Reflective portfolios help scholars consider their own growth. Project portfolios identify their interests and undertake more determined assignments.
Background and Purpose
We discuss our use of portfolio assessment in undergraduate nursing. Portfolios are concrete and rather personal expressions of growth and development. The following components, abstracted from creative person portfolios, are widespread to all portfolios and, taken simultaneously, distinguish them from other assessment devices:
Work of high quality,
Accumulated over time,
Chosen (in part) by the student
These characterizing characteristics furthermore show evaluation goals for which portfolios are appropriate. Our use of portfolios is an outgrowth of more than six years of curricular and pedagogical restructure in our department. We focus here on two kinds of portfolios — reflective portfolios and task portfolios — which we use in some second-year and upper-division courses. We also describe how we integrate portfolios with other types of assessment (Knoerr, 1997).
Reflective Portfolios
In a reflective portfolio, scholars select from a broad range of accomplished work using mindfully particular criteria. They are inquired to specifically address their progress over the extent of the course, so early work which is flawed may nonetheless be encompassed to illustrate how far the student has progressed. A reflective portfolio assists scholars consider their own growth.
The collection of portfolios can furthermore help a teacher reflect on the power and flaws of the course. It can issue out strong connections made by the students, and show labors and achievements students had with distinct topics in the course. It can farther open the window to scholar mind-set and sentiments.
Project Portfolios
Project portfolios are one component of a "professional evaluation" model of assessment [1, 2]. The other constituents are "licensing written tests" for basic skills, small but open-ended investigation" tasks, and aimed at "reflective composing" assignments. These different components, modeled on activities engaged in by professionals who use and create nursing, have been chosen to help students develop a more mature approach to their study of nursing (Knoerr, 1997).
Students select tasks from registers provided for each unit of the course. Completed tasks are encompassed in their project portfolio. This method of assessment assists students recognize their concerns, produce work of high value, and undertake more determined assignments which may take some weeks to complete. Collecting work from the whole course boosts scholars to look after the next check or quiz.
Reflective Portfolios
To increase students' self-awareness of how their understanding has developed requires that data about this comprehending be assembled by the scholars as the course progresses. Keeping a journal for the course is a useful supplement to the usual homework, class work, quizzes, and tests. For demonstration, in a real analysis course, students are asked to make a periodical entry two or three times each week as they, among other possibilities: reflect on their readings or problem groups, discuss adversities or successes in the course, clarify or attach notions inside this course or with those in other techniques, or contemplate on their sentiments toward this course or nursing in general. The teacher collects and responds to the journals on a ...