced staircase that is designed to march learners in unison to future success in college and careers. (Today's standards are predicted to prepare my children to succeed in the colleges and careers of 2025 and 2026.)   

A standard decides if a student is proficient in x. Assessing performance with a rubric, as is done in criterion-referenced, standards-based assessments,  is a subjective task. A rubric is used to score criterion-referenced assessments when the answer calls for writing beyond a bubble. A performance evaluation given by a boss in a company to decide the competency of an employee is the original rubric. Please note that this task, scoring with a rubric, is in the hands of temporarily hired help in many states.

If system uniformity in our public schools is what we desire as a nation, we need a national curriculum.  Standards will never do the job they have been legislated to do. Only a curriculum can do this work.  However, I must raise one question. Is same what we are striving for?