Growing interest in portfolios as approach to meaningful assessment

In yesterday's Inside Higher Ed, David Scobey noted that...

We humanists are notoriously hostile to systems of assessment. We tend to believe that the most important effects of a humanities education resist measurement: nuanced communication skills, reflective dialogue between theory and interpretation, attention to context and complexity. Conversely the outcomes that can be most readily measured seem to us the least salient: informational content in a sub-discipline, performance of competent analyses according to check-listed rubrics.

He went on, though, to suggest ways in which the educational outcomes most valued by humanists (and not just humanists, I'd like to add) can, in fact, be assessed satisfactorily. Not surprisingly, the approach he suggests involves portfolios. The article is well worth reading for anyone who's interested in assessment of student learning outcomes that's really meaningful rather than just going through the motions. By the way, be sure to read the very interesting comments posted by readers at the end of the main article.

Now comes today's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education which quotes still another article in Academic Commons: “ePortfolios may be the most likely vehicle to help us make the transition to an academy of the future that is both relevant and authoritative.” The Chronicle article is organized around the following four main points:

• First, ePortfolios can integrate student learning in an expanded range of media, literacies, and viable intellectual work.
• Second, ePortfolios enable students to link together diverse parts of their learning including the formal and informal curriculum.
• Third, ePortfolios engage students with their learning.
• Fourth, ePortfolios offer colleges a meaningful mechanism for accessing and organizing the evidence of student learning.

The article also contains links to several valuable resources, including web sites of institutions that are leading the way in the use of ePortfolios.