Re: just a little more portfolio assessment

Ilda Carreiro King (kingil who-is-at bc.edu)
Sat, 27 Feb 1999 20:41:49 -0500

Hi Chuck and all,
Just to add a bit of historical perspective to portfolios in education, I
undertook examining portfolio assessment in education as a research paper at
Tufts in the Spring of 1991 and there was nothing in ERIC or PSyc Lit for it
in education besides photographers, artists and business portfolios. Within
the year, there were plenty of cites. I was trying to figure out what
authentic assessment and portfolio assessment were and ended up only having
Wiggins and a few other to work with. Then the question was how was it
different from Curriculum Based Measurement with Fuchs and Shinn etc.

Ilda

Charles Bazerman wrote:

> To add a bit of historical complexity to the portfolio assessment
> discussion, I remember that in the early seventies when the idea of
> portfolios began floating around writing people in CUNY, the idea was
> specifically associated with the portfolios of artists, photographers,
> advertising execs, actors, etc. who prepared portfolios to represent
> their talents, in pursuit of work. This certainly seems an activity
> embedded form of self-presentation and assessment. An important link in
> making this association was the portfolios prepared by art students,
> photography students, etc. during their final year in preparation for
> entering the job market. This idea then further migrated into the bowels
> of the educational system. What happens in these migrations and
> transformations may be problematic and worth examining in detail, but the
> origin of the idea was precisely in embedded activity in non-academic work
> systems.
>
> Since I am now at the age when I remember more than I think, let me turn
> Eugene's question around--what do you remember?
>
> Chuck