I choose to read an article about portfolio assessment called “Physics Students' Perceptions on their Journey through Portfolio Assessment”. This article is about portfolio assessment but focuses on the perspective of 9 out of 30 physics students experiences. Of the 9 students (3 female and 6 male), 3 did poorly, 3 did moderately well, and 3 did exceptionally. The reoccurring positive opinions of the students were that the portfolio allowed them to learn new things on their own, gave them a better understanding of what they were learning, helped them develop better writing skills, they enjoyed participating in lessons, and they made relationships between physics concepts and daily life events. Some of the negatives include having difficulty: accessing research material, writing ideas, some of the tasks were too ambiguous, and the most common was that students did not like the amount of time they were required to put into the portfolio. Overall the student reaction to the portfolio project was positive.
I chose to read this article because I have no previous experience with portfolios other than a brief video we watched in PSI. I understand how they work, how to assess them, but I had no idea how students feel about them. This article was particularly interesting because it focuses so much on student perceptions into the learning process, participation, time management, and real world application. I found it particularly interesting that these students appreciated the fact that they enjoyed research and experimentation as well as improving their writing skills. I was not surprised, however, that the one reoccurring negative remark from almost all the students was that working on their portfolio took excessive amounts of time. I found this to be a weakness of the article because it doesn't tell us how much time is really expected to go into the portfolio. I can understand that a portfolio gives students a chance to excel by doing a number of different tasks and presenting them with evidence of learning and personal growth. I do not agree with large amounts of take-home work and feel that for the purposes of this physics portfolio it sounded like a lot of homework and personal research and experimentation. For student who have time and access to research materials this project would be a success. Not all students have lots of free time, however, and I believe that if a portfolio requires time, then the teacher should be scheduling class time. I know that I would use portfolios as an assessment tool, but I will always take in to consideration time, access to resources, writing skill, and assignment clarity.
Resource:
Ogan-Bekiroglu, F., & Gunay, A. (2008). Physics Students' Perceptions on Their Journey through Portfolio Assessment. Online Submission, Retrieved from EBSCOhost January 25, 2011. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.darius.uleth.ca/ehost/detail?hid=11&sid=a1bfac16-56a7-43c7-aabf-811bcd13bb26%40sessionmgr10&vid=5&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=eric&AN=ED500926
