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ASSESSMENT & TECHNOLOGY FORUM June 19, 2004

 

2004 Gallery Walk Projects Title: FolioTek Organization: University of Missouri - Columbia and LANIT Consulting, Inc. Web site:  http://www.foliotek.com

 

Contacts / Presenters:	User: Kellye Crockett ( crockettk@missouri.edu ) Developer: Chris Miller ( chris@lanit.com )
What purpose does your assessment tool serve?	•  Allows education students and professionals completing initial and advanced degrees to document their knowledge and skills •  Used by students seeking their four-year undergraduate teaching degrees and advanced degrees (Master, Ed. Specialists, Ed.D. Ph.D.) •  Portfolio system allows student to show their growth over time •  Portfolio evaluation takes the place of comprehensive exams in graduate programs •  Portfolios are required for all certification areas, including K-12 teacher, principal, superintendent and counselor •  Incorporates peer review and presentation portfolio capabilities
Please indicate the category that best describes your project:	Technology as an Assessment Tool: ___ NCLB Statewide Assessments (Preparation, Delivery, Analysis) ___ Classroom Assessments (tests, quizzes) _ X _ Electronic/Digital Portfolios ___ Computer Scored Essays ___ Information Management Systems ___ Tools for Observation of Student Work/Behavior ___ Special Needs/Alternative Assessments ___ Other:________________________   Assessing Technology Skills (NETS * S and NETS * T): ___ Digital Transcript ___ NCLB 8 th Grade IT Literacy ___ High School IT Graduation Requirements ___ IT Certifications (Cisco, Microsoft, etc.) ___ 21 st Century Skills ___ Other:________________________
How long has this assessment tool been in use within your organization?	Three years
Who is the audience for this assessment tool?	•  Teacher Development Program Students •  Advanced degree recipients in School Leadership and School Counseling •  Faculty and staff in SCDE's •  Public school partners who work with students in field placements •  K-12 schools interested in incorporating electronic portfolios into continuing professional development activities
What technology is used? (Please indicate hardware, software, and networking requirements)	Foliotek is a Website hosted in a secure data center. Users simply connect to the system via the Internet. Users need only a Web browser to connect to the portfolio system and begin using it. The portfolio system is built on the following components: •  Hosted system with a Web-based interface •  Runs on a Windows 2000 server with the .NET framework •  Data is stored in Microsoft SQL Server database and XML •  Data can be imported to and exported from Foliotek to other systems
Approximately how many people are currently using this system?	K-12 Students (current year) Please indicate grade level(s):______ 80 K-12 Teachers 1300 Teacher education students (including advanced degree recipients) 100 Teacher education faculty   Other
What professional development (for students or assessors) is required to use the tool?	Because our system has an intuitive interface and a simple structure, students do not need much training prior to using the system (typically 1-2 hours total). Faculty attend one initial training session when they begin using the electronic portfolio system (one hour). Faculty responsibilities in the electronic portfolio system are focused on providing formative and summative evaluative feedback to students as they produce and revise their portfolios. The electronic portfolio system provides vehicles for formative comments, summative evaluation records, and coordinated peer reviews. All of these functions are covered in the 1-hour training session. Additional help is available as needed from the portfolio coordinator on site in the College of Education .
To use the tool effectively, what else should the school have in place?	The University of Missouri-Columbia portfolios for all degree programs and certification areas (pre-service teachers, principals, superintendents and school counselors) are standards based.  Pre-service teacher portfolios are organized around the Missouri Standards for Teacher Education Preparation (MoSTEP) standards, which are INTASC-based.  School leader portfolios are organized around the Interstate School Leadership Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards.  School Counselor portfolios are organized around the Missouri Quality Indicators for School Counselors.  These standards are infused throughout the program, so students are already familiar with them when they begin work on their portfolio.  Each set of standards has an accompanying scoring rubric upon which the portfolio is evaluated. The portfolio system uses an interface that is equivalent in skill level to Web-based email or online shopping. For those students interested in increasing their technology skills, the portfolio system can accommodate images, HTML coding, audio files and video files in addition to text and graphic files. Over the past three years, we have seen an increase in the variety of file types included in student portfolios. The portfolio system follows a "common tools" approach that allows students to utilize their knowledge of common applications and formats such as MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, and HTML. Allowing users to keep their artifacts in these common formats means they can begin immediately adding artifacts they have already created, they don't have to learn a special tool or format to create their artifacts, and their artifacts are in a common format that can be used in other contexts outside of the portfolio system. This also accounts for the ease of training students to use the system.
If you haven't already addressed it, how does your tool help students or teachers demonstrate that they are meeting standards?	The portfolio system provides multiple levels of assessment beginning with the individual student and going all the way to programmatic assessment. Scoring rubrics are set up that allow faculty members to evaluate a student's portfolio based on the standards which have been associated with the portfolio. This information allows the faculty member to provide formal feedback to the student on how well the artifacts he/she has included meet the standards. Completed evaluations can be published for the student to view, allowing the student to see where he/she may be excelling or where attention may need to be focused. The student is then able to revise any artifacts in the portfolio and resubmit it for evaluation. This formative process of assessment/feedback and revision continue as long as deemed necessary by the program or teacher. There is a standards view on the portfolio that allows the student and faculty member to see how different items in the portfolio are associated with different standards. At a glance they can do a standards gap analysis to see which standards they are addressing well and which standards may need more attention. Although not directly addressed in the questions, it is also worth noting that the portfolio system allows us to extract programmatic data related to the successful implementation of standards within the College. Viewing cross sections of this data helps us to understand how different areas of the College are successfully infusing the knowledge and skill of the standards within the curriculum. These data-aggregated reports can be exported for more involved analysis.
What questions would you like participants to address?	•  If you were using this tool in your education environment, what other components would you find useful to include in this system? •  Where does portfolio assessment fit into your overall strategy for assessing students and/or faculty in your educational environment? •  Does your educational institution use portfolios for advanced degree recipients?