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Showing Mastery Through Student Portfolios
Ever wonder what student portfolios look like in a real classroom? How about in a real JCPS classroom?
Grade 4 ELA teachers at East Clayton Elementary did just that last year, and invited us to come see how it worked in a real classroom. With our interests perked, the Grade 4 team graciously invited us to join their classes to see the portfolio process in action.
"Hi! Welcome to our class!"
And what a welcome it was.
Upon entering Ms. Meagan Parrish's room, we immediately realized this was no ordinary classroom.
Students were scattered in multiple seating arrangements around the room, each with a Chromebook in their lap, each individually enthralled in creating their Unit 2 Artifacts. Their mission: To create a portfolio to prove they had mastered the major concepts and standards for Unit 2.
Shared in Google Classroom, Ms. Parrish and her PLC created a working template of Google slides. Each slide focused on a specific priority standard. To focus students' attention, guiding questions were provided as the notes under each slide. We learned this multiple times from every student when we asked, "How do you know what to write?"
Some students chose to answer by simply responding on the slides.
Others chose to answer via pictures and narratives.
And others answered by creating short videos of themselves explaining their understanding.
Peering over a shoulder or two, we asked a student how they knew they had mastered first and third person narrative?
"Because I can describe it without looking back at my notes."
As students worked, Ms. Parrish pulled students individually, to provide another means of checking both student understanding and progress. By asking probing questions, she worked to help students connect meaning to their assignments, as well as better explain thinking in their portfolio artifacts. A few of her questions to students are below.
"So this is about allusions...Why did you choose to take a picture of...?"
"So if you think you mastered this here, what is different here?"
"Allusion is something I'm finding we all need to discuss again..."
We asked another student if they thought this helped them learn better. His response was priceless.
"Yes, because say you forgot something you learned before. I can go back to my artifacts or my videos I recorded and remember what I learned."
We also asked students what data they used in their portfolios.
"Well, in math, we used our math scale score [i-Ready] to prove growth. For our Native American tribes unit, we used our [pre and post] assessment scores to also prove what we learned."
So what happens when students don't master a standard? What happens then?
We decided to head straight to the source for our answer: another 4th grade student.
KW: "Have you ever not mastered something?"
Student: "Yes."
KW: "What did you do?"
Student: "I tried harder the next time."
KW: "What does 'tried harder' mean?"
Student: "I tried, and I tried, and I tried until I understood it better. I used my videos, my notes, until I understood enough to explain it."
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| A student ensures she understands a concept well enough to explain it in her own words by re-watching a video lesson. |
Wow! We left Ms. Parrish's class to join Ms. Danielle Simerman's class across the hall. We were immediately greeted with a daily warm-up...of dancing! Because we're team players, we joined the fun.
As students settled back down, their wiggles wiggled out and mental focus regained, we were greeted once again.
"Hi! Welcome to our class! My name is Kaelee and I'm the class greeter today. Let me explain what we're doing today..."
Similar to Ms. Parrish's class, Ms. Simerman's students were also engaged in completing their Unit 2 Artifacts. Some students worked in pairs, others on their own. But every student knew the expectation, the reasoning, and how to use their digital tools to complete the task at hand.
As students worked on their artifacts, they used an interactive notebook to reflect back on previous learning.
Ms. Simerman used this time to conference individually with students. With each student, she addressed what goals they made at the beginning of the year, their progress thus far, their goals for the end of the year, and what each student could do to reach their individual goal.
"These are good goals," she encouraged, "Let's remember for math to write down the problems," (the student gave a knowing nod in agreement). "Remember take your time at the end of tests...finish strong."
During a different conference, another student suggested, "I could read a book and have my parents ask me questions about it..."
As Ms. Simerman and the class explained at the beginning of the period: "It's my job and your job to help each of you...GROW!", the class chimed in together.
In addition, we learned a new bit of knowledge ourselves from the 4th graders at East Clayton! For example, did you know you can search for and insert a Google image directly into Google Slides, without ever leaving Google Slides? See student's screen below.
Want to learn more about showing mastery through portfolios? You have a few options:
1.) Click here to view some student examples.
2.) Click here to view sample portfolio templates and resources, provided by Ms. Simerman and Ms. Parrish.
3.) Stay tuned to the next Spotlight on Powerful Practice, when we get a teacher perspective of what it's really like to give their 4th grade students the reins. Learn their biggest triumphs, hurdles, and advice for others!
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