Reflective Response- Week 3

The article, Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning, focused on the difference between assessment for learning and assessment of learning and identified 10 research based principles related to AFL - assessment for learning. With my experience as a "regular classroom teacher" and being a technology teacher and integrator, I related most with the idea that "AFL should be recognized as central to classroom practice." I think this tenet is especially important, because if teachers start thinking, planning and teaching with this in mind, it will take root in the students. After the students get in the habit of thinking about how they are learning, what they are learning, why it's important to them, and what they need to learn next, they are taking responsibility for their own learning. AFL is more than a skills checklist that the student may be oblivious to. If a student is able to keep in mind that she is building an AFL portfolio while working on projects and assignments, I think the learning will be more valuable.

In my opinion, portfolio assessment has great potential. We all know that some kids don't test well, and even if a child knows all of the objectives, if test anxiety overcomes the child the day of the test, I don't feel that's accurate or fair, especially in high stakes testing situations. I feel that the aspect of document improvement on the child's previous best is important. If focus can be placed on the improvement, I think that is extremely powerful to a child that struggles. I've seen how frustrating it can be for a child who tries over and over again, and no matter what she does, misses "the mark," even though she is improving. The success of her little improvements get lost in the failure of missing "the mark" that everyone else is hitting. While I think that portfolios are a turn off to some teachers, becuase they are not uniform and standardized, which I admit does add time and complexity to grading and such, I think the benefits outweigh the possible headaches.

I think creating my ETEC Leadership portfolio will cause me to think more about the work I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and how/why it relates to my goal of obtaining my Master's degree.