Portfolio Guidelines for
Computers in Education (IT481)
(20% of course grade)

  A portfolio is a "purposeful collection of artifacts."  You can develop many different types of portfolios, and each type has a different purpose and audience.  The audience for this portfolio should be the course professor.  A secondary audience might be your SIUE advisor and/or your classmates. 

 

Purposes of a Portfolio

A portfolio is not a notebook that is a container for all course materials. A portfolio has an educational purpose that you are trying to communicate. A portfolio represents an argument from you to your professor that you've met the course goals. Three purposes should guide your portfolio development:



Portfolio Content

You should include the following minimum elements in your portfolio:


Evaluation and Grading

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to worry about a grade on this portfolio.  But, my ultimate responsibility is to grade your final efforts.  Therefore, I will grade each portfolio with a letter grade.  My summative evaluation, though, will be collective in that I will consider your self-evaluations.  I also will provide opportunities for you to receive feedback from your peers.  While we must end with a grade, evaluation will be an ongoing process.  You are encouraged to constantly revise your portfolio based on these evaluations.

We will collectively evaluate your introduction based on the following minimum criteria:

  • Do you discuss specific benefits or insights that you've gained from this course? (These benefits and insights should be related to goals listed on the course syllabus.)


  • Do you offer evidence of how your thinking about computers and education has changed and/or evolved as a result of this course?


  • Do you reference specific artifacts in the portfolio as evidence of the benefits and changes in your thinking? (Refer to specific page numbers or sections of your portfolio.)


  • Do you discuss how (or why) specific artifacts and processes will (or will not) be useful to you as a classroom teacher?


  • Are the mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.) indicative of the writing of a graduate student?

In general, we will collectively evaluate the form and content by examining the following criteria holistically:

  • Creativity (Example: an original cover page, a unique organization with a strong rationale for that organization)


  • Thoroughness (Example: providing significantly more evidence than you think you really "need.")


  • Practicality (Example: Include resources that you can use as a teacher)


  • Clear organization (Example: Table of Contents, Section Dividers, and/or page numbers)


  • Individuality (Example: an original cover page that is electronically personalized and decorated)




Questions to Ponder about Your Portfolio

Putting together a portfolio is not a rote process. It requires thinking about a number of difficult issues. I encourage lots of discussion (both via WebCT and face-to-face) about portfolio development. Considering some of the questions below might help start productive discussions:

  • How do you provide "evidence" of your learning? (Evidence is not just "claiming" that you learned; it's being able to point to an artifact and discussing how that artifact shows that you've learned.)


  • What possible artifacts are most likely to be overlooked but could be useful to you as you develop your portfolio?


  • What organization for your portfolio will best help you demonstrate and articulate what you've learned? (Your overall job is to convince me that you've learned new things theoretically and tried new things practically.)


  • What types of feedback do you need from your classmates to make sure that you are on the right track?


  • What types of feedback do you need from me to make sure that you're on the right track?
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