Organizing Your Portfolio Around Competencies

What should a student know and be able to do? When you think about your students at the end of the school year, what do you hope they have learned?

Your expectations can help you organize your portfolios.

For example, in a typical language arts class, students should be able to demonstrate how well they can read, write, speak and listen. You may have specific expectations, based on the standards adopted by your school; you might also have expectations that make sense for your individual students.

Whether you call them expectations, or standards, or competencies, your vision of what students should know and be able to do can guide your work.

1. Start by listing your expectations: “every student in my class, by the end of this school year, will be able to:____”
2. Next, think about your assignments. What are some of the performance tasks that will allow students to demonstrate their skills?
3. Finally, link your assignments to the expectations. When the students complete the project, or essay, or report (or any other assignment) that you listed in question 2, what expectations will they demonstrate?

When you think about the assignments for the portfolio, this process can guarantee that your students will have enough opportunities to meet all the competencies. For example, the language arts teacher will want to make sure that students can show their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking sometime during the year.