Tip: Student Portfolios

Building a collection over time encourages students to make connections from semester-to-semester & provides students with an audience beyond the classroom.

Portfolios are a way for students to reflect on their growth over a semester or, ideally, over multiple semesters. Building a collection over time encourages students to make connections between what they learn from semester to semester, helping with their transfer of learning from one context to the next. The use of portfolios to collect work products also encourages students to focus on continuous improvement through reflection. Susan Blum talks about the gift of time that portfolios allow: “Emphasize the entire portfolio. A semester is a nice, long, luxurious time for a lot of activities, reflection, conversation, writing, and wondering. At the end we can assess the entire experience, rather than students worrying about how an early misstep is going to mean lack of success.”¹

Finally, creating a portfolio removes the artificiality of writing only for one’s instructor and provides an actual audience beyond the classroom: Students can use these portfolios for scholarships, graduate school, and even job applications. Jesse Stommel notes that portfolios are not “a mere receptacle for assignments but as a metacognitive space, one with immediate practical value.”²

SLCC “What is an ePortfolio?”

Some considerations

• Frequent feedback. Use portfolio conferences with students to make the process more of a give-and-take between what students want their portfolio to be and what evaluators want to see. This helps students learn to be more responsive to feedback.

• Curate, don’t collect. Link portfolio criteria to student learning outcomes, course goals, personal goals - have students explain why they are choosing certain pieces for their portfolio, so it’s not just a dumping ground for all their work but a curated space.

• Take ownership. I think it’s important to encourage students to use an external site to host their portfolio. It might be easier for the instructor to use tools built-in to the LMS or hosted by your institution, but it serves students better to take ownership of their site and not run the risk of losing access at a later point.

• Continuity. The real power of a portfolio is in showing growth over time and connecting knowledge and skills development across courses. There are still benefits to using a portfolio in one course, but that type of portfolio is more useful from an assessment standpoint: an individual instructor looking at a body of work and using it to evaluate student progress. Once that course is done, what can the student do with their portfolio? If, however, there’s a clear purpose to continuing the portfolio and opportunities to use the portfolio outside of coursework, students can gain so much more from the process.

For more reading…

• AAC&U overview of ePortfolios provides links to research and some examples of how to use them for students and for faculty

• Field Guide to ePortfolio goes into far greater depth

• Student ePortfolio examples from Salt Lake Community College

1. Susan Blum. “Just One Change (Just Kidding): Ungrading and Its Necessary Accompaniments.” Ungrading: Rewarded by Learning. Ed. Susan D. Blum. West Virginia University Press (2020) 

2. Jesse Stommel. “How to Ungrade.” Ungrading: Rewarded by Learning. Ed. Susan D. Blum. West Virginia University Press (2020)