Portfolios: Ideas and Tips for Portfolio Work, Part 1 Foreign Language and Math

Now What?

So let's say you, the teachers, in a rush of enthusiasm (or momentary madness) agreed to adopt digital portfolios. Now what?

What actually should go into a portfolio? Below are links to different sites suggesting how to incorporate portfolios into your class. Today's post will feature portfolio use in the foreign language and math classroom. Later in the week, I will add resources for other subjects and include some thoughts and resources on using portfolios in parent/ teacher/ student conferences. 

Foreign Language

   Get kids speaking in the target language. Record them every two weeks. Have students put these recordings into their portfolios. You could, will little effort, track a student's progress in oral fluency in the target language. To add a step, have students make tutorials or little movies using iMovie and Explain Everything. 

    Here is a vintage GoogleSite, the same tool the students are using for their portfolios, full of great ideas for portfolios in the foreign language classroom. 

     I have to think there are obvious ways to use the portfolio in this way. This website explores the convergence of language Acquisition and the arts. What a better way to use a portfolio?!

  Latin

   Here is a very interesting way to actively use the portfolio in class. It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it seems quite useful. 

Math

   This article, from the pre-digital days, shows how an algebra teacher uses portfolios in her classroom. It is easy to apply this to our now digital portfolios.

This site provides a good framework for students as they think about about what they could and should add to their portfolio. There is a strong self-reflective component built in. This also is pre-digital but it could be easily incorporated into our digital platform.

I've only read the first 15 pages of this long article in pdf, but the first two chapters seem very useful in showing how to use portfolios in the math classroom.

The latter half of this pdf is full of excellent resources and ideas for leveraging portfolios in math.