Benefits of adding portfolio assessment to this current method
Portfolio assessment supplements this current methodology with a more qualitative approach, similar to the method used already by several comparable institutions, such as Carleton. Using portfolios would add three major benefits to our assessment:
- It will provide qualitative evidence (in the form of papers collected over four years) of the progress specific students make in learning to write as they encounter our curriculum, each in his or her own individualized course of study.
- Since writing is a premier example of active learning, this portfolio will allow us to see how students are actively engaged in interdisciplinarity or in quantitative reasoning.
- It will provide a multi-faceted picture of how we teach writing, by collecting information about assignments, course objectives, the ways teachers and students approach revisions, the ways the papers fit into courses, the way the assignments are phrased, the ways feedback helps (or fails to help) individual students, and the ways revision contributes to students’ progress as writers.
