Contact:

Paul Gathercoal, Ph.D., California Lutheran University – gatherco@clunet.edu

Douglas Love, Illinois State University, Gerry McKean

Gerry McKean (Illinois State University) and

Susanne Maliski (Ascension Lutheran School

What purpose does your assessment tool serve? 

The portfolio is used in the teacher education program at CLU. Teacher candidates submit evidence of practice. Faculty provide feedback to candidates. This ongoing conversation provides formative assessment of student work. The program portfolio is currently organized into five benchmarks, A to E. Currently we use the six California Standards for the Teaching Profession and additional items selected by the faculty. A summative review of student work in an exit conference occurs at the end of the program.

The flexibility of our webfolio system allows selection of standards and competencies by program faculty. While student work is considered a permanent entry into the system, each semester new or revised standards and courses can be included for subsequent cohorts of students.

The portfolio is also used by all instructors in the program for their classes and students submit their course work for evaluation and feedback via the webfolio. Student submissions included word processed materials including a philosophy statement, lesson plans, and personal reflections. Scanned evidence of K-12 student work, links to other student prepared material, and digital photos and video can also be included. The use of the webfolio provides teacher candidates experience in imbedded use of technology in education.

We are now using the webfolio structure in the K-12 classroom context with our student teachers and cooperating teachers consisting of teacher assignments, learning resources, student artifacts, mentor feedback, and curriculum standards for K-12 partner schools.  Within the K-12 school system where teachers are held accountable for their students achieving statewide curriculum standards they utilize a K-12 web-based portfolio system that facilitates assessment, evaluation and reporting in a single web portal.

The webfolio system provides a valuable database of student work and faculty evaluation that supplies data for research on teacher and program development.

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Please indicate which category best describes your tool:

a.        Tools that allow users to ask questions of data (tools for collecting and disaggregated data, including surveys, self-reported data and standardized data)

b.       Tools for observation (including teacher observation and observation of  student behavior or performance)

c.        Tools for reviewing student products (including electronic portfolios)

California Lutheran University’s ProfPort Webfolio System performs all of these functions to some extent, but probably fits best in category C – Tools for reviewing student products (including electronic portfolios) – It performs these functions at both the Higher Education and K-12 levels.

Who is the audience for this assessment tool?

The audience of users is comprised primarily of the students, faculty, and supervisors in the teacher education program. Students control access to their materials and can also make it available to potential employers.  It is also pertinent to K-12 teachers and administrators who would use the K-12 ProfPort Webfolio system to tie authentic assessment to national and state standards.

What technology is used?

Student and teacher machines should be a  PC connected to the WWW.  The PC should have Microsoft Office installed, including Internet Explorer.  The server software is the Profport Webfolio System which has the following capabilities.

Approximately how many people are currently using this system?

Web site:

California Lutheran University’s Webfolio Access and Information:

http://public.clunet.edu/~gatherco/eportfolio/index.htm  (The link for the “Example Webfolios” is recommended and is NOT password protected.)

ProfPort Webfolio System Homepage:

http://www.folioworld.com (The link for the “Portfolio Walk Through” is recommended and is Not password protected.)

What professional development (for students or assessors) is required to use the tool?

A) For the ProfPort Higher Education Webfolio –

Students: There are few if any professional development sessions needed for students to use the ProfPort Webfolio system at California Lutheran University.  That is probably because we have been using the ProfPort Webfolio system successfully for four years and it is now part of the culture in our School of Education.  When professional development is needed, it can be completed in one hour of instruction in a computer lab.  We offer help for students during “Open Lab” times throughout the semester, however only a few students take advantage of this help (approximately twenty) each semester.  The main professional development provided to students occurs when they contact the ProfPort system administrator via email and request an ID and password for the system.  The students are emailed the following and this is all they need to use the ProfPort Webfolio system.

Faculty and Mentors: The ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call them “Levels of Maturation.” 

At the lowest level of maturation, faculty and mentors need no professional development at all.  The ProfPort Webfolio administrator simply displays in the system all courses that are offered that semester and students register for the course and place their artifacts in the system.  The courses they take and artifacts they display determine the organization of the student’s Webfolio.

At the higher levels of maturation, faculty and mentors need a two-hour professional development session in a computer lab in order to be functional with the ProfPort Webfolio system.  Faculty and mentors are given hardcopy documentation, although information about how to use the ProfPort Webfolio system is on the “Webfolio Access and Information” webpage: http://public.clunet.edu/~gatherco/eportfolio/index.htm  The information is generically password protected and the User Name and password are communicated to faculty and mentors during training.

B) For the ProfPort K-12 Webfolio System –

K-12 Students: Students are functional with the ProfPort K-12 Webfolio system after one 45 minute session in a computer lab. 

Faculty and Mentors: The K-12 ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call them “Levels of Maturation.” 

At the lowest level of maturation, faculty and mentors need no professional development at all.  The K-12 ProfPort Webfolio administrator simply displays all courses that are offered that year in the system and students register for the course and place their artifacts in the system.  The courses they take and artifacts they display determine the organization of the student’s Webfolio.

