- Hey, y'all. It's Ayo here. And I'm bringing to you some tips and strategies all about student portfolios. (bright music) There are no two scarier words in the teacher language than student portfolio.
Well, except for maybe lunch duty. (laughs) But anyway, student portfolios are tough because really, you fall into one of two camps. You're either that teacher who has saved everything that a student has ever touched for the entire time they've been in your class and you need a U-Haul to haul it out. Or you're on the other side, which is at portfolio time, you're trying to get some evidence of learning.
But that's the thing about student portfolios. They're evidence of learning. They're landmarks of a student's learning during the time that they've been with you. So, when it comes to portfolios, remember, you don't have to save everything but you got to save something.
So, let's talk about the when, the why, and the how of student portfolios. So, let's talk about the when of student portfolios. You might decide that you wanna take some evidence when the student is learning a new task at the beginning of the process and at the end, so you can show growth. You might also decide that you would rather do it on a timeline where periodically, you're gonna measure the student's performance and take a sample.
The last thing that you can do is do it at the start or end of a lesson individually. So, you might do some pre-work and assessment and then some post-work and assessment to show that the student made progress and what that progress was. Either way, when it comes to the when, you wanna be consistent. So, let's talk about how we're gonna get this done.
You can't save everything, right? And a lot of what our students do is with dry erase or manipulatives, and it's hard to gather that up and stick it into a folder. So, you might decide that you wanna take pictures, video recordings, anecdotal notes, or actual paper copies to make up the what of what's in your portfolio. The last thing you wanna remember is why the student is being successful.
If you've set up a certain kind of instructional setting for the student to succeed, you wanna make sure that you're documenting that and including it in the portfolio. This is where we get that with and without. How does the student perform with supports and without supports? That might be a good opportunity to collect some evidence for your portfolio, so that the next teacher knows exactly what a student needs to be successful.
So, there you've got it, guys, some tips and strategies when it comes to student portfolios. This is Ayo, reminding you to stay strong and teach on. (bright music)
