Personalizing Data with Digital Portfolios

Reflection and demonstrated performance help teachers focus their efforts on critical issues. The digital portfolio can enhance this process. In Coventry, Rhode Island, for example, portfolios are used as part of the teacher-evaluation system; teachers are expected to provide evidence that they've met standards based on those outlined by Charlotte Danielson (1996). When one teacher, Denise Heald, created her own digital portfolio, she was able to show her supervisor far more than she could have demonstrated in a single classroom observation. She was also able to use the opportunity for her own self-reflection. A teacher of Spanish, Denise used her digital portfolio to include audio clips of her students' oral assignments, video demonstrations of how she had physically arranged her room to encourage learning, and PowerPoint slides from her lessons. She added newsletters, examples of how students had met standards on her assignments, and links to web resources. Just as Denise could refer to student work in their portfolios, she can now refer students to her portfolio to help them put their learning in context.

Teachers' digital portfolios can help schools and districts plan better professional development opportunities. In one district, for example, it was clear from the portfolios that many elementary teachers leaned heavily on one form of instruction (whole-group) for teaching reading. Instead of just bringing in speakers or new programs, the district asked teachers to record their attempts to use new strategies such as guided reading and interactive writing. Faculty members who were successful provided interviews and video clips of the strategy in use in their classrooms. These elements were then incorporated into the district's “Best Practices” portfolio: a Web site that celebrates home grown success, allows teachers to see how their colleagues implemented the ideas, and provides data for the administrators to provide additional support for change.

Digital School Portfolios

Just as student portfolios show how a student is progressing toward meeting academic standards, a digital school portfolio shows how a school, as a whole, is progressing towards its learning goals. The digital school portfolio centers not on data to be collected but on goals to be met. In the two districts where we have piloted digital school portfolios, a School Improvement Team begins the process by determining a school's goals for the year and plugging them into a private, password-protected online database. During the year, teachers document the work in their classrooms. In the process, teachers are creating their own digital portfolios, but their entries are linked to the school goals. As they put examples of their classroom activities into the system, teachers decide whether a particular entry will be only a part of their individual portfolio, or whether it can be a part of the school's overall portfolio. For example, if a school's goal is to “create closer relationships with families,” each teacher is careful to record and reflect on family activities she has done to meet this goal.

The School Improvement Team reviews these entries, and determines which will provide good illustrations of the goal. Sometimes, the team returns to individual teachers and asks them to modify submissions to better illustrate how the goal was met. In this way, the team is reflecting on what it takes to meet the goal and how well the faculty is progressing toward the goal.

This final version of the school portfolio supports two important levels of reflection. First, the school as a community knows what it is doing to meet the goal, so the faculty can reflect on what else they need to do or want to learn to address the goal. Second, the faculty knows how it is doing by considering the individual reflections of the teachers and by looking at the results they are getting as a whole. They can decide whether what they are doing is sufficient to meet the goal.

Data as a Springboard for Reflection

Data collection can be useful to the life a school. The data is valued and useful to educators at all levels when it

• Represents the standard or goal in the eyes of those from whom it is collected.
• Is in a format that makes sense to those who need to use it to improve.
• Is readily accessible.
• Makes reflection equal in importance to the performance or measure.

It is possible to use data to make daily decisions that are focused on student growth. Data collection can help a school determine what changes have helped it to succeed. A school cannot sustain its growth if administrators and teachers don't know which instructional practices most positively affect student learning. The digital portfolio process helps teachers gain such an understanding and also helps them continue to grow. For that, data collection makes sense, is extremely valuable, and really does make a difference.

References

Danielson, C. (1996). Enhancing professional practice: A framework for teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Niguidula, D. (1997, November). Picturing performance with digital portfolios. Educational Leadership, 55(3), 26–29.