At the higher levels of maturation, faculty and mentors need a two-hour professional development session in a computer lab in order to be functional with the ProfPort Webfolio system.  Faculty and mentors are given hardcopy documentation, although information about how to use the ProfPort Webfolio system is on the “Webfolio Access and Information” webpage: http://public.clunet.edu/~gatherco/eportfolio/index.htm  The information is generically password protected and the User Name and password are communicated to faculty and mentors during training.

Parents/Caregivers can be given access to the K-12 Webfolio system when they logon with their own ID and password.  They need limited instructions, communicated via email, and they are functional with the system. 

To use the tool effectively, what else should the school have in place?

For the Higher Education ProfPort Webfolio System –

The ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call them “Levels of Maturation.”  Schools need different resources to use the ProfPort Webfolio system at the different levels.  Common to all levels of maturation, schools will need access to the Internet, a Webfolio server and computers loaded with basic software packages like Microsoft Office.

At the lowest level of maturation, schools simply display in the system all courses that are offered that semester and students register for the course and place their artifacts in the system.  The courses they take and artifacts they display determine the organization of the student’s Webfolio.

At the highest level of maturation, webfolios are organized by curricular requirements and electives or standards established by a cadre of educators or the institution; and students can generate their own portals for displaying work samples and achievements within the same curricular structure or institutional standard.  In addition, educators link standards, department goals and other descriptors like higher order thinking taxonomies to specific webfolio items, including student generated work samples and achievements.  Institutions of higher learning would need to identify the specific standards and goals to which they are teaching, what assignments are addressing which standard and goal, and agree upon a rubric for assessing student work.

For the K-12 ProfPort Webfolio System –

The K-12 ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call them “Levels of Maturation.”  Schools need different resources to use the ProfPort Webfolio system at the different levels.  Common to all levels of maturation, schools will need access to the Internet, a Webfolio server and computers loaded with basic software packages like Microsoft Office.

At the lowest level of maturation, schools simply display in the system all subjects that are offered that year and students register for the subjects and place their artifacts in the system.  The subjects they take and artifacts they display determine the organization of the student’s Webfolio.

At the highest level of maturation, webfolios are organized by curricular requirements and electives or standards established by the teachers, the school district, or the State; and students can generate their own portals for displaying work samples and achievements within the same curricular structure or school standards.  In addition, educators link state or national standards, school goals and other descriptors like higher order thinking taxonomies to specific artifacts, including student generated work samples and achievements.  Schools would need to identify the specific standards to which they are teaching, what assignments are addressing which standard, and agree upon a rubric for assessing student work.

If you haven't already addressed it, how does your tool help students or teachers demonstrate that they are meeting standards?

A. For the Higher Education ProfPort Webfolio System –

 The ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call

 them “Levels of Maturation.” 

At the highest level of maturation, webfolios are organized by curricular requirements and electives or standards established by a cadre of educators or the institution; and students can generate their own portals for displaying work samples and achievements within the same curricular structure or institutional standard.  In addition, educators link standards, department goals and other descriptors like higher order thinking taxonomies to specific webfolio items, including student generated work samples and achievements.  Webfolios allow for multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback from mentors and educators and to redeem their work through alterations in the webfolio system; and at the end of a period of time, generally the length of the unit of study, the educator can “lock out” students from making further alterations on their work sample and assign a quantifiable summative assessment to their work.  “Locking students out” functionally disables the student’s ability to make changes to specific work samples and achievements and it enables educator’s to link quantifiable summative judgments to specific student work samples.  Then, the institution can export this data to a spreadsheet or statistical analysis program to ascertain how many and which students did not meet, met or exceeded standards linked to specific work samples and achievements.  The institution can use the assessment data generated from the webfolio system each semester to assist with program assessment and revision.

 B. For the K-12 ProfPort Webfolio System –

 The K-12 ProfPort Webfolio system can be implemented at a variety of levels.  We call  

 them “Levels of Maturation.” 

At the highest level of maturation, webfolios are organized by curricular requirements and electives or standards established by the teachers, the school district, or the State; and students can generate their own portals for displaying work samples and achievements within the same curricular structure or school standards.  In addition, educators link state or national standards, school goals and other descriptors like higher order thinking taxonomies to specific artifacts, including student generated work samples and achievements.  Webfolios allow for multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback from mentors and educators and to redeem their work through alterations in the webfolio system; and at the end of a period of time, generally the length of the unit of study, the educator can “lock out” students from making further alterations on their work sample and assign a quantifiable summative assessment to their work.  “Locking students out” functionally disables the student’s ability to make changes to specific work samples and achievements and it enables educator’s to link quantifiable summative judgments to specific student work samples.  Then, the institution can export this data (the specific assignment, the student score, linked to specific standards, goals, and taxonomies) to a spreadsheet or statistical analysis program to ascertain how many and which students did not meet, met or exceeded standards linked to specific work samples and achievements.  The institution can use the assessment data generated from the webfolio system each semester to assist with program assessment and revision.

What questions would you like participants to address?

If you were to use the ProfPort Webfolio system, at what Level of Maturation would your K-12 school, college or university commence its practice?

The TABLE below provides a series of affirming statements that when answered with a “Yes” this is present or a “No” this is not present, can be used to ascertain an educators or an educational institutions’ Level of Maturation.

TABLE 1.  Taxonomy of Criteria for Ascertaining an Educational Institutions’ Level of Maturation from Portfolios to Webfolios and Beyond.