User:Shaunamcclure10

Student portfolios can be used within a particular school year or throughout a child's education. A portfolio identifies as checkpoints. These checkpoints signify important milestones of student learning and once enough artifacts are gathered in the portfolios students and teachers can assess growth. Conversations about student growth can occur through teacher-student and student-student. Students can then reflect on their own growth individually and include their analysis and reflection into their portfolio. Portfolios can be used as a tool to encourage students to keep trying their hardest because they have a concrete view of how far they have come and how to create appropriate goals as to where they see themselves in the future. Portfolios can give students identity and ownership of their knowledge and skills and allows students to evaluate themselves and set future goals. Teachers can bring in levels of portfolios. Teachers can discuss what high growth, average growth, and low growth looks like in a student. Also through this analysis teachers can discuss strategies used to receive high growth in students and discuss strategies needed to bring the average and low level students to higher growth. Teachers are able to have those collaborative conversations not only with their co-teachers but bring the entire discussion to all the teachers in that content area. After analysis, reflection, and observation teachers then can come up with SMART goals moving forward and an action plan to ensure appropriate steps to promote the success they would like to see in their students. Also if teachers hit a road block as to what extra strategies are needed. Instructional specialist can step in and provide professional learning opportunities that help guide teachers in the direction they are trying to go. Once the teachers begin to implement their action plan they can gather information and bring it back to the professional learning community and reflect and collaborate on whether the teachers are on track to reaching their goals. Portfolios give teachers and students concrete evidence to student growth and allows both students and teachers to assess, reflect, and plan for future growth.
 * Purpose and process of using student artifacts and portfolios
 * How these items can be used within the context of a professional learning community framework