Workshop: Learner-Maintained Online Portfolios of CLB Tasks
Description: Evidenced-based portfolios have been a challenge for many
LINC schools since the publication of the 2012 CLB document. Besides the
question of motivation, there's also the challenge of storage. The blogging
platform offers a motivating and easy way to host the tasks suggested by CLB
document. Challenges remain, but here is one way to address the situation in
the interim. Attendees should bring headphones with a microphone if possible.
Under Comments, below, list three likely hurdles or objections to such an interim solution.
We tried to use portfolios at our Adult ESL Centre in Brampton and gave it up. The problem was neither motivation nor storage, it was continuous intake. Individuals didn't move seamlessly from one level to the next in a predictable sequence. Students would leave school (with or without notice) sometimes they returned, mostly they didn't. A teacher could create hundreds of portfolios for students they never saw again. The students who remained in school didn't find their portfolios useful. Portfolios were a lot of work that didn't help anyone learn English. There were no objections when the practice discontinued.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry your experience wasn't good at all but do appreciate your candid (and valued) feedback. I should've put the YMMV caveat up front. Even within my generally more positive responses, there are those who lag. Where it's the same is the continuous intake. And it's the rare bird who continues blogging after leaving the LINC program. While it's true that hundreds of portfolios will be created for the transient cohorts, I do wonder what the alternative to these e-portfolios might be for formative assessment when the portfolio tsunami hits as it's supposed to in the next couple of years.
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