Contact:

Gigi Devanney – devanney@jhu.edu

What purpose does your assessment tool serve? 

The JHU Electronic Portfolio is a standards-based system that builds on and extends the traditional paper portfolio. The EP allows students to demonstrate attainment of competency in relation to established educational standards, provides an online journal for reflection, and includes a powerful embedded messaging system that promotes and encourages on-going collaboration with peers and advisors.

Pre-service and in-service teachers use the EP to gather and reflect on their work, compose personal interpretations of educational standards, communicate with peers and advisors and present evidence of their professional development over time. 

The EP was designed to accomplish the following objectives: 

§         Promote and support a focus on the development of quality content by providing users with an easy-to-use, template-driven, online tool for creating, storing and accessing their portfolios anytime, anywhere.

§         Encourage and facilitate ongoing collaboration by furnishing users with an easy, safe and secure method for sharing their work with peers, advisors, a portfolio review team and prospective employers.

§         Reinforce and encourage reflective teaching practice by incorporating a journal tool and the ability to convert journal entries into portfolio artifacts to demonstrate growth over time.

§         Enhance and enrich the portfolio process by inspiring students/users to create a final presentation portfolio that serves as both a showcase of their work for prospective employers as well as a vehicle for continued professional development and reflection.

Please indicate which category best describes your tool:

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

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

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

Who is the audience for this assessment tool?

The JHU EP is an electronic portfolio designed to be used by pre-service and in-service educators. At successful portfolio review is required for program completion at JHU. The EP takes the place of the traditional masters thesis.

Pre-service and in-service educators, institutions of higher education, and school administrators.

The EP was developed as an electronic extension of the traditional paper portfolio system that had been used at JHU for more than 8 years.     Although the EP was specifically designed to be used by educators, (pre-service and in-service) it is a flexible framework that may also be appropriate in other fields.

What technology is used?

The EP is web-based may be accessed from any computer with access to the Internet – a 56k modem is suitable.  So far, all of our portfolio communities have been hosted here at JHU. But we are willing to explore licensing the code to run on a school or organization's local server in one of two formats  --one in which the code is encrypted (and thus not modify-able) or un-encrypted (able to be customized and integrated into existing systems).

The application is written in ColdFusion, with some HTML, DHTML, and javascript.  The database is SQL2000.

In terms of browsers we recommend that users use Netscape 4.7 or higher and/or I.E. 5.0 or higher.

Approximately how many people are currently using this system?

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

Very little.  The JHU EP accommodates novice to expert technology users.Although the JHU Center for Technology in Education fully supports the EP and offers a variety of wrap-around services designed to ensure successful implementation, the program is an easy-to-use  web-based tool.

Consulting services are available on both the application and the portfolio process and can include interviews, surveys and focus groups to establish a clear plan for implementation and sustainability. CTE then employs a train-the-trainer model using both face-to-face and online tutorials to instruct stakeholders in the effective use of the EP tools and functions.

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

We have worked with organizations that are familiar with the portfolio process as well as those that are new to the world of portfolio assessment. Obviously, faculty and students need access the internet and basic computer skills. The JHU EP is web-based and although several hosting models are available, most institutions prefer to have JHU host the application.

A recent addition to the JHU EP is the Reviewer interface that allows the review team full access to the competed portfolio, provides tools for reviewer note-taking and offers the ability to record preliminary scores based on a four-point rubric.

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

The JHU EP is customizable in a number of ways allowing, for instance, a program to determine the standard sets that will provide the primary organizational structure for the student portfolios. In addition, students can easily input their own sets of  local, state, or national standards that may be relevant to their area of study. The EP provides a structure that promotes clear demonstration of professional capabilities and achievements and it encourages a goal-oriented approach to education and provides and easy method for tracking progress.

What questions would you like participants to address?

What is your overall impression of the tool?

Contact:

Lynne Mainzer – mainzer@jhu.edu

Gigi Devanney – devanney@jhu.edu

What purpose does your assessment tool serve? 

   It is not uncommon for principals and supervisors to be faced with more than hundred teacher observations in a year.  Teacher Compass is a Web-based application that provides a practical, efficient, and time-saving way for principals and school administrators to gather, input, and analyze teacher performance data.  Teacher Compass helps to save principals valuable time by providing a portable, standardized, template-driven system for collecting teacher observation data that can be customized to a school district’s evaluation procedures.

Please indicate which category best describes your tool:

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

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

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

Who is the audience for this assessment tool?

Principals and school administrators

What technology is used?

Web-application for Windows /or Mac.

Approximately how many people are currently using this system?