Description of the Activity:
Academic portfolio is a product file in which the students gather all of the activities and the evaluations of the activities they have made regarding a course throughout the whole semester in a certain amount of time. The evaluations in the product files are made by the students themselves, peers and teachers. Academic portfolios can be used for education and as evaluation tools. In both cases, it is preferred by both the students and teachers more often than traditional tools, and it is suitable to be used for all education levels.
Purpose of the Activity:
1. To teach the students the skill of learning to learn.
2. To monitor the development of the students.
3. To reveal the learning process.
4. To identify the best among the student’s own studies.
5. To involve the students in the evaluation process.
Implementation Steps:
1. At the beginning of the process, the students are informed about the academic portfolio they will be creating.
2. The types of the studies that will be included in the academic portfolios are determined.
3. The scales that will be used in evaluating the studies of the students and their peers are identified together with the students.
4. The students are administered to gather their studies throughout the semester neatly as a file.
5. The evaluations are administered to be made by the students, peers and teachers.
Evaluation:
While the academic portfolio itself is an evaluation tool, a rubric-scoring key is used in order to determine whether the studies reach the aim. On the other hand, self and peer evaluations are made throughout the process.
Additional Information:
For students to create successful academic portfolios, a sample portfolio might be shown to students or a portfolio format that is acceptable for the student portfolios can be created. The students may be required to present their portfolios to the whole class at the end of the activity.
